game saturday, oct. 9 vs. portland state d...
TRANSCRIPT
By WILL C. HOLDENChronicle Sports Writer
Chris Wilson went to what he called a “majority-black” school in Maryland for junior high. In high school, he shifted gears to what he called an “all-white” school at C.M. Russell in Great Falls.
“I can’t sugar coat it,” Wilson said. “That’s just the way it is.”
Part of a military family, moving wasn’t unusual for Wilson. But moving to Montana was certainly a culture shock. And listen-ing to him describe the experience is similarly shocking.
As Wilson, an African-American and current redshirt freshman cornerback for Montana State, traveled around Montana during track season, breaking 100-meter state records nearly every time he ran, he heard a similar refrain.
“There goes the black kid, again.” It wasn’t whispered, though he heard the hushed voices, too.
They came as he walked through the halls of CMR. He said many of his classmates knew nothing about minorities except “what they saw on T.V., what they heard on the radio or what they read on the Internet.”
“There were a lot of stereotypes I had to deal with,” Wilson said. “In my first two years there, I went through a lot of issues with racism. I can’t count on my two hands how many times I’ve been called the “N” word.”
But for an impressionable teenager, the phone call from a Great Falls police officer ordering Wilson to stop dating his teenage daughter for fear that “a black person would ruin his family” took the cake.
“It was one thing hearing stuff like that from people who were immature or uneducated,” Wilson said. “But that was a grown man. That’s not a kid.”
Suddenly, the normally extraverted Wilson became an introvert out of necessity.
“I wanted to get out of Montana,” Wilson said. “I honestly did.”
Then MSU assistant coach Justin Gaines gave Wilson a call. In a state where the African-American population is less than 0.6 percent, Gaines, an African-American who played cornerback for the Montana Grizzlies, became someone Wilson could confide in.
Two years later, Wilson is part of a Bobcat team that is starting an African-American quarterback for the first time in its long history in a conference that now has its first African-American coach.
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NO PASSING FANCY n Vikings more of a running team these days I 2
Saturday, oct. 9vS. portland State GAme
DAY
Full PAPerINSIDe
INSIDe
STIll NO. 1? n Bozeman, Helena High meet in battle of unbeatens I page B1
5-1?n The Chronicle’s Will Holden handicaps today’s matchup I 6
BIG mIKen MSU QB McGhee lets his father do the talking I 2
Printed on recycled PaPer
breaking down
barriersMcGhee, Burton help make history
for African-Americans in Big Sky
POrTlAND STATe AT NO. 10 mONTANA STATe, 1:35 P.m. BOBCAT STADIum — HOmeCOmING GAme
Montana State quarterback Denarius McGhee runs the ball against Sacramento State last Saturday.
NIgEL BurtON
Portland State coach
More BArrIErS I 5
Denarius McGhee won’t tell you.
About his name being listed in Sports Illustrated. Or how his teams went 66-3 from seventh grade through high school. Or how his high school team was in a Gatorade com-mercial that was aired during the NFL playoffs.
He won’t mention how 17 of his classmates signed with Division I football programs, including Nebraska, Texas, Brigham Young and Oklahoma. Or how some of those schools wanted him — but as a receiver or cornerback.
Big Mike will, though.Michael Gause is the one
who kept all the news clippings, the awards. He attended all of Denarius’ games. Never missed a football game. Or a basketball game. A track meet.
That’s why not being able to watch Denarius become one of the nation’s top quarterbacks “is killing me,” says Gause, known simply as “Big Mike” in Texas, where he works for the sheriff ’s department and referees volleyball, football and basketball.
Big Mike wasn’t sure if Den-arius would start as a freshman, so he never made any travel plans.
“He was always tied (in fall
camp, with last year’s starter Cody Kempt),” Big Mike said. “And when you’re tied, the job always goes to the senior.”
Not this time.Big Mike wasn’t always big.
He says he weighed 188 pounds during his 13-year stint in the Army, a period that included playing football while stationed in Greece.
And he didn’t know he was Denarius’ father until a blood test revealed the truth when his son was 7 years old. Until then, Denarius was living with his mother in a housing project in McComb, Miss., a city that was once a focal point of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s — when police and the KKK often clashed.
After finishing sixth grade, little Denarius and Big Mike, in search for a more stable life,
moved to Euless, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth.
You want Denarius McGhee to open up? Bring up his father.
When asked about how much of an influence he has been, McGhee looks skyward and sighs. The kind that says, how can I put this into words?
