The Rematch

[catatac]

In case my post got the TL/DR treatment, consider:

-Griz have not won in Bozeman in over 10 years.

-Last three rivalry games in Bozeman, Cats won by average of 30 points.

-The Cats are 39-2 at home under Vigen (both losses in OT, one against SDSU and one NDSU).

-The Griz, to my knowledge, have one road playoff win in their history (2008 @ JMU).

Anything can happen on Saturday, but the Cats should be very confident and the Griz should be very scared.

While those are all indisputable facts, only 1 of them has any bearing on this game whatsoever, imo. Vigen’s record at home.

What happened in 17,19,22 and 24 has no bearing on what happens this Saturday.
I want to keep that streak alive, no doubt, but this gris team isn’t thinking about not having won there in 11 years, they’re thinking about a close loss 3 weeks ago and fixing a few things and avenging it.

Personally I have confidence, but these are two very close teams. As Vim has mentioned on another thread, the gris will have to play a very good, complete game to beat us. The opposite is obviously true as well. The Cats better be up for their best game of the year to move on.

Can they? Of course.
Will they? I think so.
But just like any cat/gris, the intangibles are hard to quantify and account for.

The Cats are better than the Griz at almost every position. They proved that in Missoula last month, winning by 3, or could have been 10 if Vigen would have pulled a Bobby and scored at the end. WAGriz is worth about 10 points as well, many people say 7, I say 10.

So on a neutral field, Cats beat the Griz 7 out of 10 times. I don't think that's a stretch by any means, given what played out last month. I also don't think it's a stretch to extrapolate that and say the Cats beat the Griz 9 times out of 10 in Bobcat Stadium. So nothing is guaranteed, but I like our odds.

[nanacat]

Vigen at home 31-2
Hauck away 21-14
Does it matter? Sure could.

I clicked on a link that took me to egriz. Kinda like how you can't stop looking at a car crash, I kept scrolling and reading. Good grief! The game is won folks. No sense in even playing it. I did giggle a bit when reading how a couple of posters inferred that Bobby left things on the table during Cat-Griz, knowing they would play again for a bigger prize, and that Pease has NOW opened up the playbook during playoffs, but held things tight before. So basically they lost on purpose so they could get to this point and beat the Cats. Oh ya, and Lamson is the worst QB they'll see in the playoffs. Hope he throws for 90% again.

[golden77]

Do you think the one extra day of preparation for the game is a positive, negative, or nothing at all

[BelligerentBobcat]

Do you think the one extra day of preparation for the game is a positive, negative, or nothing at all

Definitely a positive. One more day to relax, one more day to prepare, it all matters.

[GoodTimesAllTheTime]

I don't think it will really affect the team, but I'm concerned that our fan base is a bit overconfident right now. The Gris have been playing very well the last few weeks. Everyone said that they played their best game against us, but they followed that up with two very strong games, the first a very comfortable victory against a South Dakota State team that beat us and frankly outplayed us when we were at home and the second a blowout over a very solid South Dakota team that had blitzed Mercer on the road by 47 points the week prior. Meanwhile we have struggled to some degree in both of our playoff games, beating Yale by just 1 score (and being outgained) and giving up 28 points to Stephen F. Austin.

The Gris look like they are peaking at the right time-- and us, not so much.

I also suspect the Gris will have an unprecedented number of fans for a road team-- this is a much bigger game than even a typical Cat-Gris and I'd imagine that there will be a few thousand of their fans there who will get tickets and make their voices heard come hell or high water. Don't get me wrong, I expect the crowd to be a major factor in our favor but perhaps a bit less than we are used to for a home game.

We held Wortham largely in check in game one and barely beat them. They have a lot of weapons. I think we're the better team, and I'd bet on us pulling this out, but I'm far from ultra-confident in the outcome.

This is a great summary of how I've felt, among other comments on the chat board that seem a bit overconfident. Treating the fact that we won last time and that we'll have home field advantage will guarantee us a victory. We had the home crowd last week, but it wasn't SFA that got 7 false start penalties. Yet there are comments that say the Gris won't be able to handle the noise here. Or that SDSU and USD are lousy teams, minimizing the way the Gris dominated. And I think referring to history over the past many years is simply irrelevant. I do appreciate how many of the positive comments that are more down to earth (like citing things we should perform better than them) do give me hope.

You’re doing the exact opposite here though. The Cats dominated SFA just like the Griz beat USD, but for doomers like you, that doesn’t count. SFA dropped a ton of passes and messed up their protection a bunch of times, partially because of the crowd noise. They You just hand wave away all the factors that should make Cats fans feel confident. If you’re going to say that history (including three weeks ago or a year ago) is irrelevant, you could at least say why.

[2015cat]

I think there are fans on both sides who are nervous and overconfident. I doubt that bleeds over to the players on either side. It's the playoffs; there are going to be some nerves for everyone involved. As far as the on-field play, I'm not entirely convinced the gris "have gotten better" and the Cats "have gotten worse." Both teams have improved since the first meeting, just like they have every week of the season.

