Bobby Hauck is 7-8 vs the Cats

[BLACKnBLUEnGOLD]

I must have misremembered, as I could have sworn Portland State won the Big Sky in 2015. But looks like SUU did: https://bigskyconf.com/standings.aspx?standings=63

Now that I look at it, how odd was it that PSU got a home game in the playoffs (vs UNI) and SUU had to travel to SHST.

Strange times.

Holy crap you aren't kidding. The 2 best teams in the Big Sky were SUU and PSU . I think I remember that PSU/MSU game. Was that the year they had that NFL TE? This is what I found on the BSC website.

PORTLAND STATE 59, MONTANA STATE 42- Portland State running back David Jones rushed for a career-high 285 yards and three touchdowns, as the Vikings earned a home victory over nationally-ranked Montana State.

Montana State quarterback Dakota Prukop scored 81 seconds into the game, and then Portland State responded with a 79-yard touchdown run by Jones to tie the score at 7-7 with 13:21 to go in the first quarter.

While the two teams were tied at 14-14 going into the second quarter, Portland State went on a 21-7 run in the second quarter. Vikings quarterback Alex Kuresa threw a touchdown, and then rushed for a touchdown to give Portland State a 35-21 halftime lead.

Portland State finished with 682 yards, and Montana State finished with 440 yards.

Montana State quarterback Dakota Prukop finished with three rushing touchdowns.

682 yards given up on defense. Strange times indeed.

I was at that game. It was really disheartening. The cats just couldn't get a stop. The defense was like going against a stiff breeze.

I was living in Portland and at that game and then went to Cat-Gris in Bozeman for that blowout. I knew Ash was done just from the reaction of some QB Club boosters that I’ve tailgated with since the 1990s.

Great flame wars on this board back then about how the offense scored too fast and that’s why the defense was so bad. Nope, that was all Jamie Marshall and his scheme that created the most open spaces of any defense I’ve watched on a consistent basis. Regularly 10-15 yards of open space that seemed almost impossible to have as a result in any defensive system.

Wasn't Marshall around though when we had really good defenses? If we could have paired the 2010-11 defenses with the 2015 offense, we probably would have been in pretty good shape.

Jamie Marshall's defenses were less than the sum of their parts. Dane Fletcher (NFL), Zach Minter (NFL), Caleb Schreibeis (Buck Buchanan), and Brad Daly (Buck) on the DL; Jody Owen (Big Sky DPOY) and Alex Singleton (NFL) at linebacker, Bryson Keeton (NFL) and Deonte Flowers (NFL caliber) in the secondary. That's some elite talent. But as a team, they were never elite.

Marshall's scheme was simple, soft, and predictable, and relied on his guys out-athleting the offense or a series of mistakes by the offense to get stops. Once the team went a couple years without recruiting any NFL-caliber athletes on defense, Marshall's scheme got exposed.

[Cledus]

Man we looked slow on defense that year. Not sure if we actually were or just bad angles/fundamentals but if someone got a lane they usually scored.

I thought the reason for that was Jamie Marshall had the players mentally going through a 20-point checklist and decision tree instead of just reacting and relying on athleticism. Some sarcasm, but you get the idea. I seem to recall a lot of discussion from us about that.