The Bobcat Nation

Moving on from Mercyhurst, which if you believe some (one?), did absolutely nothing for us! Those reps for the 2s and 3s were useless, and the clear focus of working on the passing game meant nothing! How dare we even play yesterday. What garbage it was!

And so we move onto a team who clearly has played only somebodies, and none of the nobodies... *cough cough* DII Western Oregon. It seems their battle tested OOC gives them a clear advantage. How shall we ever win????

First of all, we have the best rushing attack in the nation. Idaho State has an ok rush D. They run a 3-3-5 which is always susceptible in the run game. I'm going to bet the Cats rush for over 325, quite possibly more, and control the game.

If I'm ISU I'm throwing slants and quick hitches a lot early. Powdrell and Woodard in particular play soft and gave up a number of those passes to Mercyhurst, and it was there all day against UNM and Maine as well. They don't run the ball particularly well, so stopping the pass will be key. I do think ISU will score some points.

Add the dome factor for the Cats and this game might be uncomfortable for a bit. Cats pull away in the second half and hold firm on D.

Cats - 45
The largest of the wild tiger species - 25

Cats -38
Bengals -24

35-34 CATS

Cats—34
Spud State—20

Your Montana State Fighting Bobcats: 41
Otis' Team: 17

I really don't have a good feel of where we're at yet for sure, but it would be a huge disappointment if we didn't win going away at ISU.

Cats 33
Bungles 19

35-21 Cats

This is an extremely scary matchup for the bobcats. The 3-3-5 can be hard to rush against and their receivers and QB will be the best we've seen by a mile. I predict they will score a ton of points. The question is can our offense stay on the field. This one scares me way more than Idaho does.

Bengals 44
Bobcats 45

Lost to Oregon State - Only scored 15
Lost to UND - Scored 28 (two touchdowns long after game was over) but gave up 52
Beat Western Oregon - Non-counter but scored 50
Beat Southern Utah who beat UTEP who have beat no one. Not sure SUU is any good at 1-3.

I don't like the dome - last 4 games in Poke-A-Jello: 24-17 loss; 44-20 win; 23-20 OT win; and 33-21 win. So 3-1 but always gave up 20 points. Funny thing is you have to go back to 2008 to get 4 games @ ISU. 16 years. Blame the unbalanced schedule. Those teams weren't this team.

A few stats:
ISU rushing defense 106 out of 123 in FCS.
ISU offense is 16th. Heavily padded by 556 against DII Western Oregon
Tied with MSU for 4th most 1st Downs in FCS. Spread evenly through all four games.

There will be points scored.
Cats 48
Striped Cats 27

seataccat wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:13 pm

This is an extremely scary matchup for the bobcats. The 3-3-5 can be hard to rush against and their receivers and QB will be the best we've seen by a mile. I predict they will score a ton of points. The question is can our offense stay on the field. This one scares me way more than Idaho does.

Bengals 44
Bobcats 45

Although they have not won a game, Dampier is legit. He may be the best QB we see until post-season play, although is extremely limited to poor play around him. So I’d agree this will be a test for our D as a decent qb and receiver combo. Mostly, I just hate when we have to play in a dome. There is always something funky about these game s

Our Cats 45
Their cats 27

SparkCat wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 23, 2024 2:57 am

seataccat wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:13 pm

This is an extremely scary matchup for the bobcats. The 3-3-5 can be hard to rush against and their receivers and QB will be the best we've seen by a mile. I predict they will score a ton of points. The question is can our offense stay on the field. This one scares me way more than Idaho does.

Bengals 44
Bobcats 45

Although they have not won a game, Dampier is legit. He may be the best QB we see until post-season play, although is extremely limited to poor play around him. So I’d agree this will be a test for our D as a decent qb and receiver combo. Mostly, I just hate when we have to play in a dome. There is always something funky about these game s

Dampier? Isn't he with UNM?

Helcat72 wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 23, 2024 3:39 am

SparkCat wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 23, 2024 2:57 am

seataccat wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:13 pm

This is an extremely scary matchup for the bobcats. The 3-3-5 can be hard to rush against and their receivers and QB will be the best we've seen by a mile. I predict they will score a ton of points. The question is can our offense stay on the field. This one scares me way more than Idaho does.

Bengals 44
Bobcats 45

Although they have not won a game, Dampier is legit. He may be the best QB we see until post-season play, although is extremely limited to poor play around him. So I’d agree this will be a test for our D as a decent qb and receiver combo. Mostly, I just hate when we have to play in a dome. There is always something funky about these game s

Dampier? Isn't he with UNM?

Yes, just saying I don’t think ISU’s QB is the best we will have seen to this point

Excited to see what the MSU defense can do when on the field for a full game. I think they'll give up some yardage like they did against New Mexico but do a good job overall of keeping ISU's score down. Given MSU's early struggles in road games recently I think this could be a close game at halftime with MSU taking control in the third quarter.

MSU 35
ISU 17

bengals don't score in the first half.
cats 35
bengals10

SparkCat wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 23, 2024 2:57 am

seataccat wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:13 pm

This is an extremely scary matchup for the bobcats. The 3-3-5 can be hard to rush against and their receivers and QB will be the best we've seen by a mile. I predict they will score a ton of points. The question is can our offense stay on the field. This one scares me way more than Idaho does.

Bengals 44
Bobcats 45

Although they have not won a game, Dampier is legit. He may be the best QB we see until post-season play, although is extremely limited to poor play around him. So I’d agree this will be a test for our D as a decent qb and receiver combo. Mostly, I just hate when we have to play in a dome. There is always something funky about these game s

He is good and if not for about 3 drops Cats would not be undefeated.

I hate predicting scores; I'm never even close and I definitely don't want to be the jinx (yes - I'm that guy; haven't changed my underwear since the opening win against UNM). All I will say is that if MSU is the team we think they are, this is the first real chance to prove their legitimacy. Go handle a decent team on the road in a place where we have won in the past but have had to fight hard to do so. Here's to hoping our boys in Blue & Gold put the paper tigers away early.

This game will be a real test for our secondary

Last time MSU played at ISU it lost 24-17. That was 2018. Choate was irate about the ISU PA man yelling into his mic right up to start of a play for MSU. I'm not sure if the BSC has addressed that or if it's still within the rules, but domes can be difficult. MSU struggled indoors at NAU in 2022 and Idaho last year. Idaho has improved since back-to-back 1-10 seasons. They were sloppy vs UND in a 42-28 loss that probably should've been closer. Speaking of sloppy, MSU is that. If the Bobcats don't play a clean game, it'll be tough. You'd think the start of league play will tighten up the focus but that's yet to be seen. MSU can't, for instance, allow defensive scores or have three botched rushing plays end drives in the first half and expect to put the Bengals away.

I agree this should be a good test for the Cats, especially a good test for the defense. I like what I've seen from our starting defense so far, and until they prove me wrong I'm going to assume our starting defense is salty, and going to be tough to score against. Someone above predicted the Pokeys are going to score 44 points on us... I don't think so. We'll see how it goes.