TERRY COLUMN: Wildcats chasing Dillon, but can they catch up?

Columbia Falls will host the biggest game of the early football season on Friday night.

The Wildcats, who are off to a near flawless 5-0 start, will host Dillon in a matchup of the top two teams in Class A.

Depending on who you ask, it’s the biggest matchup of the season, and save for a few select games later in the year, it may be the biggest before the playoffs.

They are not only the top two teams by our ranking, but by almost any measure. They’re the last two undefeated teams, the top two in point differential and the top two in the state’s wild card standings, which adds in strength of schedule.

How they got there was slightly different.

Dillon’s attack is based predominantly on the arm and legs of ultra-athletic quarterback Troy Andersen. The senior, listed at 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, spreads out opposing defenses with the pass and, should they forget to keep an eye on him, takes off at any given moment using his size and speed to slice up chunks of yards at a time. He also leads a defense that is the second toughest in the state this year, even after beating previously undefeated teams in Polson and Billings Central this season.

Conversely, Columbia Falls spreads the wealth, and generously this season. Columbia Falls quarterback Dakota Bridwell is averaging a state-best 312 yards passing a game, more than 70 yards better than any other player in Class A, and has thrown for 22 touchdowns and two 300-yard passing games in four outings. Two of his receivers, Braxton Reiten and Trevor Hoerner, are in the top five in receiving yards this season and the two have combined for 16 touchdowns. The team uses three running backs regularly and two are gaining more than six yards a carry.

The Wildcat defense, while less tested to start the season, has been nearly as good, allowing only 50 points all year, most when the game is already out of contention.

The two teams enter the game as virtual equals on paper this season, which should make for a compelling contest and a potential state championship preview.

But, to many around the state, Dillon is still viewed as the vastly superior team, even in the face of the eye-popping numbers the Wildcats have put up this season.

The Inter Lake ranks the two teams as the best in the state and Dillon is unanimously the top team across every ranking. But, the Lee newspapers, in Billings, Missoula, Helena and Butte, have Columbia Falls ranked fifth. The TV stations have the Wildcats third.

Dillon, which has made five straight trips to the state title game, winning three titles in that span, is given the benefit of the doubt.

That comes with a dynasty, and with a legacy built over nearly two decades that has seen the Beavers win seven state titles since 2000, making the title game 10 times in the last 16 seasons.

Columbia Falls is still building that legacy. The Wildcats haven’t won a state championship, have made the finals just once and since 2000 have made the semifinals only one time.

To many, those eye-popping numbers the Wildcats have put up are fool’s gold. And, in a sense, they are.

Even if Columbia Falls were to beat Dillon by four touchdowns this weekend, those same detractors would hold out judgement until the Wildcats did the same in the playoffs.

A big win this weekend would be a start. Big wins in the postseason would help too. Continue to pile those big wins up, even if they don’t all result in state titles, and you begin to turn that perception in your favor. Do so for a few years in a row and many of those doubters may begin to question why there was ever a doubt.

But that climb needs to start somewhere. Columbia Falls needs to start winning these games if it wants to be thought of in the same frame as Dillon.

This weekend is as good an opportunity as ever, and if the numbers are to be believed, the right team to get it started.