“I look to him for everything,” he finally says. “And for love. He shows me a lot of love.”
McGhee not only is the starter for Montana State, he’s thrown for more yards than any other freshman in the Football Cham-pionship Subdivision. Through five games, he has led the Bob-cats into the red zone 29 times, also an FCS high. (The ’Cats crossed the opponent’s 20-yard line 40 times last season — in 11 games).
By WILL C. HOLDENChronicle Sports Writer
A season ago, Portland State and Montana State romped in a Portland rain storm before the Bobcats emerged with a 28-10 win.
Oh, how much has changed since then.
For starters, Portland State no longer runs the pass-happy offense of Jerry Glanville and Mouse Davis which was once capable of games like the 2007 shootout against Weber State in which the Vikings scored 68 points and still lost.
Under new head coach Nigel Burton, PSU (2-2 overall, 1-0 Big Sky Conference) favors the run out of the pistol offense. But just what are these new Vikings capable of accomplishing? If you ask Montana State head coach Rob Ash, it’s yet to be seen.
Why? Because three of the Vikings’ four games this season have come against a pair of Pac-10 teams and Idaho State, which has won just three games in the past three years.
The one game that caught Ash’s eye was the first win for this new PSU program, a 41-33 triumph on the road at UC Da-vis, a future Big Sky Conference school.
“That’s really the only game where you can base some judge-ment,” said Ash, whose team is 4-1, 2-0. “They played very well against a UC Davis team that went and beat a (Football Bowl Subdivision team) from San Jose State. So I think both teams must be pretty good.”
At the very least, the win over UC Davis will be one Burton and his PSU staff will remember. It’s even been immortalized by a still frame, as Burton and his coaches knelt in front of the scoreboard for a photo after the game.
It’s something Burton said “will never happen again.”
“We’re not going to act like one win is like winning the
Super Bowl,” Burton said. But a win is a win. And
considering they all count the same in the standings, Burton said his team isn’t discounting its 38-3 win over 1-4 Idaho State last week.
“I think Idaho State was a test for us,” Burton said. “As much as someone could say that team is kind of shooting itself in the foot, I think our guys did things to force the issue. We played well when faced with that test and now it’s on to the next one.”
At the very least, the Vi-kings’ two wins this year have something in common: In each contest, they threw the ball less than 25 times.
When was the last time PSU’s offense threw that few times? You guessed it — during that 28-10 drubbing in the deluge against MSU.
It was the beginning of the end for Glanville, who resigned following the season partly due to criticism that he was too lax
with the program. It’s a criti-cism that may never be levied on Burton. Ash said the first thing that jumps off the tape about Burton’s Vikings is their discipline.
“I think Nigel has really done an excellent job in his first year,” he said. “(The Vikings) are very good at defending the run, they have a skilled secondary and I like what they’re doing on of-fense. Nigel has taken the talent that he had and has molded it into his schemes very well.”
Burton believes it’s at least partly due to the new offseason program he has installed at PSU, which Washington Husky trans-fer Willie Griffin called unique.
“It was so physical,” said Grif-fin, one of the program’s new running backs. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Five games into the season, the Vikings have only dealt with two major injuries. In Burton’s eyes, it’s not a coincidence.
“My theory is if you’re passive
in practice and worried about getting hurt, you probably are going to get hurt,” Burton said. “It all starts with the offseason practices. We had 98 percent participation in terms of guys not just being here for the summer but being at all their workouts.
“That was something that has never happened at Portland State before.”
A good contingent of healthy players has made Burton’s new pistol offense easier to install. But just how good will the new-look Vikings end up being? Right now, Griffin said, it’s a work in progress.
“I’ve been around a lot of foot-ball programs and I know this team can be very good,” Griffin said. “Are we progressing as fast as we’d like to? Probably not. But we’re working every day and we’re starting to see results.”
Will Holden can be reached at [email protected] and 582-2690.
SidelineBriefingRecords Montana State 4-1, 2-0 Big Sky Portland State 2-2, 1-0
Series 25th meeting, MSU leads 15-9
Weather forecast Sunny, high 66
Crowd More than 14,000 expected
TV ABC 28 (Chris Byers, Mike Callaghan, AJ Donatoni)
Radio KXLB-FM (100.7), Jeff Lasky, Dan Davies, Tyler Wiltgen
Coaches
SchedulesPortland State
9 @ Arizona St. 54 41 @ UC Davis 330 @ Oregon 6938 Idaho St. 3Today Montana St. 2:05 p.m. 10/16 Montana 6:05 p.m.10/23 @ Weber St. 3 p.m.10/30 Eastern Washington 6:05 p.m.11/6 @ Sacramento St. 3 p.m.11/13 Northern Colorado 1:05 p.m.11/20 @ Northern Arizona 3 p.m.
