NCAA FCS Championship - Semifinals @ Montana State

[Mr_Tibbs]

Game will be played in Bozeman at 12 MST on Saturday. Broadcast will be live in ESPN2.

Should be a fantastic game. The bobcats looked fantastic last night, so this will definitely be a challenge. With that being said, so much of the damage they did was early in that game taking advantage of Sam Houston turnovers. They did score twice in the second half to put it away, but most of their production was in the first half.

I feel like this will be the best defense we have played this year, and specifically the best D line. They are stout against the run and the pass and seem to really fly to the ball. I’m expecting them to blitz a lot.

On offense, young Tommy Mellott looked fantastic last night. He only had 11 attempts, but around 160 yards. He accounted for five of the six bobcat touchdowns. The MSU offense wasn’t very dynamic last night. A lot of inside half back runs, some QB runs, and deep fades on the sideline. There was very little traditional short or intermediate route running that was called, let alone connected on.

I said before that I thought this was the better match up for us due to style and I’ll stick by that. However, if Mellott can connect on deep balls like he did last night and sprinkle in some intermediate throws to move the chains, this is going to be a huge challenge.

We need our DBs to get healthy because they are going to be on an island this game at times so the Jacks can stop the run. If we can make Mellott have a bad day passing, I think we win. They are a great rushing offense, but we’re mostly held in check last night, and I think SDSU’s run d is better than Sammy’s. On offense, I have yet to see a defense that truly shuts down our offense when our line plays to the task. I think we can run the ball enough to open up the passing game in this one. And I would expect to have a lot of screen calls to slow down the blitz.

One issue we may run into is the crowd. It should be nearly sold out and they will be rocking. With our issues on false starts, I can see this being an issue for us and killing some drives. We have to play sharper than we have all season in the penalty department.

Should be a great game!

[MilbankJack]

The atmosphere should be electric. Montana State sold out their available tickets already, I believe. Did anyone here snatch them up?

[Jackedforlife]

I went to Bozeman in ‘14(ZZ snow game) best away experience I’ve ever had as a Jacks fan. If you have a chance to go I highly recommend it.

[ringthebells]

Will this game sell out? Can a season ticket holder get tickets through our athletic department? Do student get an opportunity to buy a ticket? Got some friends thinking of going and we are not sure how tickets would work for away games.

[peavy]

As far as tickets on the MSU side, they released 4500 non season ticket holder/student tickets last night to the public, and those are already sold out. In the event you can't get any through SDSU, here's some additional information about when unclaimed Montana State season ticket holder / student tickets are released to the public. You can probably keep an eye out on some of the ticket sites too since people assumed scalpers picked up some of the 4500.

[jakejc795]

Game will be played in Bozeman at 12 MST on Saturday. Broadcast will be live in ESPN2.

Should be a fantastic game. The bobcats looked fantastic last night, so this will definitely be a challenge. With that being said, so much of the damage they did was early in that game taking advantage of Sam Houston turnovers. They did score twice in the second half to put it away, but most of their production was in the first half.

I feel like this will be the best defense we have played this year, and specifically the best D line. They are stout against the run and the pass and seem to really fly to the ball. I’m expecting them to blitz a lot.

On offense, young Tommy Mellott looked fantastic last night. He only had 11 attempts, but around 160 yards. He accounted for five of the six bobcat touchdowns. The MSU offense wasn’t very dynamic last night. A lot of inside half back runs, some QB runs, and deep fades on the sideline. There was very little traditional short or intermediate route running that was called, let alone connected on.

I said before that I thought this was the better match up for us due to style and I’ll stick by that. However, if Mellott can connect on deep balls like he did last night and sprinkle in some intermediate throws to move the chains, this is going to be a huge challenge.

We need our DBs to get healthy because they are going to be on an island this game at times so the Jacks can stop the run. If we can make Mellott have a bad day passing, I think we win. They are a great rushing offense, but we’re mostly held in check last night, and I think SDSU’s run d is better than Sammy’s. On offense, I have yet to see a defense that truly shuts down our offense when our line plays to the task. I think we can run the ball enough to open up the passing game in this one. And I would expect to have a lot of screen calls to slow down the blitz.

One issue we may run into is the crowd. It should be nearly sold out and they will be rocking. With our issues on false starts, I can see this being an issue for us and killing some drives. We have to play sharper than we have all season in the penalty department.

