Sports04

The bitter taste leftover from a late-season defensive collapse that dropped the Montana State Bobcats from a first-place tie in the Big Sky Conference to an early winter vacation is as acrid as ever as the 'Cats prepare for the 2005 season.

The theme for this year is redemption.

"We have to get back to playing better defense," MSU coach Mike Kramer said during an interview in Kalispell last month. "We're a program built on a rock foundation of great defense, and our defensive greatness has got to return as soon as possible."

Riding high last year after a 60-14 thrashing of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff to improve to 6-2, the Bobcats turned in a stinker at Sacramento State, losing 38-28. Then they lost to Eastern Washington 51-44 in overtime, allowing the game-tying score with 12 seconds to play, and then finished the year with a 38-22 loss at Montana.

Not exactly a pleasant way to end the season.

"I think the paramount thing is we're on a three-game losing streak," Kramer said.

"Our inabilities defensively in the month of November is something that has rankled me, irritates me, and something that has caused us a lot of sleepless nights from the end of last season."

Those sleepless nights have resulted in a change in defensive philosophy - from the 4-3 to the 3-4, a scheme that has grown in popularity recently with the successes of the New England Patriots, USC Trojans and Utah Utes.

"It enables us not to give up the big play, because we won't play any more man-to-man," Kramer said. "We'll play more zone, we'll get more pressure out of it, we'll use more blitzes out of it, a variety of blitzes.

"The variables are different - four down linemen, three linebackers … those three linebackers can only go so many ways mathematically. Three down linemen, four linebackers - now your variables increase and the number of blitz possibilities you have increase."

The 3-4 emphasizes the play of the linebackers, which will be the strength of the MSU defense after linemen Ray Sebestyen, Chad Gluhm and Beau Clark finished their careers. Leading the way among the linebackers is senior Mac Mollohan, a former Flathead standout.

"Obviously, the strength of our defense returning is Mac and Nick Marudas," Kramer said. "We're pretty good, but I don't know if being good at linebacker in the Big Sky is ever a good thing. It's never really equated to team greatness, especially in defense.

"Team greatness on defense in the Big Sky for the last 25 years has been great down linemen and great corners."

The secondary was in shambles at the end of last season, with safeties Ryan Force and Andre Fuller forced to play corner due to injuries.

"The good thing for us defensively is that Fuller and Force move back inside at safety," Kramer said. "Kiam Hunter, Derrick Davis, Chris Davis and Eddie Smith will hold the fort at corner. I think now, corner-wise, we can regain our confidence and lean back more toward being a man-to-man team. But at this point, not yet."

One player who won't be a part of the attempted defensive renaissance this year is Brandon Hoffenbacker, a prized recruit and another former Brave.

"Brandon will not play this season," Kramer said. "He's a ways away academically from where we want him to be, so he will not participate this season. He will go to school, lift weights, learn how to be a college student and his play will be in the fall of '06.

"He's going to face a year of academics, of working on getting himself academically where he needs to be, then he'll have a phenomenal career at Montana State as an interior defensive lineman.

"What we're doing is taking a year out of his life and saying 'Look, academics are important,'" Kramer continued. "It's what we have to do to make sure we take good care of the kid.

"He's going to be a tremendous player for us. He's an NFL-caliber defensive lineman. He might be the best guy that any team in the conference signed last year. This kid might be, down the road, we'll look back and say 'Wow, he was something special.'"

Offensively, the Bobcats figure to be in good shape. Quarterback Travis Lulay, a preseason candidate for the Walter Payton Award, returns for his senior season to continue his assault on the MSU record books, and he has a veteran receiving corp coming back, including 1,000-yard-man Rick Gatewood and Chaz Guinn.

Gatewood has been declared ineligible by the NCAA for three games regarding his certification of eligibility for the 2004 season. MSU discovered the error and notified the NCAA.

" Offensively, we're probably as good as we can ever get," Kramer said. "Our receiving corp is extremely deep, our tight end corp is deep but unproven. Offensive line is probably the best it's ever been at Montana State, at least since the 1970s."

The only question mark on the line is at center, where Brant Birkeland will move over from left guard after Zach Wolf was lost for the season with a knee injury during the spring game in Great Falls.

"Our two guards will be two returning first team all-conference players in Jeff Bolton, an All-American last year, and Lawrence Figueroa," Kramer said. "Jeff Bolton is an NFL prospect."

Justin Domenick is back as the starting tailback, and it will be up to him to take some of the pressure off Lulay and the passing game.

"Justin Domenick had a great year," Kramer said. "He's an excellent pass blocker, an excellent receiver out of the backfield and had a lot to do with our offensive productivity because of his ability to stop the blitz.

"Behind him would be incoming transfer Michael Bass, who has one year of eligibility remaining. Mike was a starter at Hawaii as a freshman. He comes in at 5-6, 195 pounds. He is a pocket rocket. He's small, but he's extremely fast, and we're excited about what he can bring to us.

"At tailback I think we're pretty deep, yet we have to be knowledgeable because so much of our offense revolves around the tailback's ability to either stop the blitz or catch the ball out of the backfield to stop the blitz, because the only way you can stop Travis is to pressure him continuously."

The big unknown for the Bobcats this year is on special teams. Inconsistency hurt them last year, and this season three unprovens will battle it out for kicking duties.

"Our inability to kick and score points on a consistent basis cost us," Kramer said. "We have got to find a way to end that misery.

"Three guys enter fall camp with the ability to be the kicker. Ty Bolton from Great Falls High School, Eric Fisher from Billings, an all-state soccer player, and Jeff Hastings. Tyler had a chance to become the guy they had to beat out, but he was so miserable in the spring he didn't just leave the door open, he made all three guys level.

"Kick scoring ability is probably the second-most important thing we look at this season."

MSU starts out with a road game at Oklahoma State that no one can reasonably expect the Bobcats to win, followed by a home game against Stephen F. Austin and another roadie to Cal Poly.

"It's a pretty challenging schedule to begin with," Kramer said. "Open up with Oklahoma State, 47,000 people in orange T-shirts. It's one of the unique places in the United States to play.

"It's a pretty tough preseason opportunity for us. We go into it very veteran on offense, very well led and very capable on offense with Travis. Defensively I think if we feel our way forward, we can kind of regain our footing."

The 'Cats' other nonconference game is at home against North Dakota State.

MSU's Big Sky home games are against Idaho State, Northern Arizona, Sacramento State and Montana, with road games at Weber State, Portland State and Eastern Washington.

Montana State 2005 Schedule

Sept. 3 at Oklahoma State 5 p.m.

10 Stephen F. Austin 1 p.m.

17 at Cal Poly 7 p.m.

24 North Dakota State 1 p.m.

Oct. 1 Idaho State 1:35 p.m.

8 at Weber State 1 p.m.

15 at Portland State 7 p.m.

22 Bye

29 Northern Arizona Noon

Nov. 5 Sacramento State Noon

12 at Eastern Washington 3 p.m.

19 Montana