FRISCO, Texas — Earlier this season, Montana State celebrated the 40th anniversary of its last national championship season.
Kelly Bradley, quarterback of those 1984 Bobcats, had a message for current Bobcats coach Brent Vigen. The gist? Go end the decades-long drought.
"He came up to me and said, 'This has been great and all for us, but we need a new team to be remembered,'" Vigen recounted of what Bradley told him. "I think that goes a long ways with just how our fan base has felt.
"Certainly a lot of ups and downs over the last 40 years. Recent history, quite a few ups — but just not quite getting over the hump. We've been fortunate to be in this game now two out of four years, but when you're here you've got to take advantage of it."
Vigen and a handful of Montana State players took part in a media availability Saturday at Toyota Stadium, the site of Monday night's FCS championship between the top-seeded Bobcats (15-0) and No. 2 North Dakota State (13-2).
As Vigen noted, MSU is making its second trip to this stage in his four-year tenure as coach. The Bobcats lost to NDSU in the title game 38-10 at the end of the 2021 season, but this time seems to have the horses to finish the job.
"All you really heard about the past four years is the 1984 team, and we have another chance to be able to go out there and win a national championship again this week, so I'm pretty excited about that opportunity," linebacker McCade O'Reilly said.
Montana State's title win in 1984 came on like a bolt of lightning. That 12-2 season ended with a 19-6 win in the championship game over Louisiana Tech in Charleston, S.C., but was sandwiched between records of 1-10 in 1983 and 2-9 in 1985.
It took the program 22 years to even win another playoff game.
But the Bobcats of the Vigen/Jeff Choate era have been trending toward a title for some time now, and find themselves on the doorstep again.
"It starts with the guys in the locker room and the work they've put in to get to this point, but a lot of what drives is, too, is the tremendous fan base we have behind us," offensive lineman Cole Sain said.
"You go to our home games, you see all the support we have, and that is a huge piece and means a ton to us. To be able to do this and close this out for them and the whole state of Montana would be incredible, and that's what we plan on doing."
Remarkably, the Bison are making their 11th appearance in the FCS title game dating back to 2011. They've won nine of those, but lost in their last trip here two years ago to Missouri Valley Football Conference rival South Dakota State.
So coach Tim Polasek's team is searching for some redemption of its own.
Of note is the fact that the Bobcats and Bison are meeting in the playoffs for the sixth time since 2010 and for the fifth time in the past seven seasons. NDSU has won them all, including the championship game three years back.
But this is about the here and now.
"I think we learned a lot from that experience," said Vigen, an NDSU alum who spent 15 years as a Bison assistant coach. "I think that set our program on a different trajectory. I think we've had different expectations from that time moving forward.
"This group of seniors in particular, in coming up short and learning some hard lessons, really did a great job putting their best foot forward. I guess it's poetic that we're back facing (the Bison). They're very good in all aspects, but our guys are primed and ready to go at the same time."
