Chronicle story on Kelly Bradley

[crazycat]

Nice trip down memory lane.


Blue and Gold Standard
Story by JIM CNOCKAERT

Kelly Bradley is proud that, more than 20 years removed from his Montana State football career, he still holds nearly every passing record in program history.
It’s all right there in the MSU media guide, his name in black and white.
It’s a good thing, too, the 43-year-old Bradley said with a laugh, because the older he gets, the less he remembers about what he did to compile all those statistics.
“It is very cool to see your name in the record book, and it becomes cooler the older you get,” he said.
“You think about it, but then you try to remember doing it, and that fades a little bit every year. “I see guys playing now, I see how big and fast they are, and I try to remember: ‘What did we look like when we were doing that?’” For one glorious season — 1984 — the answer was easy: Bradley and his MSU teammates looked — and played — like champions.
After splitting the first four games, the Bobcats ran off 10 consecutive wins to earn the Big Sky title and the Division I-AA national championship.
During the win streak, the Bobcats were prolific, averaging 35.1 points to their opponents’ 17.9.
Operating out of an offense that threw the ball close to 75 percent of the time, Bradley threw for 3,508 yards and 30 touchdowns. Those numbers still stand as single-season school records.
As proud as he is of those statistics, Bradley says he believes the biggest reason for MSU’s turnaround that year — the Bobcats had been 1-10 the previous season — was because of a stout defense that gave the high-powered offense time to hit its stride.
For instance, in the championship game against Louisiana Tech, MSU had 19 points by halftime.
Bradley said the Bobcats knew they had more than enough points to win, because the defense had not let the highpowered Tech offense past midfield.
He was right: MSU held on for a 19-6 win.
“That year, it all came together,” he said. “After 1984, we didn’t have that, because all our defensive guys were gone. Our offense was still very good, but we felt pressured to score 35, 40 points a game to win a game. We didn’t have that pressure in 1984.”
Though the Bobcats suspected early in 1984 that they might have something special going, Bradley said they never got too cocky or lost their focus.
Most of them could easily recall the painful experience of the previous season.
“The 1983 experience created a tight bond on the team, even between the offensive and defensive players,” he said. “When you come from 1-10, there’s no room for overconfidence. It kept us grounded. And when things would go bad (in 1984), we’d say, ‘How much worse can it get?’
“The adversity that year was nothing compared to ’83. Even after we won the Big Sky, no one talked in terms of a national championship. It was always in the back of our minds that we were 1-10 a year ago.”
Though he’d been a proficient quarterback running several different offenses (including the Run ‘N Shoot) for his high school team in Zumbrota, Minn., Bradley got little recruiting attention. Minnesota and Iowa State asked him to walk on, and smaller state schools offered him partial scholarships to play football. One also wanted him to play basketball. He figured his best choice was nearby St. Cloud State, and he’d actually signed his national letter of intent, but he never mailed it.
In March, the editor of the hometown newspaper contacted his brother, a Montana State professor, who then contacted the football office.
MSU coaches did some research, then offered him half a scholarship with the promise they would give him a full one if he made second string during spring ball his freshman year. That clinched the decision.
“I never used the fact that I didn’t get recruited a lot as motivation,” he said. “But it was always nice to go back to Minnesota with that national championship ring.”
Bradley moved quickly up the depth chart the spring after his true freshman season, and he backed up senior Mike Godfrey in 1983.
He played a lot late in games — typically because the Bobcats were behind by a lot — and he started the homecoming game against Fresno State (a 23-12 loss).
The stage was set for MSU dramatic offensive improvement during the offseason, when coach Dave Arnold hired Bill Deidrick as offensive coordinator. The new offense emphasized passing. It featured a familiar pro set with split backs, two wide receivers and a tight end, Bradley said, but MSU ran all kind of plays from it.
Many of the passes were short ones that running backs turned into big plays.
“As a quarterback, it’s fun to throw that much, but all you’re thinking about is trying to compete, play well and earn a spot,” he said. “(But) if you win every game handing the ball off 50 times, you wouldn’t complain about that.”
The Bobcats closed the regular season by rallying for a 35-31 win at Fresno State.
The Big Sky champs defeated Arkansas State, 31-14, in the I-AA playoff opener at home, then had to hold off a tough Rhode Island team, 32-20, to earn a spot in the championship game in Charleston, S.C.
Louisiana Tech boasted the nation’s best pass defense that season, and it had shut down Jerry Rice and the high-scoring Mississippi Valley State offense in an earlier playoff game.
But Bradley completed touchdown passes of 16 and 33 yards to Joe Bignell, and Mark Carter kicked two field goals, all in the first half, and the defense made it stand up.
“We looked at Louisiana Tech, and we thought, ‘If they can shut down Jerry Rice and that group, what about us?’” Bradley recalled.
“But by halftime, the win was a foregone conclusion. They couldn’t do anything against our defense.”
Though Bradley would add to his impressive career statistics for parts of two more seasons, the Bobcats would never come close to duplicating the success of 1984.
MSU finished 2-9 in 1985 and 3-8 his senior season. Bradley dislocated his passing elbow during the fifth game of his junior season, ending that campaign. When he returned for his senior season, he no longer had the same zip on the ball.
Bradley graduated from MSU the following spring with an accounting degree. He work in Madison, Wis., as an accountant from 1987-96, then joined an accounting firm in Milwaukee. He became a partner in 1997.
He is married to the former Joanne Soames, a Gallatin Valley native and an MSU graduate.
The couple has two daughters, Morgan, a ninth-grader, and Taryn, a second-grader; and a son, Cray, a seventh-grader.
Bradley does have one crystal-clear memory of his MSU playing days: It’s of the celebration when the Bobcats returned after winning the championship.
The weather was so lousy in Bozeman that Sunday that airport officials considered diverting the team’s charter flight to Billings. But, with so many fans gathered to welcome the team home, the flight was allowed to land.
The plane hit the runway so hard, Bradley said, that oxygen masks popped out of the overhead canopies.
“School was on break at that point, so there were not a lot of students there, and that was unfortunate,” he recalled.
“But the scene at the airport was a madhouse. People were wall to wall. It was pandemonium. It was a great scene.”