Should be a great game!

Folks were saying CSU's DL and run defense would stifle the Jacks prior to that game, and I'm not sure how systemic I'd view any Jacks false start issues to be, particularly bearing in mind that Villanova actually had more false start penalties than the Jacks (3 vs. 2).

The Jacks should benefit from game tape on Mellott that Sam Houston State lacked

[jackdaniel]

The revenue seeded teams get is amazing ( MSU, a #8 seed especially) but so is constantly winning on the road against seeded teams, that's historic. This Jackrabbit team is amazing

[THE PRIDE IS BACK!!!]

My girlfriend and I happened to snag a couple tickets last night when they opened up sales. Glad we did after waking up to news of the game already being sold out (pending season ticket holders.) There will at least be 2 loud Jackrabbit fans in Bozeman on Saturday!

[Jackwagon]

As much as I would have loved to see a Sam Houston rematch, it will be great to see the Bobcats. One of the coolest stadiums in the country. While I picked them from the beginning, they looked even better that I thought. With any luck we have some guys come back fresh this week. This is what it is all about! Looking forward to an electric atmosphere and great game.

[GoJacks2011]

Montana St looked excellent last weekend. Between that and the atmosphere, this will be quite the challenge. I’m looking forward to it! Hoping Pierre is back as well.

[Seataccat]

Game will be played in Bozeman at 12 MST on Saturday. Broadcast will be live in ESPN2.


I feel like this will be the best defense we have played this year, and specifically the best D line. They are stout against the run and the pass and seem to really fly to the ball. I’m expecting them to blitz a lot.

Yes the bobcat defense is very good this year. And our offense seems to have caught a little spark since we switched to the freshman QB. He's a true freshman and a very impressive young man.
SDSU will be the best team we have faced this year. Even though Weber state seemed to have a down year I think they were the best we played.. IMHO they were better that EWU, Wyoming or Montana. We played poorly against Montana and Idaho.
SDSU was the team I did not want to match up against but you have to beat the best to be the best. I think everyone is extremely impressed at how the jackrabbits have played on the road through these playoffs but not surprised at all.
Also, the bobcats have not done a lot of blitzing this year. They get plenty of pressure with four. We have two extremely good pass rushing DE's. But that might change against you guys.
Looks to be a great matchup, hoping to see a really good game. The Bobcats will need to equal last weeks intensity and execution to have a chance in this one.

[Cats2506]

Bobcat fan here, looking forward to a great game. I have thought since the beginning that SDSU was the best team on our side of the bracket. I think our Cats have a good shot, especially since we now seem to have a real QB, he is young but very mature for his age.

A couple of things on tickets.

There should be a good block (500-1000) of tickets available through SDSU's athletic department. We have a decent sized section that is showing as reserved that usually goes to the other team. any of those that are unsold will be returned to MSU later in the week and will be available to everyone then.

MSU season ticket holders have until 5:00 PM tonight to claim their tickets, unclaimed season tickets will be put on sale at 12 PM Tuesday to the general ticket, this will be a good size dump of available tickets
Unclaimed student tickets will go on sale Tuesday at 5 PM, I have no idea how many students will stay for the game, they are kicking the kids out of the dorm on Friday for winter break.
About Thursday any tickets returned from SDSU will be available to the general public.

I don't expect a sellout but it may be close.

If you are coming, come early and go through the tailgates, you will be offered drink and food and get some good football talk.

Our fan board is https://bobcatnation.com/ come over especially if you want to know places to eat and thing like that.

Coaches press conference will be available later today here https://www.youtube.com/c/MSUBobcatsAthletics or here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXA...Lf3z-Wz4w5snrA

Another site for interviews and articles is https://406mtsports.com/

[JimmyJack]

One thing I'll be watching is the Bobcats' mid- and short-range passing game. They didn't do much of that against SHSU. When they did, Touchdown Tommy did OK, but it didn't happen much. Most of his passes were longer routes. If they get that going, it opens up a lot of options for them.

[goon]

Do we knoe if s y players are for sure out or any expected back from injury?

[ringthebells]

I checked this morning, the SDSU allotment of tickets is 400. You have until Wed at 4 to purchase from the ticket office and then the leftovers go back to MSU. I wish I could go to this one. I've never been to Montana and both MSU and UM stadiums look like awesome places to watch a game. Good luck to both teams and Go Jacks!