Montana State59 Fort Lewis 10 22 @ Wash. St. 2348 Drake 2130 Eastern Washington 764 @ Sacramento St. 61Today Portland St. 1:35 p.m.10/16 @ Northern Arizona 4:05 p.m.10/23 Northern Colo. 1:05 p.m.10/30 @ Idaho St. 1:35 p.m.11/6 Weber St. 12:05 p.m.11/20 @ Montana 12:05 p.m.
Players to watch PORTLAND STATe: QB Connor Kavanaugh is a scrambler and can make plays when things break down. MONTANA STATe: WR Everett Gilbert is a playmaker either running or catching the football.
Injury reportMONTANA STATe OUT: DE Brad Smith (shoulder), OL Conrad Burbank (knee), Ben Tauanuu (leg), LB Dustin O’Connell (collar bone). DOUBTFUL: LB Clay Bignell (ankle).PORTLAND STATe OUT: LB Matt Segi, QB Drew Hubel (shoulder), OL Zach Dias, OL Alex Cosenza, WR Salas Louidor.
Portland State still figuring itself out
McGhee lets game, ‘Big Mike’ do the talking
More DuMaS I 5
COURTESY OF PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY
Portland State junior Cory McCaffrey (1) leads the Vikings with 322 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
TIM DuMaSChronicle Sports Editor
ROB ASHMSU, 4th year31st year overall24-15 at MSU 200-114-5 overall
NIGeL BURTON PSU, 1st year 4th year overall 2-2 at PSU 2-2 overall
bozeman daily chronicle Saturday, October 9 , 2010 2 |
BOBCAT GAME DAYPortland State at Montana State
1:35 p.m. Bobcat Stadium
bozeman daily chronicle Saturday , October 9 , 2010 | 3
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One other column stands out on the NCAA statistics page. McGhee is listed as a sophomore, though the error can be understood: He doesn’t re-semble a first-year player.
Doesn’t act like one, either.
“It’s ALL about the team,” McGhee says. “What do your accolades matter?”
Is this kid really 19? The selfless, down-to-
earth, egoless attitude comes from Big Mike.
He says he sat Denarius down after a seventh-grade game in which he ran 75 yards for a touch-down. Big Mike didn’t just attend all of his son’s games, he taped them, too. And it was while watching the film that Mike made sure to point out that Denarius would have “gotten smashed” by
an oncoming linebacker had his teammate not stepped in the way to cre-ate an opening.
“Everybody was jump-ing on Denarius,” Mike said of the touchdown run’s aftermath, “but nobody said anything to the boy who made the block.”
The lesson? “You’re only as good as your weakest player.”
Denarius McGhee will continue to deflect any attention sent his way. He won’t acknowledge his statistics. He’ll say, even after last week’s career (up till now) game,
that he could have done better.
If he’s helping the team, only then will he be satis-fied.
“If we improve each week,” McGhee says, “we’ll be that team to beat and potentially win the Big Sky and move on to
potentially get a shot at the national champion-ship.”
He doesn’t need Big Mike to tell you that much.
Tim Dumas can be reached at [email protected] and 582-2651.
For some, the progress symbolized by every snap MSU quarterback Denarius McGhee takes or every play-call PSU head coach Nigel Burton makes today will be hard to notice. But not for Wilson.
“It’s amazing to see that a leader of this team, a leader in this conference is of color,” Wil-son said. “To see that there’s no struggle here, no conflict, it’s just amazing.”
Burton sees progressThat this article found its way
into a newspaper irks Burton. He looks forward to a day when this story no longer has a place on this page.
But he also knows the facts. While strides have been made for minority head coaches in the NFL, NBA and even NCAA men’s basketball, NCAA football lags behind.
When he was named head coach at Portland State in De-cember, Burton became one of 32 head coaches of color in all of college football. That means he helps form a faction of less than 6 percent in a profession of 582 that coach a sport where 41 percent of the participants are of color.
And the percentage of that 41 percent that have experienced is-sues of racism similar to Wilson might surprise you, Burton said.
“I don’t think there are too many of those guys out there who have never had an experi-ence like that,” Burton said.
But Burton is the first to point out progress, especially the progress being made in Oregon — a place where he says closed-minded people “don’t fair very well.”
