Idk but have you ever read a more pathetic end-of-year article. Talk about excuse riddled…
BROOKINGS, S.D. — Did Montana State cost itself a 2022 Football Championship Subdivision title in early 2019?
The answer to the provocative question is almost entirely no. Still, MSU made a decision in 2019 that affected its ability to win a championship three years later — it added Oregon State to its 2022 nonconference schedule.
The Beavers handed MSU its only loss of the regular season, 68-28 on Sept. 17 in Portland, Oregon. Had the Bobcats scheduled an easier opponent and won (or lost by a close margin), they almost certainly would’ve received a top-three FCS playoff seed and an easier path to the FCS title game.
Instead, MSU got the No. 4 seed, due in part to the OSU loss. That meant traveling to top-seeded South Dakota State for the semifinals. As has been the case all season, the Cats played worse on the road than they have at home, and SDSU ended their season with a 39-18 win Saturday at Dana J. Dykhouse Field.
The FCS playoff committee’s questionable decision to seed MSU fourth might’ve cost the Cats a second straight trip to Frisco, Texas. But blaming the committee is like blaming the OSU game. Those were two small factors among many that sent MSU home one game earlier than it wanted.
“It’s certainly great to play in front of your home fans,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said Saturday, “but it does not guarantee you anything.”
It would be hard to blame Vigen if he did view home games as guarantees. He’s 16-0 at Bobcat Stadium in his two seasons as MSU head coach. The Cats have won a program-record 20 straight games in Bozeman since their 34-21 loss to Sacramento State on Oct. 12, 2019.
MSU’s only truly close home victory this season was 43-38 over then-No. 5-ranked Weber State on Oct. 22. The Cats beat Weber 33-25 in the second round of the playoffs on Dec. 3 at Bobcat Stadium, but that game was 33-10 in the third quarter. Sandwiching that game were home wins of 55-21 over No. 19 Montana and 55-7 over No. 6 (and fifth-seeded) William & Mary.
MSU’s point differential at home this season was plus-216 (plus-27 per game).
“The home-field advantage that we have here is, in my opinion, one of the best in the country,” Vigen said Nov. 20.
Vigen made that comment after the FCS playoff selection show. Experts expected MSU to receive the No. 3 seed, at worst. Instead, North Dakota State was seeded third behind SDSU and No. 2 Sacramento State.
Like MSU, NDSU lost to a Pac-12 team this year (Arizona, in NDSU’s case). But the Bison also sustained an FCS loss: 23-21 to SDSU in Fargo, North Dakota. Their 38-10 win over MSU in last year’s FCS title game didn’t affect the playoff committee’s decision, committee chair Jermaine Truax told 406mtsports.com last month. Some data favored NDSU and “there were varying opinions” on how both teams would perform on a neutral site, Truax added.
“We lost the game at Oregon State, lost by a lot of points. That's really all that went against us,” Vigen said Nov. 20, adding, “Sorting that (seeding) out is not easy. I get it.”
Few would claim that traveling to Brookings is easier than playing in Sacramento, California, even considering Sac State’s excellent regular season. NDSU didn’t have to go to either location — Sac State lost to Incarnate Word in the quarterfinals, and the Bison edged UIW 35-32 in the semis Friday to set up an all-Dakota State title game in Frisco.
It’s hard for Cat fans not to wonder what could have been if their team received the No. 3 seed.
Saturday was hardly the first time MSU looked shaky on the road. Remove the 40-point loss to OSU and the 21-point defeat at SDSU, and the Cats only outscored their other four road opponents by 77 total points (19.3 per game). MSU beat two 3-8 teams (Eastern Washington and Northern Arizona) by three points each. It trailed 14-3 at Northern Colorado (which finished 3-8) before rallying to a 37-14 victory. Only in a 72-28 win at Cal Poly (which finished 2-9) did the Cats look like their home selves for an entire road game.
“Going on the road, you have to have a team that’s got maturity about itself,” Vigen said last Monday.
…
Perhaps MSU didn’t have enough “maturity about itself” to play as well as it needed on the road this season.
Next season, all five of MSU’s road games will be against FCS teams that were ranked this season: SDSU, Montana, Sac State, Weber and Idaho. Losing at least one of those games could lead to at least one road playoff game.
The Cats haven’t publicly complained once about receiving the No. 4 seed. They knew it would be tough to win at SDSU, but they had enough confidence and prior road success (especially in 2021) to believe they could return to the title game. They embrace the championship challenge...