I think if you look at the griz, they definitely responded better to their bye week, most likely due to the fact that they needed it more (played 12 straight weeks). You add that SDSU isn't what they were due to injuries, and it gives you a better second-round result on paper. The Cats didn't play up to what they are capable of in the second round, and Yale is a much better team than most thought at first.

For the griz in the quarter-final, they played well and handled a USD team that looked like a shell of themselves. Is this bc the griz played that well or did USD peak too early? Time will tell. The Cats played much better than they did a week prior, but also had a tougher opponent (skill-wise and scheme-wise). I had talked to a buddy prior to the game, and we talked about being worried about the veer and shoot that SFA ran. It's not something we see often, and the wide splits from the receivers can cause a lot of space for safeties and LBs to cover in the middle, especially when we are predominantly 2 high safeties with MOFO coverages. Generally speaking, I would not look at results to see which team is playing better; you truly have to actually watch the teams play. Currently, neither team is playing bad and it should be a good game.

I think schematically the griz are a better match-up than SFA was, as the griz will use more TE and less 10 personnel than SFA. This allows the Cats to keep a 2-high shell and keep 6 in the box, then add a safety and/or a nickel late to add numbers to the run game. The Cats will need to find #6 early. I would expect the griz to manufacture him touches early in the game, wouldn't be surprised to see him at wildcat. They did that on the first drive in the last matchup and expect them to come back to that with some sort of trick play off of it.

[VimSince03]

Happy to eat crow on this but I think the homefield advantage is being severely under-discussed. This Griz team has played in exactly zero hostile environments in 2025. Their offense has not had to operate differently once. Will they still score and get explosives? Absolutely but I'm surprised their own fanbase hasn't brought it up more as just a talking point.

[GoodTimesAllTheTime]

Happy to eat crow on this but I think the homefield advantage is being severely under-discussed. This Griz team has played in exactly zero hostile environments in 2025. Their offense has not had to operate differently once. Will they still score and get explosives? Absolutely but I'm surprised their own fanbase hasn't brought it up more as just a talking point.

The only crowd of any significance was at Sac State, with 18,029 allegedly in attendance. The other three away games they played had 9,000, 6,000, and 5,000. That’s crazy.

[CaturdayClack]

Happy to eat crow on this but I think the homefield advantage is being severely under-discussed. This Griz team has played in exactly zero hostile environments in 2025. Their offense has not had to operate differently once. Will they still score and get explosives? Absolutely but I'm surprised their own fanbase hasn't brought it up more as just a talking point.

The only crowd of any significance was at Sac State, with 18,029 allegedly in attendance. The other three away games they played had 9,000, 6,000, and 5,000. That’s crazy.

That 18k was there to watch some rapper though not a football game.

[GoCats18]

Cats—34
Them—20

[FTG_1984]

The Cats have a TON to work on from less than a month ago. That day the griz were better but the Cats got all the breaks. We played scared not letting their best playmakers beat us. We can't do that again. Ah Yat was the best qb on the field. They're run defense is just going to be better Saturday. Our interception was lucky and no way that will happen again. Dowler is the luckiest defender in the conference. We are scared of this rematch. Bobby sent a message to us by running up the score on a dominant South Dakota team. On paper we have won the same amount of playoff games, but the griz are the hottest team in all of football. And finally; Mercyhurst.

Cats need to really get to work to have any shot at home this Saturday.

This is one of the worst takes I've seen on this board in the 15+ yrs I've been on here

[The Big Meowski]

The Cats have a TON to work on from less than a month ago. That day the griz were better but the Cats got all the breaks. We played scared not letting their best playmakers beat us. We can't do that again. Ah Yat was the best qb on the field. They're run defense is just going to be better Saturday. Our interception was lucky and no way that will happen again. Dowler is the luckiest defender in the conference. We are scared of this rematch. Bobby sent a message to us by running up the score on a dominant South Dakota team. On paper we have won the same amount of playoff games, but the griz are the hottest team in all of football. And finally; Mercyhurst.

Cats need to really get to work to have any shot at home this Saturday.

This is one of the worst takes I've seen on this board in the 15+ yrs I've been on here

I believe this is a compilation of many things gris fans are saying.

[FTG_1984]

3. I think Yale was legit, and a rough matchup for anyone... Their game plan was nearly perfect to set up a boxing match. They were the toughest line on both sides of the ball that we have played since Oregon... If UM played Yale, they would have had some trouble as well! Yale's OLine, run scheme, and coaching was way better than the SDU Oline, who couldn't get any push on the Griz mediocre defensive line. I respect Yale this year way more than alot of the 8-4 MVC teams. Especially after seeing them knock one of those teams off in the most legendary way in the 1st round game, essentially allowing nothing to a high scoring offense in the second half at YSU that was led by the likely Walter Payton Award winner...

This will surprise most everyone, but Yale was the best team we've played all season so far (aside from Oregon).