[GOKATS]

Great article. Kelly was a great athlete and a great personification of Bobcat Athletics.

[catsrback76]

Apparently, according to Kelly, DEFENSE wins championships!!!

[raincat]

During Kelly's '85 and '86 seasons here are some of the scores posted by opponents:

Portland State-46
Boise State-58
Weber State-50
Idaho State-50
Nevada-61
Washington State-64
Idaho-34
Fresno State-55
Nevada-61 (not a typo)
Boise State-31
griz-59
Idaho-44

Hard to repeat when facing those numbers. I don't know if it would have done much good to bring in the 49ers offense and dress them in blue and gold.

In the remaining 10, "low scoring games" opponents averaged 22 ppg. Squeezed in all this was the most lopsided win in Bobcat history...86-0 vs. Eastern Oregon.

The bad new is....we hadn't gotten to the "hard times" yet.

Nice now to be able to look at things that way.

[CARDIAC_CATS]

During Kelly's '85 and '86 seasons here are some of the scores posted by opponents:

Portland State-46
Boise State-58
Weber State-50
Idaho State-50
Nevada-61
Washington State-64
Idaho-34
Fresno State-55
Nevada-61 (not a typo)
Boise State-31
griz-59
Idaho-44

Hard to repeat when facing those numbers. I don't know if it would have done much good to bring in the 49ers offense and dress them in blue and gold.

In the remaining 10, "low scoring games" opponents averaged 22 ppg. Squeezed in all this was the most lopsided win in Bobcat history...86-0 vs. Eastern Oregon.

The bad new is....we hadn't gotten to the "hard times" yet.

Nice now to be able to look at things that way.

VERY ... VERYYYYY GOOD POINT

[captaincat]

I played with Kelly on the 83, 84 and 85 teams..And as painful as 83 and 85 were, WE BEAT THE FIZZLIES...

[GOKATS]

I played with Kelly on the 83, 84 and 85 teams..And as painful as 83 and 85 were, WE BEAT THE FIZZLIES...

Yes you did!!

[Hell's Bells]

During Kelly's '85 and '86 seasons here are some of the scores posted by opponents:

Portland State-46
Boise State-58
Weber State-50
Idaho State-50
Nevada-61
Washington State-64
Idaho-34
Fresno State-55
Nevada-61 (not a typo)
Boise State-31
griz-59
Idaho-44

Hard to repeat when facing those numbers. I don't know if it would have done much good to bring in the 49ers offense and dress them in blue and gold.

