On Dec 4, 2010, an unseeded North Dakota State team traveled to No. 4 seed Montana State in the second round of the FCS playoffs. NDSU squeaked into the bracket at 7-4, then beat Robert Morris 43-17 for its first-ever FCS postseason win.
That set up a trip to Bozeman and a game at Montana State, who was 9-2. MSU took a 17-14 lead to start the fourth quarter. And then, one could argue the NDSU dynasty began. The Bison rattled off four rushing touchdowns in the fourth to beat MSU 42-17. The next week, NDSU lost 38-31 to Eastern Washington in controversial fashion after a fumble was called on the goal line.
EWU went on to win the national title that season. It made the Bison program realize how close they actually were to being a top FCS team. On that 2010 NDSU coaching staff were offensive coordinator/QBs coach Brent Vigen and RBs coach Tim Polasek.
Fast forward 14 years later, NDSU has won nine FCS national championships, including five straight from 2011-2015. The Bison are aiming for their 10th FCS title this year.
Their opponent? Montana State.
Their last national championship win? Over Montana State in January 2022.
The head coaches? Polasek at NDSU, and Vigen at Montana State.
Monday’s championship bout between No. 1 MSU and No. 2 NDSU (6 p.m. CT on ESPN) is a full-circle moment for the programs, coaches, and players in so many ways.
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Coaching Connection
The coaching profession has this massive web of connections and crossing paths. For Polasek and Vigen, their connection goes back years.
Vigen was Mr. Bison. He grew up in Buxton, North Dakota, and played at NDSU from 1993-97. He then served as a graduate assistant from 1998-2000 before taking on a full-time role in 2001. He moved up the NDSU ladder in 2009 to offensive coordinator. Vigen left NDSU after the 2013 season, following Craig Bohl to be his OC at Wyoming.
Polasek has a little Mr. Bison in him as well. Polasek was an NDSU grad assistant in 2006 before coaching the running backs from 2007-2012. He left for Northern Illinois in 2013. After Vigen went to Wyoming, Polasek returned to Fargo to take over offensive coordinator duties from 2014-16 before getting hired as Iowa’s o-line coach from 2017-2020.
When Vigen was hired as Montana State’s head coach before the 2021 season, Polasek took over his offensive coordinator duties at Wyoming. He even bought Vigen’s house in Laramie. Polasek was Wyoming’s OC from 2021-23.
Vigen and Polasek were in the mix to take over at NDSU when Chris Klieman left for Kansas State after the 2018 season. The head coaching job instead went to NDSU defensive coordinator Matt Entz. Entz left after the 2023 season. With Vigen now firmly established at Montana State, the NDSU opening was between Polasek and NDSU OC Tyler Roehl. Polasek got the gig.
And now, after spending the 2006-2012 seasons together on NDSU’s staff and winning the Bison’s first two FCS national titles, the two will square off as head coaches for this season’s national championship.
“I was there 21 years between being a student-athlete, a graduate assistant, a coach trying to make his way, and ultimately a coordinator,” Vigen said. “That’s where Molly went to school, played basketball, our three sons were all born in Fargo. It’s our foundation, that region. … To see the continued success, and I know having a good friend in Tim being back there as a head coach, seeing him have success. A couple guys on that staff that I recruited in Grant [Olson] and Carlton [Littlejohn]. Chris [Klieman’s] son Devin is back there. Gene [Taylor’s] son Jared is back there. A lot of ties. And my old teammates, we stay in touch from the ’97 crew. The fact that we’re back again playing them, I don’t know for me if that’s the way it was supposed to be or not, but they’re one of the better teams out there. So if we’re going to be here, we’re probably facing them at the end of the day.”
QBs Thrown Into The Fire As Freshman
Three years ago, two freshman quarterbacks were starting in the FCS championship game, getting thrown into the fire after beating out FBS transfers.
MSU’s Tommy Mellott took over the starting role in the 2021 playoffs in a surprising move. The Bobcats had benched North Carolina State transfer Matthew McKay after a loss to Montana, who then entered the transfer portal. Mellott led the Cats to a magical run to Frisco as the No. 8 seed, gaining the nickname “Touchdown Tommy” as the home-grown favorite from Butte, Montana.
Mellott got hurt early in the national title game.
The other freshman quarterback in that matchup was NDSU’s Cam Miller.
Similar to Mellott, Miller also beat out an FBS transfer. In fact, he did it twice. As a true freshman in the 2021 spring season, similar to Mellott, Miller took over starting duties in the playoffs after NDSU benched Iowa State transfer Zeb Noland. Then in the 2021 fall season, NDSU brought in Virginia Tech transfer Quincy Patterson, who won the starting job. But he was replaced with Miller midway through the regular season, and Miller helped lead NDSU to its national championship win over Montana State.
Mellott and Miller squared off again last year in the second round of the playoffs. Mellott out-dueled Miller in that one, but he again got hurt, this time in the second half, and couldn’t finish the game as NDSU edged MSU in an overtime thriller. More on this below.
