The Times They Are Achanging!

aucat · Post by **aucat** » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:52 am

I moved back to SW Montana 12 years ago, after having been away since the 70s.
It seemed that we were light years apart from UM in all sports. Our football stadium was barely on par with a decent high school. Our band was pathetic. The field was a quagmire when it got wet.

UM dominated us in everything, except maybe rodeo. I would go around lamenting that I had never seen MSU defeat UM in ANYTHING here in Bozeman, and I attend them all—volleyball, men’s hoops, women’s hoops, and of course, football.

My, how times have changed. Our stadium looks great now, and under Leon Costello’s leadership, it is only going to get better. I finally got to see MSU whip UM in football at home. The MSU band is now absolutely fantastic.
The football program is headed in the right direction, but it doesn’t stop there. We swept UM in volleyball. We swept UM in women’s hoops. We finally whipped UM at home in men’s hoops.

The Big Sky has changed. Montana no longer dominates. Other programs have upgraded their facilities and they are very competitive. I think what has happened to UM is they became very spoiled during their years of domination, and yes, they did dominate. I did not realize that it has been 25 years since UM missed the playoffs for two consecutive years. That is truly an amazing stat.

But if UM thinks they can just dial up another coach and suddenly become dominate in the Big Sky again, well, I think that is wishful thinking. For one thing, under the leadership of President Cruzado, AD Costello and the MSU coaches in place, UM will always have a fight on their hands within the state of Montana.

Frankly, I wondered why MSU alumni and fans ever allowed things to get so out of balance to begin with. Going forward, no, I don’t expect MSU to suddenly dominate, but MSU is going to be competitive.
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The President gets it, the AD gets it, and the alumni and fans get it. And MSU has a helluva alumni and fan support base in place.

As for football this year, the thing I appreciated most about this team was the fact that we were competitive in every single game except with Washington State from the FBS. You certainly could not say that under the previous coach. Also, I believe I heard Jay Sanderson say that we return 16 of 22 starters, and with another good recruiting year, the immediate future looks bright.

Go Cats!

cats2506 · Post by **cats2506** » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:00 pm

aucat wrote:I moved back to SW Montana 12 years ago, after having been away since the 70s.
It seemed that we were light years apart from UM in all sports. Our football stadium was barely on par with a decent high school. Our band was pathetic. The field was a quagmire when it got wet.

UM dominated us in everything, except maybe rodeo. I would go around lamenting that I had never seen MSU defeat UM in ANYTHING here in Bozeman, and I attend them all—volleyball, men’s hoops, women’s hoops, and of course, football.

My, how times have changed. Our stadium looks great now, and under Leon Costello’s leadership, it is only going to get better. I finally got to see MSU whip UM in football at home. The MSU band is now absolutely fantastic.
The football program is headed in the right direction, but it doesn’t stop there. We swept UM in volleyball. We swept UM in women’s hoops. We finally whipped UM at home in men’s hoops.

The Big Sky has changed. Montana no longer dominates. Other programs have upgraded their facilities and they are very competitive. I think what has happened to UM is they became very spoiled during their years of domination, and yes, they did dominate. I did not realize that it has been 25 years since UM missed the playoffs for two consecutive years. That is truly an amazing stat.

But if UM thinks they can just dial up another coach and suddenly become dominate in the Big Sky again, well, I think that is wishful thinking. For one thing, under the leadership of President Cruzado, AD Costello and the MSU coaches in place, UM will always have a fight on their hands within the state of Montana.

Frankly, I wondered why MSU alumni and fans ever allowed things to get so out of balance to begin with. Going forward, no, I don’t expect MSU to suddenly dominate, but MSU is going to be competitive.
,
The President gets it, the AD gets it, and the alumni and fans get it. And MSU has a helluva alumni and fan support base in place.

As for football this year, the thing I appreciated most about this team was the fact that we were competitive in every single game except with Washington State from the FBS. You certainly could not say that under the previous coach. Also, I believe I heard Jay Sanderson say that we return 16 of 22 starters, and with another good recruiting year, the immediate future looks bright.

Go Cats!

The 70's were a pretty good time for the Cats in my memory, we regularly won Cat/griz in football anyway, we had the newer and bigger stadium, National Championship in '76, And the College National Finals were about the biggest event in the state was held in the Brick every year. Things really didn't turn until the mid 80's

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:45 pm

MSU is 4-3 in the last seven Cat-Griz games. UM is 8-7 in the last 15. Since 1956 it’s 32-29 UM.

imacat · Post by **imacat** » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:06 pm

The 70s were a great time for Bobcat football. Sonny Holland, Sonny Lubick. Record versus the griz for the decade was 7-3 Cats. The stadium was new and far superior to the one across the hill. 1976 brought a National Championship.

It is true the griz dominated in men's basketball. As an aside, even I enjoyed watching the griz almost take out the invincible John Wooden and his UCLA Bruins in the NCAA basketball tournament.

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