[BlueAndGoldNation]

3. I think Yale was legit, and a rough matchup for anyone... Their game plan was nearly perfect to set up a boxing match. They were the toughest line on both sides of the ball that we have played since Oregon... If UM played Yale, they would have had some trouble as well! Yale's OLine, run scheme, and coaching was way better than the SDU Oline, who couldn't get any push on the Griz mediocre defensive line. I respect Yale this year way more than alot of the 8-4 MVC teams. Especially after seeing them knock one of those teams off in the most legendary way in the 1st round game, essentially allowing nothing to a high scoring offense in the second half at YSU that was led by the likely Walter Payton Award winner...

This will surprise most everyone, but Yale was the best team we've played all season so far (aside from Oregon).

I'll take this post I did in another thread and put it here as well... Yale was certainly talented, and verified that with the amount of their All-American players... SFA was very talented as well! I hated the narrative that MSU had it easier than the Griz these last two games...

Interesting All American Stats, by the number of players each team relevant to us has...

-NDSU-
4 1st team, 2 2nd team, 2 3rd team... 8 Total
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-MSU-
2 1st team, 1 2nd team, 2 3rd team... 5 Total
-UM-
2 1st team, 2 2nd team, 2 3rd team... 6 Total
--------------------------------------------------------------------
MSU Playoff opponents...
-SFA-
3 1st team, 2 2nd team, 1 3rd team... 6 Total
-Yale-
1 1st team, 3 2nd team, 1 3rd team... 5 Total
--------------------------------------------------------------------
UM Playoff opponents...
-USD-
1 1st team, 2 2nd team, 0 3rd team... 3 Total
-SDSU-
0 1st team, 0 2nd team, 1 3rd team... 1 Total

[seataccat]

I think the cats match up really well against the griz.
The griz supposedly run a 3-3-5 stack defense but it definitely resembles the 4-3 slide with hybred players way more. It is most definitely designed to stop the run. It's a pressure style defense with a lot of different blitz packages. It doesn't really match well against a team with a poised QB, duel threat offense that is well balanced. The balanced offense keeps them in reaction mode rather than attack mode.
I think the bobcats are going to attack them with alot of 12 man personell. It forces them to defend the extra gaps and cover our athletes in the middle of the field. They will likely utilize the TE, RB out of the backfield and slot recievers since those matchups favor the bobcats. It will also utilize the bobcats superior physicality which will pay divedends late in the game.
On defense I think the cats will likely play essentially the same as in the first game. Mostly cover 2 but they may play more press with the corners to take away those easy spot routes. Ay Yat has proven he can move the offense if given the wide open underneath. I think the cats have the advantage on both sides of the ball. Just can't get exposed on those seam routes.
Cats win in similar fashion as the first game.

[catatac]

Happy to eat crow on this but I think the homefield advantage is being severely under-discussed. This Griz team has played in exactly zero hostile environments in 2025. Their offense has not had to operate differently once. Will they still score and get explosives? Absolutely but I'm surprised their own fanbase hasn't brought it up more as just a talking point.

Oh it is absolutely huge. Their fanbase isn't bringing it up because they think that the teams are evenly matched and just saw the Cats beat them at home, so in their brains they're probably thinking, see? The homefield advantage isn't that big of a deal this year. Yes I'm nervous about the game, no I'm not 100% confident in a win... but it's the same exact feeling I've had the last three times the Griz came to town. Could come down to the wire and go either way. Or, the Cats and crowd could overwhelm them and blow them out. IMO those are the only two likely outcomes.

[MrGoodKat]

Happy to eat crow on this but I think the homefield advantage is being severely under-discussed. This Griz team has played in exactly zero hostile environments in 2025. Their offense has not had to operate differently once. Will they still score and get explosives? Absolutely but I'm surprised their own fanbase hasn't brought it up more as just a talking point.

Yeah but they got Kyon Loud back, so it’s basically like they’re at home.

[tetoncat]

I think the ref crew has to come from a conference competing in the playoffs but not for the teams playing (so anyone still in but not BSC).

The other game will get our best and brightest this weekend.

So we get MVFC or CAA

[BornABobcat]

Vigen at home 31-2
Hauck away 21-14
Does it matter? Sure could.

I clicked on a link that took me to egriz. Kinda like how you can't stop looking at a car crash, I kept scrolling and reading. Good grief! The game is won folks. No sense in even playing it. I did giggle a bit when reading how a couple of posters inferred that Bobby left things on the table during Cat-Griz, knowing they would play again for a bigger prize, and that Pease has NOW opened up the playbook during playoffs, but held things tight before. So basically they lost on purpose so they could get to this point and beat the Cats. Oh ya, and Lamson is the worst QB they'll see in the playoffs. Hope he throws for 90% again.

Hahaha I actually had a patient who was telling me the same thing! Told me Bobby knew they would see us again in the playoffs so they used that game as a "set-up" to beat us in the one that mattered! I was like "so they purposely lost home field advantage to set-up a gameplan for the playoffs?!" He said he was sure they were going to win with a vanilla gameplan and keep homefield, but we got a couple lucky breaks; but it still works out cause now the Cats are overconfident and they are going to throw a bunch of wrinkles we didn't see before.

[MrGoodKat]

Bobby has actually been carefully setting the Cats up to lose this Super Brawl with strategic choices in every rivalry game since 2009 (incidentally, the last time he won in Bozeman).