FRISCO, Texas — It's clear there's a different, more focused vibe surrounding Montana State's trip to the FCS championship game this year than in 2021.
These Bobcats are a juggernaut. With a 15-0 record and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, MSU as of Friday morning was a 3.5-point favorite to beat No. 2 seed North Dakota State (13-2) and win its first national title in 40 years.
By contrast, the Bobcats of 2021 won 12 games but got on a playoff heater following a loss at Montana in the season finale. They won three straight as the No. 8 seed after inserting a raw freshman from Butte named Tommy Mellott at quarterback.
But the magic ran out when they got to Frisco. Mellott suffered an ankle injury early in the game and the Cats got smacked by NDSU, 38-10.
"I think in '21 we were beyond happy to be there," said MSU coach Brent Vigen, who was in his first season at the helm that year. "We lost our last regular-season game to our rivals (but) we were able to put this program in a position it hadn't been in a long, long time.
"I think that team — I don't know — getting that far was probably what it could do. That team doing what it did to set the bar here at Montana State in a different way."
Monday's game (5 p.m. Mountain time, ESPN) is a rematch of that 2021 contest.
It will be the Bobcats' sixth playoff meeting with NDSU since 2010. The Bison have won them all, including victories in 2018, 2019, the title game in 2021 and the second round last season.
Montana State hasn't beaten the Bison since an early season matchup in Bozeman way back in 2005.
Will this year be the exception to the rule?
"We have a team that understands a little bit different what (this) means," Vigen said. "We're playing the same school, but I think our team is just better equipped with this mentality. We came into this playoff as a top seed, and you've got a little different target on your back and you have different expectations of yourself.
"I think this team was wired differently from Day 1, its expectations for what it could do have been different."
Montana State is recognized as national champions at three separate levels of football competition — the NAIA in 1956, NCAA Division II in 1976 and FCS (then known as Division I-AA) in 1984. So it's been a long 40 years.
It's the only football program in the country with that distinction. Still, the Bobcats spent the rest of the 1980s and the entire 1990s toiling in relative anonymity.
They broke an 18-year playoff drought under Mike Kramer with consecutive playoff berths in 2002 and 2003, then won in the postseason in 2006 to end a 22-year spell.
Rob Ash got the program into more consistent national prominence — the Cats rose to the No. 1 ranking in 2011 amid a run of three straight playoff berths, including a pair of wins.
Jeff Choate assumed the mantel and built MSU into a Griz-slaying outfit that eventually reached the semifinal round for the first time since that 1984 season.
Vigen then took the keys, and has since gone 47-9 overall in his four seasons with two trips now to the national title game — and a another chance to quench a four-decade-long thirst for a championship Monday night.
It's perhaps the Bobcats' best shot.
"We're not just happy to be here," Vigen said. "We've been able to put 15 games together and really, truly live in that week-to-week moment. That was our intent all the way along, to ultimately give ourselves an opportunity to not only go down there but to do everything we can to win a football game."
