BOZEMAN, Mont. — Idaho State knew that its very best performance of the season plus a few mistakes by fourth-ranked Montana State was the only way it would not get blown out of Bobcat Stadium.
It proved to be too much of a task for the Bengals as Montana State ran its way to a 54-13 victory on a chilly Saturday afternoon.
The Bobcats (8-1, 6-0 Big Sky) had 415 rushing yards, led by sophomore Cody Kirk’s 24 carries, 184 yards and four touchdowns. Junior Tray Robinson had a career high 154 yards on the ground and added two scores on only 10 rushes.
“They played great,” said a quiet Idaho State head coach Mike Kramer about Montana State’s ground attack after the game. “They’ve been playing that way all year.”
Montana State had 510 total yards for the game compared to Idaho State’s 290, 261 of which came through the air.
ISU (2-7, 1-5) pulled out all the stops against the Bobcats, including an onside kick attempt to open the game. MSU recovered it, but Donovan Henley intercepted DeNarius McGhee’s second pass attempt to give the ball right back to the Bengals.
They were unable to capitalize on the turnover.
Idaho State kept Montana State out of the endzone until late in the first quarter when Kirk capped a drive with a two-yard touchdown run.
As well as the Bengals’ defense played early, their offense could not keep pace. There were 10 dropped passes on the afternoon, two of which were tipped into the hands of Bobcat defenders for interceptions. Quarterback Kevin Yost was 15-for-38 with 197 yards, one touchdown and 2 interceptions.
The biggest drop came on a fake punt in the second quarter. After using the roll punt technique, the coaches called a fake using the same formation and having punter CJ Reyes run to his right, just as he had been all game.
Tight end Josh Hill escaped undetected into the MSU defensive backfield and Reyes threw right into his hands. Hill could not hang on to the pass and the ball fell to the turf on what would have been an easy first down.
“...The loss of David Harrington had much to do with today’s outcome,” Kramer said. “The cheap shot that he took last week down at BYU resonates through our program.”
The Bobcats took advantage of ISU’s miscues and reeled off 28 unanswered points from the 4:16 mark of the first quarter to 9:10 left in the second.
The route was on.
Idaho State finally got on the board thanks to blown coverage by MSU’s defense. Yost found Derek Graves wide open on the left side of the field and beat a Montana State defender to the end zone to score on a 73-yard touchdown reception.
It was the longest play for ISU since Oct. 27, 2007 when Russel Hill hit Jaron Taylor for an 81-yard strike against Cal Poly.
The Bobcats added two more scores before the break and took a 37-6 lead at halftime.
Rodrick Rumble gave ISU its final score of the game when he caught a three-yard pass from Justin Arias with 3:20 to go in the game. Rumble continued his remarkable play against Montana State, catching 13 passes for 145 yards.
“He’s a good player,” Kramer said of Rumble. “He’s been playing hard and been playing that way all year.”
Kramer did not say much after the game, keeping his emotions about his return to Montana State to himself.
“It’s personal, private,” he said when a reporter from a Montana newspaper asked him about it.
“I’d like to have a good team and come here and play every day,” Kramer said. “I did this 10 years ago when I was at Montana State. We went to Idaho State and the score at halftime was 49-0. We came back the next year and clocked them. So our horizon is going to be positive. We’ll be okay.”
With the win, Montana State remains in first place in the Big Sky Conference and is assured of no worse than a second place finish. The Bobcats will head to Weber State next Saturday and will try to keep their league record perfect.
ISU has a bye next week and will travel to Sacramento State to take on the Hornets on Nov. 12 with kick off at 7:05 p.m.
(6) comments
maggie you make it sound as if MSU ran the score up on poor ISU with the intent of improving their national ranking! Did you watch the game? It could of been ALOT worse. MSU called off the dogs early and played their backups most of the second half. Now for ISU, when the your star receiver come out of the game? He didn't! I think it is bullshit that he stays in the entire game to pad his stats. 2/3 of his receptions came against MSU's backups in the second half, he didin't do anything against MSU's starting defense. I would be willing be bet at least half of his receptions this season are against teams backups! Bailey and Kramer just trying to pad his stats and get him post season honors. And Kramer calling three time outs with 3 minutes to go in the game? What a jackass, except you never know, one score and 6 onside kicks and perhaps a win! Your probaly thinking he wanted to get some younger players some time, you bet get Rumber some more catches against MSU's number 3 defenst now. You will finally figure it out in time, Kramer has charisma and personallity to no end, but its onlly skin deep, he is ultimately all about himself!
spudspeth
You get on my nerves. What are you a" master of the obvious."
If this wasn't such a cheap dirt bag town they would have enlarged the spud cellar
three years ago so atheletes would come here. When people like Eric Stohl
elect to go to Montana State because he didn't want to play football in somebody's concrete basement what can you say.
ISU is in a world of hurt with that Mini Dome. It was a poor investment from the start and needs to be renovated and the seating capacity needs to be enlarged
by about 6,000 seats. That would be a good move for a start.
And even better move would be to tear down everything across fifth street to the railroad tracks and build a real Bengal Stadium, either that or level the area in back
of the new opera house, whatever its name is, or maybe just use Bart's field
and make a decent stadium outdoors with lights like Hornet Stadium and a seating capacity of 20,000. Unless ISU is willing to grow they are going to remain small time all the way.
That is one of Northern Colorado's big shortfalls. it is just too small and is still a
D11 stadium.
It is a sad sorry fact of life money is what separates the Big Time from the small time
Total melt down. You mean like the games against Montana, Weber State and BYU (why not) earloer this month?
Good thing we beat Western State (a team that's 1-8 in their own league) and fortunately Northern Colorado was scheduled when they were.
Bengal football sucks and I don't honestly believe Kramer, the touted miracle man, will be the one to fix the program.
Impatience with the program - not !!
Show us some legitimate bright spots that indicate any improvement this season.
Tough loss, it went just as Kramer said in his press conference on Tuesday when he said if we don't imporve we are going to get blown out. But I have faith that the next time we play MSU things will be a lot different and the culture at ISU will be too. Could tell that Kramer wasn't happy at all with the results on the feild at all. Hopefully in the next two games things will imporve. Thought the two Freshman that played on the O-line did a farily good job against a Defense that loves to blitz the QB.
The next two teams Idaho State will be facing will not be
trying to improve their National ranking by a high score against a non winner.
The next time we play Montana State will be 2014 unless the Big Sky gets a 14th
team and the schedules change. Central Washington is a good candidate,
but they don't seem to be buying into the hype. Still, Kramer was smiling when he was shaking the hands of his old buddies at MS. You could almost read his mind.
"You suckers haven't seen the last of me, I'LL BE BACK" Good Luck in the play-offs however. But I am thinking they still have Montana to deal with. They don't have the Conference title yet.
Losses across the Board in the Big Sky Sac State falls to NC by one point.
Portland beats Eastern. Montana and Montana State romp. But my heart went out to Collins at Northern Colorado. A win in the bag and they drop the ball. ouch
would you call this a total melt down?
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