BOZEMAN — On Monday, the No. 3-ranked Montana State Bobcats were able to reflect on their 20-16 loss against No. 1-ranked SDSU in their weekly press conferences.
It was a game that came down to not just the final quarter like predicted by Bobcats coach Brent Vigen, but the final play.
And now the Bobcats will use it as fuel going into their next game against Stetson on Saturday.
“I think it’s an effort we can build upon," Vigen said. "Certainly disappointed with the outcome was not in our favor. I think there’s absolutely no moral victories in coming up close there, absolutely none. We are 1-1, and that’s the fact of the matter.”
Bobcats offensive guard Omar Aigbedion reflected on the final seconds of the game in which Sean Chambers' apparent game-winning touchdown pass to Clevan Thomas Jr. was overturned.
Aigbedion explained how the team does not want to put themselves in a position where a final score for a win would be in the officials' hands and out of their control.
“We shouldn’t have to depend on a ref, you know, signaling we had a touchdown or we didn’t have a touchdown," Aigbedion said. "Because, like I said earlier, we had two opportunities on the goal line where we didn’t score, or we had false starts, or this and that.”
Reducing the amount of false starts by the Bobcat offense is something that the team has already started working on.
“You might have one or two with a guy being antsy being home or away, but to have that many, we have to fix that," Vigen said. "We got to be louder at quarterback, more dialed into the trigger. We need to hear, and that just wasn’t happening at the rate it needed to that game, and it cost us.”
The team now plans on using the sting of this loss as fuel the rest of the season, a mindset Rylan Ortt had no trouble putting to words.
“The feeling after this Saturday, I would go to war against anybody with this team," Ortt said. "With the type of effort we gave, how together the team was the entire time, there was no bickering on the sideline about people not doing their job. It was just like, 'Alright, let’s do the next play, and we’re going to play as hard as we can and as fast as we can and as physical as we can.' So, that’s the biggest thing.”
Kickoff against Stetson is slated for 1 p.m. Saturday inside Bobcat Stadium.