The two quarterbacks are now seniors and multi-year starters. Mellott narrowly beat Miller for the Walter Payton Award, announced two days ago at the Stats Perform Awards Banquet in Frisco.
They’ll go at it one more time on the field.
“Freshman year was a whirlwind,” Mellott said. “There’s a lot of things I didn’t know much about football at that point. It was just going out there making plays. And ultimately, I think we made enough to make it to that game. And I think we were really just kind of hanging on. And I think that we’re in a lot different situation this year … I was sitting on the sideline after I immediately did it, and I just wasn’t able to plant or really move, and that was really what my ability was. And so as I sat on the sideline, I just kind of hobbled and had to sit out and watch our seniors who have sacrificed so much in this program to build it up to what it was at that moment and to see obviously the end of their careers come at the hands of North Dakota State. And just knowing I couldn’t do anything was an awful feeling. And when I walked off the field, it was just a feeling of, ‘Are we ever going to be able to get back here in four years? Is this taken for granted at this moment?’ And ever since then, it’s really just been a motivation to earn the right to go back and play the national championship game. And so I do think it’s fitting we get to play North Dakota State again.”
Montana State’s Chase
Since that 2010 game, NDSU and Montana State have squared off four more times in the playoffs.
Each time, NDSU sent the Bobcats packing with humbling losses.
MSU snapped a three-year playoff drought in 2018, but the Cats were nowhere close to where they needed to be nationally with a 52-10 loss at NDSU in the second round.
The Cats had another breakthrough year in 2019, reaching the semifinals. But again, the gap was wide as they lost 42-14 at NDSU.
As mentioned above, Montana State and NDSU squared off in the 2021 national championship game. This time, in Vigen’s first year of implementing an NDSU-like blueprint for MSU, it appeared the Cats would be able to compete much better. Not so much. Mellott went down early, and MSU’s rush defense was no match. NDSU won 38-10.
Last season, it finally appeared that MSU got NDSU right where it wanted them. The No. 6 seed Bobcats got the unseeded Bison at home in the second round. Finally, this game could be played in Bozeman and MSU had built itself up to beat a top-tier team. After all, the Cats did take the heavy national title favorite SDSU down to the wire earlier that season.
But heartbreak again.
NDSU won 35-34 after Hunter Poncius blocked Montana State’s PAT in overtime.
For MSU, closer, but not close enough to finally knock off the Bison.
And now here we are. The two line up against each other once again with a national title on the line.
“It’s great to be back down here,” Vigen said. “Thinking back three years ago, we were obviously happy to be here. We got on a little bit of a run there in the playoffs, coming in as the 8 seed. Certainly learned a lot from that experience, came up short that particular Saturday. I think that set our program on a different trajectory. I think we had different expectations from that time moving forward. The last couple years, we’ve come up short. I think this group of seniors in particular, in coming up short and learning some hard lessons through their time, started going to work really about this time last year when we got back to Bozeman for the second semester and really did a great job day in, day out of putting their best foot forward. I think that lesson, that way of going about our business has served us well through the course of this season.”
“This group, they were the young guys on that team. Fourteen of them were on that initial roster that we took over in February of ’21,” Vigen added. “So these guys in our journey, my journey have all coincided here at Montana State. Their growth, our continuing to build this program has all happened together. Very fortunate, such a special group of young men. I think the selflessness that this group has collectively is probably unlike any team I’ve ever been around, and I’ve been around some really good teams that had plenty of it, but this group, not only the seniors and the way they’ve embraced their role and embodied their role and done everything they can, their ability to express that view to our younger players is what you’re looking for in a program.”
The gap between NDSU and MSU was noticeable in their first four FCS playoff matchups, particularly on the line of scrimmage. That gap looked to have closed last year, but it was still NDSU emerging as the victor.
It’s been a slow build for Montana State. The Cats saw the dragon in 2018 and 2019 and learned what it took to be a title contender. They got a taste of the championship scene in 2021, and then made a run to the 2022 semifinals. But both of those games were lopsided. And last year ended in heartbreak fashion as MSU looked built to win it all.
This year, the Bobcats look as well-built as ever to win it all, both in the trenches and at the skilled positions. The senior-laden group has plenty of Montana natives who learned all the lessons needed to be learned in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Vigen has fully implemented the championship formula he learned from NDSU.
“The DNA of their program, the things that are important and the things that matter to us, I really believe Brent’s doing those things as well at a high level,” NDSU head coach Tim Polasek said. “It’s his program now and you’re seeing the development of offensive line. You’re seeing the development of d-line, linebackers. So they’re obviously practicing very physical like we do. And it’s fun to watch. I’ll tell you this, in the semifinals and this game, wow, you know, why are those four teams there? I think the line of scrimmage says a lot about how both teams play in this matchup.”
On the one hand, it seems it is finally time for Montana State to climb to the mountain top. The Cats are a 3.5-point favorite. On the other hand, NDSU is standing in the way and has spoiled magical MSU seasons many times before.
We’ll find out tonight how this chapter ends in the Montana State-NDSU series.