This past January, the Oregon Senate unanimously passed a bill that requires state universities to interview a minority candidate before hiring a head football coach.
The bill was drafted at the re-quest of a Portland State student Sam Sachs, who played football for Western Oregon. Sachs is white.
“Once everybody found out all the facts, it passed very smoothly,” Burton said. “I was very happy to see it.”
Having played for two Afri-can-American head coaches in his three years of college football, running back Willie Griffin said he sees what he calls “necessary steps” being made.
Griffin played for Tyrone
Willingham at the University of Washington before transfer-ring to PSU to play for Burton’s staff. The native of Oakland, Calif., said the diversity on each staff was “extremely important” to him in making his college choices.
“It gave me a great sense of pride,” Griffin said. “Coach Willingham and coach Burton are two individuals who I think have really helped make progress in college football.”
Bobcat head coach Rob Ash, who serves as the vice presi-dent of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), champions diversity on college football coaching staffs as well.
He called the hiring of five African-Amer-ican assistant coaches on his staff, includ-ing current assistants Kerry Dixon and Gaines, “absolutely essential.”
“People gravitate to people they’re comfortable with,” Ash said. “I think our coaches do a good job of relating to everyone on the team, regardless of their background, but it’s just so es-sential to have diversity on your staff. It just assures that every-body is going to find somebody that they’re comfortable with.”
Burton’s actions signify his agreement with Ash. With five Caucasians, four African-Americans, two Polynesians and one Libyan on his staff, PSU staff is one of the most culturally di-verse in the Big Sky Conference.
But to Burton, only two colors matter.
“Sweat and blood,” he said. “We all sweat and bleed the same colors.”
the age of DenariusDespite the fact that it appears
the spotlight was made for him, there’s a bashful side to McGhee.
And it’s obvious he’s never been the face of a football pro-gram before.
But just five games into his college career, it appears evident that fans can’t get enough of McGhee’s pinpoint passes or the 100-watts that beam out of every Texas-sized smile.
When asked about the neces-sity of the ongoing expansion of Bobcat Stadium, one booster said, “Denarius McGhee de-serves a better place to play.”
When confronted with the information, that McGhee grin grows so fast his mouth goes agape.
“Man, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I think our team does, though.”
It’s a team that has never had an African-American starting under center. It goes back to the late 1980s when the Bobcats last had an African-American take a snap, period.
The last such signal callers were Antonio Anderson and Clarence McKinney, who oc-casionally ran under center in Earle Solomonson’s veer offense. McKinney’s last year with the Bobcats was in 1990, after which he transferred to the University of Mary in North Dakota.
While McKinney says he still follows MSU, mostly to keep tabs on his former high school pro-
tege and current Bobcat running backs coach Kerry Dixon, whom he coached at Houston Yates High, he admitted he hasn’t been back to Bozeman in years.
Still, he said, he can’t imag-ine it’s changed much from the welcoming place it was almost 20 years ago.
“When I stepped off the plane from Houston, Texas, it was defi-nitely a culture shock,” McKin-ney said. “But I must say that the people of Bozeman welcomed us with open arms. I couldn’t have asked for a better atmosphere to play college football.”
Gaines would have to agree. “Obviously there’s racism
everywhere in American, but I don’t think it’s a major issue here,” he said. “Whether it’s Bozeman or Missoula, fans want to see the best players out on the field, regardless of the color of their skin.”
Still, there are frequent re-minders that African-Americans, measured at 0.33 percent of the Bozeman population as of the 2000 census, are a miniscule mi-nority, even in a university town.
For one, Gaines sometimes gets his haircut from Wilson because “no one else in Bozeman knows how to cut black hair.”
Jordan Craney laughed and agreed that barbers are often tough to find. But that hair seems to be the greatest of wor-ries means something to MSU’s starting safety, a native of Poca-tello, Idaho, which has a similar lack of diversity.
Being biracial, Craney knows there was a time when he “wouldn’t even have been al-lowed to be here.”
“I think it’s important to un-derstand,” Craney said. “People sacrificed before us so that I could play football, so that my parents could be married, so that we can have an African-Amer-ican quarterback in a place like Montana, where you don’t have too much diversity.
“I think it’s important to un-derstand that things really have changed in this country.”
SHaring tHe Same fieldFor most teams in present-day
of college football, the huddle has become a relic of the game’s past like natural grass, H-shaped goal posts or the quick kick.
