BOZEMAN — Montana State keeps stacking up victories, and the 2024 Bobcats have now won at a pace that has eclipsed any MSU team before them.
The No. 2-ranked Cats piled up 508 rushing yards Saturday on the way to a 49-7 rout of Big Sky Conference opponent Sacramento State at Bobcat Stadium. The win gives Montana State the first 10-0 start to a season in the history of the program.
Only one previous team had even started 9-0 — MSU’s 1956 national championship squad.
"Being able to do that against a team that has played at a really high level in our league — whatever they've done this year — we took it to maybe another level as far as what we were able to do against them relative to other teams," Bobcats coach Brent Vigen said afterward, referencing MSU's rushing totals.
Saturday was a runaway from the start.
After forcing a punt on Sac State’s first possession, MSU’s Ty McCullouch took a handoff on a sweep from Tommy Mellott, got a block on the edge from teammate Adam Jones and broke down the right sideline untouched for a 64-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
Zach Schreiner misfired on a 52-yard field goal try on the Hornets’ next possession, and the Bobcats countered with another TD, this time a 14-yard keeper from quarterback Tommy Mellott.
Early in the second quarter, Scottre Humphrey took a third-and-1 handoff and sprang through for a 48-yard gain to the 5, and Julius Davis then scored on the next play to make the score 21-0.
It was 28-0 later in the second after Mellott scored his second rushing TD of the day — a 13-yarder — with 3:03 left before halftime.
At the outset of the third quarter, Humphrey had a long run wiped out by holding, but Jones took a handoff on the ensuing play and burst away for 78 yards to the 3. Humphrey then punched it in the next snap.
Jones increased the rout to 42-0 with a 57-yard TD run on the Bobcats’ next possession.
The Bobcats played without standout defensive end Brody Grebe due to injury, but MSU’s defense didn’t miss a beat — though the Hornets broke the shutout midway through the third on a 43-yard touchdown run by Curron Borders.
MSU wasn’t done, though, and Davis punched in another — the team’s seventh rushing score of the afternoon — with the Cats' backup offense to make the score 49-7 with 13:26 to go.
Jones had 159 rushing yards, Humphrey added 129, Davis chipped in 76 and Mellott had 40 to lead MSU’s rushing dominance.
The victory improved Montana State’s home record to 5-0 this season, but more impressively also improved its home record to 30-1 since its last defeat at Bobcat Stadium — a 34-21 loss to Sac State in 2019.
MSU coach Brent Vigen is now 27-1 all-time in home games in Bozeman, and is still yet to lose a home Big Sky game in his four-season tenure with the Cats.
Turning point: With Montana State leading 14-0 early in the second quarter, the game was still in its competitive phase. But that changed when Humphrey burst through the line for his 48-yard run to set up Davis’ 5-yard TD rush, which gave the Cats a three-possession lead and took all the sting out of the Hornets.
Stat of the game: MSU’s 508 total rushing yards broke the all-time Bobcat Stadium record of 483 set against Fresno State in 1973, and the seven total rushing TDs set a new program mark.
The Bobcats finished just shy of their all-time single-game rushing total of 554 set in 2022 at Cal Poly.
Bobcat game balls: RB Adam Jones (Offense). This could go to a number of different players, but Jones was MSU’s most explosive player, rushing for 159 yards on just five attempts, an average of 31.8 yards a carry.
DE Hunter Parsons (Defense). Parsons was pressed into duty for the injured Grebe at defensive end and more than held his own. Parsons finished with four solo tackles, tops among the Bobcats’ first-team defenders.
What’s next: Montana State (10-0, 6-0 Big Sky) will now hit the road for its biggest game of the year to date, a matchup with UC Davis, which entered the week ranked No. 4 in the FCS national poll. UC Davis was set to face No. 7 Montana in Missoula at 8:15 p.m. Saturday night.
The Bobcats and Aggies came into this Saturday tied for the top spot in the Big Sky standings, and next week’s game will surely have a lot to say in conversation for the conference championship as well as playoff positioning.
