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GAME #1: Bobcats visit New Mexico for the earliest season opener in Bobcat history
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GAME #1: Bobcats visit New Mexico for the earliest season opener in Bobcat history


Tommy Mellott runs at Sac State

Tommy Mellott, third-year starting quarterback



football


Bill Lamberty


Montana State and Lobos meet for the first time since 1947




BOZEMAN, Montana – The last time Montana State opened the season at a Mountain West Conference school, things were very different.

When the Bobcats took the field to open the 2021 season at War Memorial Stadium in Wyoming, Montana State hadn’t played a football game in 21 months and Brent Vigen had never led a team as a head coach. The Cats lost that day to a team with tremendous stability, a Cowboys program that Vigen helped build as an assistant to longtime head coach Craig Bohl, but over the next three seasons, MSU won 32 games and made the FCS playoffs every year.

This Saturday, in the first game of the schedule’s week zero, the Cats open Brent Vigen’s fourth season as the school’s head coach in New Mexico. Kickoff is at 2 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on FS1 and nationally on SiriusXM channel 385 and the Gridiron Radio Network. Montana State will face a Lobos team led by veteran head coach Bronco Mendenhall and featuring 42 transfers in its first game at UNM.

“Obviously, Saturday is a great opportunity to play a Mountain West team that I think will be very well prepared,” Vigen said, “and we get to get back on the field. There’s always a lot of anticipation surrounding these opportunities, whether it’s week zero or week one. This team started putting everything together back in January, and I’ve appreciated the thoughtfulness with which we’ve approached our task.”

The opportunity is obvious. Montana State hasn’t beaten a Football Bowl Subdivision team since 2006, when the Cats beat Colorado. The challenge is obvious, too. New Mexico’s transfers include 29 players from FBS programs. “It’s a talented team,” Vigen said, “and we know they’re hungry.”

Montana State enters 2024 with an experienced roster led by 20 returning starters. Third-year starting quarterback Tommy Mellott and All-America Offensive Lineman Marcus Wehr Pace for the MSU offense. Much of New Mexico’s experience lies on defense, with six returning starters, including three defensive linemen and both safeties.

The MSU defense with the two-time All-America defensive end Brody Grebe and a secondary built around four returning starters clashes with an energetic Lobos offense. New Mexico may return only two offensive starters, but quarterback Devon Dampier brings dynamic playmaking skills to that unit. Last season, he completed 62.5 percent of his passes and threw six touchdown passes without an interception.

Mendenhall brings experience and success to the Lobos’ roster. His 135 FBS wins rank him seventh among active head coaches. He understands the importance of Saturday in Lobos football. “It’s the beginning of an era on Saturday,” he said, “but it doesn’t define an era.”

The veteran head coach is impressed with the Bobcats. “I think when you talk about Montana State, you have to look at it first as a football program and not a football team,” he said. “There are teams that flash and disappear, there are teams that are consistent and there are teams that aren’t. Once a team is consistent year after year, it starts to move toward being a program. Montana State has done a really good job of establishing a football program.”

Vigen appreciated his team’s approach to preseason. “We talked a lot about winning every day, one and zero,” he said. “The guys have really stuck to that all winter, spring and summer and now in fall camp.”

The Bobcats will play the earliest game in the program’s history on Saturday (the previous earliest game was Aug. 27, 2014) and also one of the most high-profile. MSU and the Lobos have the afternoon slot to themselves and the game will be broadcast nationally on FS1 and also on SiriusXM satellite radio. The meeting will be the third between the two teams. Montana State completed its 1923 game in Albuquerque on Thanksgiving Day, defeating the Lobos 34-7. Nearly a quarter century later, the teams tied 13-13 on New Year’s Day 1947 in the Harbor Bowl.

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