In the remaining 10, "low scoring games" opponents averaged 22 ppg. Squeezed in all this was the most lopsided win in Bobcat history...86-0 vs. Eastern Oregon.

The bad new is....we hadn't gotten to the "hard times" yet.

Nice now to be able to look at things that way.

VERY ... VERYYYYY GOOD POINT

bolded are division 1A teams now...

[catsrback76]

During Kelly's '85 and '86 seasons here are some of the scores posted by opponents:

Portland State-46
Boise State-58
Weber State-50
Idaho State-50
Nevada-61
Washington State-64
Idaho-34
Fresno State-55
Nevada-61 (not a typo)
Boise State-31
griz-59
Idaho-44

Hard to repeat when facing those numbers. I don't know if it would have done much good to bring in the 49ers offense and dress them in blue and gold.

In the remaining 10, "low scoring games" opponents averaged 22 ppg. Squeezed in all this was the most lopsided win in Bobcat history...86-0 vs. Eastern Oregon.

The bad new is....we hadn't gotten to the "hard times" yet.

Nice now to be able to look at things that way.

VERY ... VERYYYYY GOOD POINT

bolded are division 1A teams now...

The point is, that even though they are "Bowl" teams now, we beat them the year before because we played defense. The thing I like about our team this year is that we have a defense that is returning. Unlike last year where our defense did not play until the 4th game, imagine the possibilities this year with a defense with experience, speed, and a scheme we know works.

I think the griz and the Cats are the two teams to contend this year not because of the offense, but, as Kelly noted in the article, the defense that allows the offense to stay on the field.

[catsrback76]

During Kelly's '85 and '86 seasons here are some of the scores posted by opponents:

Portland State-46
Boise State-58
Weber State-50
Idaho State-50
Nevada-61
Washington State-64
Idaho-34
Fresno State-55
Nevada-61 (not a typo)
Boise State-31
griz-59
Idaho-44

Hard to repeat when facing those numbers. I don't know if it would have done much good to bring in the 49ers offense and dress them in blue and gold.

In the remaining 10, "low scoring games" opponents averaged 22 ppg. Squeezed in all this was the most lopsided win in Bobcat history...86-0 vs. Eastern Oregon.

The bad new is....we hadn't gotten to the "hard times" yet.

Nice now to be able to look at things that way.

VERY ... VERYYYYY GOOD POINT

bolded are division 1A teams now...

The point is that even though they are "Bowl" teams now, we beat them the year before because we played defense.

The thing I like about our team this year is that we have a defense that is returning. Unlike last year where our defense did not play until the 4th game, imagine the possibilities this year with a defense with experience, speed, and a scheme we know works.

I think the griz and the Cats are the two teams to contend this year not because of the offense per se, but, as Kelly noted in the article, the defense that allows the offense to stay on the field and score while the other team is idling.

[Hell's Bells]

During Kelly's '85 and '86 seasons here are some of the scores posted by opponents:

Portland State-46
Boise State-58
Weber State-50
Idaho State-50
Nevada-61
Washington State-64
Idaho-34
Fresno State-55
Nevada-61 (not a typo)
Boise State-31
griz-59
Idaho-44

Hard to repeat when facing those numbers. I don't know if it would have done much good to bring in the 49ers offense and dress them in blue and gold.

In the remaining 10, "low scoring games" opponents averaged 22 ppg. Squeezed in all this was the most lopsided win in Bobcat history...86-0 vs. Eastern Oregon.

The bad new is....we hadn't gotten to the "hard times" yet.

Nice now to be able to look at things that way.

VERY ... VERYYYYY GOOD POINT

bolded are division 1A teams now...

The point is that even though they are "Bowl" teams now, we beat them the year before because we played defense.

The thing I like about our team this year is that we have a defense that is returning. Unlike last year where our defense did not play until the 4th game, imagine the possibilities this year with a defense with experience, speed, and a scheme we know works.

I think the griz and the Cats are the two teams to contend this year not because of the offense per se, but, as Kelly noted in the article, the defense that allows the offense to stay on the field and score while the other team is idling.

i know and i should have posted that in scat's thread....i was just pining for the old big sky.