Bobcat running back room continues to make noise

There are running back rooms and there is what the No. 2-ranked Montana State Bobcats seem to have put together this season, enroute to a 5-1 start.

Saturday in their 38-22 win over Portland State, the Bobcats rolled up another 313 rushing yards on 30 carries, with a pair of touchdowns: a 3-yard run by Julius Davis that started the scoring and an 88-yard burst from quarterback Sean Chambers that made it 24-14, Cats.

Chambers was really good without his amazing run, the second-longest in the Big Sky Conference this season. He finished with 112 yards on the ground and the Cats — who play enough plus-1 running with their QBs that you can count them as running backs — just about reached their league-leading average of 323.2 yards a game.

And they did it without Tommy Mellott or breakout freshman Scottre Humphrey.

Helping was Jared White, who had 10 carries for 102 yards. The depth is such that Elijah Elliott, who in 2021 was the No. 2 back behind Isaiah Ifanse, was far down the chart. Elliott tore off a 40-yard run Saturday, and netted 43 yards on five carries.

“Scottre didn’t play. Julius (8 carries, 42 yards) was a little banged up,” MSU coach Brent Vigen said. “It’s next man up.”

THE man, though, was Chambers, who threw for three touchdowns, two of them to Derek Snell — the second straight week an MSU tight end caught two scoring passes.

“Conscious effort to get them more involved,” Vigen said of the tight ends. “The way teams play us, if you want to pile it in there, those two (Snell and Trayton Pickering combined for eight catches and 83 yards) are both good to get on the perimeter.”

Speaking of Ifanse, he ran eight times for 26 yards Saturday, and scored Cal’s first TD in the Golden Bears’ 24-21 win over Arizona State. It was his fifth TD this season. He has 50 carries for 262 yards.

His effect at MSU would be hard to imagine, but the Cats can only look forward — to a bye this week and a home game with Cal Poly on Oct. 13. Presumably they’ll be healthier in the running back room by then, which is scary enough.

Persistent PSU

Two Chambers TD passes in the fourth quarter put away the stubborn Vikings, who trailed 17-14 at halftime and whose quarterback, Dustin Chachere, was a thorn with 83 yards and two rushing touchdowns covering 31 and 19 yards.

Quincy Craig added another 60 yards rushing and 49 receiving.

“We gave up two long touchdowns to Chachere,” Vigen groused. “And then we couldn’t tackle, who was it, Craig? Is that 17?” (It was)

“We couldn’t tackle him to save our lives. I think we did a better job the second half, but credit goes to them — and we just have to get better.”

Tricky Grizzlies

Referring to a fake punt that kept a critical scoring drive going in No. 17 Montana’s 28-20 win over Idaho State, Grizzlies’ coach Bobby Hauck said: “You’ve got to have some guts once in a while.”

He could easily have been talking about a series midway through the third quarter where first, Aaron Fontes gained 19 yards on an end-round and then, after a holding penalty, ran the same play with Sawyer Racanelli — only to have the southpaw receiver stop and fire a 15-yard scoring pass to tight end Evan Schafer.

It may or may not be telling that Fontes’ run was the Grizzlies’ longest Saturday. They averaged 3.4 yards a carry, which isn’t optimal. An offensive line that is supposed to be nearing the might of those 2008-09 teams — when Hauck guided the Griz to back-to-back FCS title games — hasn’t gotten there yet.

Meanwhile ISU was playing a sidearming quarterback making his fifth collegiate start (Jordan Cooke), in an offense that brought forth memories of Don Read’s “Air Read” attack at UM from 1986-95.

Now Montana has a trip to UC Davis, which is ranked 20th. In 2019 the Griz went there and won 45-20, starting the Aggies on a tailspin.

“I thought we had a good team that was getting better,” Hauck recalled on Monday. “They (the Aggies) were ranked Number 3 in the country I believe, and they had just lost by a field goal or point or something in Fargo the week before.”

UC Davis actually lost 26-17 to Northern Dakota State, but it was 20-17 before Trey Lance (remember him?) scored for the Bison with 2:50 left.

Seeing Red

The game of the week was over in Cheney, Wash., on “The Inferno,” which is what they call red-turfed Roos Field.

“They,” being Eastern Washington fans, had to be somewhat encouraged by the battle the No. 22-ranked Eagles gave the No. 3 Idaho Vandals before losing 44-36.

For one thing Eastern led 14-7, 21-14 and 28-21, though Idaho answered each time and twice got the tying touchdown within 1 minute, 24 seconds. For another they did it with starting quarterback Kekoa Visperas being a game-day scratch.

After Idaho running back Anthony Woods’ third touchdown run made it 28-28, Eastern starting QB Jared Taylor — a Washington native who transferred in after going 20-0 in his junior college starts — was stopped on a fourth-and-1 run at Eastern’s 34. That led to a 38-yard field goal that put the Vandals ahead for good.

That fourth down, along with a fourth-and-1 converted by Woods at Eastern’s 41 with 2:57 left in the game, might have been the difference. Or it might have been a 28-yard catch by Idaho’s Jermaine Jackson that looked incomplete, so much so that he acted like it was incomplete, but held up under review. Soon Woods’ 17-yard TD run tied the game 21-all.

Or maybe it was the personal foul on Eastern, on a jailbreak snap that should have pinned

Idaho facing fourth-and-44 at its own 8. Instead it was first down at the 21; four snaps later Woods tore off a 60-yard run for his fifth TD, making it 44-28 with 8:49 left in the game.

By the way, Woods’ total of 183 rushing yards includes getting docked 28 yards for that bad punt snap, which is rough. All he did was recover it for his team.

Where were we? Right, Eastern positives: Taylor, despite losing nine yards on a sack by Montana Tech transfer Keyshawn Jones-Newby, rushed for 121 yards and two touchdowns, and hit Jackson with a 34-yard TD pass.

And speedy Michael Wortham, on one of his turns at QB, tore off a did-that-just-happen 35-yard touchdown run. “Probably the most ridiculous play I’ve seen,” Taylor said.

Cal Folly

Cal Poly, playing with Bo Kelly at quarterback (Washington transfer Sam Huard was in street clothes), was no match for UC Davis in a 31-13 loss in the Golden Horseshoe game.

The Mustangs started well enough, popping the ball loose on the opening kickoff and recovering at the Aggies’ 25-yard line. They took a delay of game before their first snap and then turned the ball over on downs.

Running back Larison Lau (120 yards per game, 6.8 a carry) didn’t play for Davis, and third-string Trent Tompkins ran for 89 yards and two touchdowns.

Aggies quarterback Miles Hastings threw for 242 yards and one touchdown — the sixth TD this season to go with five interceptions for the 2022 first-team all-Big Sky QB.

Players of Week

Idaho’s Jeremain Jackson, whose 84-yard kickoff return led to one of the Vandals six touchdowns, was named Big Sky special teams player of the week. Woods, to no-one’s surprise, took the offensive honor.

Weber State’s Winston Reid, whose 40-yard pick-6 was the deciding score in the Wildcats’ 28-21 comeback win over Northern Colorado, took defensive honors.

Also nominated were: Brody Grebe and Chambers from MSU; and linebacker Braxton Hill and punter Travis Benham from UM.