But Ash hasn’t forgotten what the huddle can be seen to sym-
bolize.“It’s one of the great
unifying symbols in our society,” Ash said. “You get guys from all kinds of differ-ent backgrounds on
the football team, and as you go through everything you go through on a football field, pretty soon the ways you divide people up get blurred. All that matters is that you’re teammates.”
It’s one of the reasons why Burton loves the game of football and believes it’s done wonders combating racism in the United States.
“I look at our team,” Burton said, “and I see white kids from Beaverton, Ore., I see black kids from Oakland, I see Hispanic kids from Los Angeles, I see Asian kids from Newberg, Ore., I see Polynesian kids from Hawaii.
“They come together and form a team and it becomes pretty hard to hold on to prejudices.”
It’s been especially true for Wilson as he’s made the transi-tion from high school to college.
“There’s something that the guy across from you can do that you can’t do,” Wilson said. “I think you get that more in col-lege than you do in high school because the sense of mind that you gain from high school to college.
“We’re all a family. There is no sense of color on the locker room or on the team or with the coaches.”
For McGhee, it has gone even further than that.
“To step out in front of 14,000 fans and having this feeling that they care as much about whether you win or lose as they do about you as a person, it’s pretty spe-cial,” McGhee said. “It’s been an honor to play here.”
Will Holden can be reached at [email protected] and 582-2690.
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200 FOR ASH: Montana State’s Rob Ash earned his 200th career NCAA coaching victory on Saturday with the Bobcats’ overtime win over Sacramento State.
Ash has 24 victories in his fourth season with the Bobcats. He won 51 games at Juniata from 1980-88. Ash then won 125 games in 18 seasons at Drake. Ash is the first coach in Big Sky history to win his 200th career game coaching in the league. Ash is one of seven active coaches at the FCS level with 200 career wins.
Ash is one of three coaches to have coached in the Big Sky to reach 200 career wins. Nevada’s Chris Ault cur-rently has 211 career wins. Jim Sweeney, who coached Montana State from 1963- 67, finished his career with 200 victories, earning the milestone at Fresno State. Ault won 111 games while coaching in the Big Sky, a league record.
ROAD WINS — FINALLY: Northern Arizona, Eastern Washington, Montana and Montana State all earned road victories last Saturday. During the first four weeks of the season, the only road vic-tories by Big Sky teams came by Portland State (at UC Davis) and Northern Arizona (at Idaho State).
Portland State was the only home team to win on Sat-urday. The Vikings opened their home schedule with a 38-3 win over Idaho State at Hillsboro Stadium. Idaho State has lost 17 straight road conference games and 24 straight overall away from Pocatello.
NO JONES: Eastern Wash-ington’s Taiwan Jones sat out last weekend’s 35-24 road win over Weber State with an in-jury. Jones still leads the FCS in all-purpose yards (238.8 yards per game) and his 129.5 rushing yards per game is sixth in the nation.
Jones is expected to play today at home against North-ern Arizona.
Barriers/from 1
Dumas/from 1
B i g S K Y n o t e S
“We all sweat and bleed the same colors.”— Nigel Burton, Portland State head coach
BOBCAT GAME DAYPortland State at Montana State
1:35 p.m. Bobcat Stadium
bozeman daily chronicle Saturday, October 9 , 2010 5|
Big SkY CONFERENCE
Standings
Team Conf. AllMSU 2-0 4-1N. Ariz. 1-0 3-1 Portland St. 1-0 2-2E. Wash. 2-1 3-2 Montana 2-1 3-2Sac. St. 1-2 2-3N. Colo. 1-2 2-3 Weber St. 1-2 2-3Idaho St. 0-3 1-4
Today’s gamesIdaho St. at Montana, 1 p.m.Portland St. at MSU, 1:35 p.m.NAU at E. Wash., 2 p.m.N. Colo. at Sac St., 3 p.m.
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Kicking & punting: MSU continues to excel in both areas. Jason Cun-ningham has proven he has ice in his veins, as he’s 13 of 14 on field goals this year with one game-winner and one 55-yarder.
Returners have still only gained two yards off of Rory Perez’s hang time-heavy punts. Kicker Zach Brown, an all-conference selection last year, and punter Thomas Duyndam have been equally deadly for the Vikings.
The key for both teams will be blocking for kicks and punts. The Bobcats have missed five point-after tries this season because of shoddy blocking and they even had a punt blocked last week, too.
On the flip side, Montana State did man-age to block the game-tying field goal try
from Sacramento State last week, so PSU has to be prepared too.
Returns & coverage: Everett Gilbert and Orenzo Davis have put together some nice kickoff returns this season, but other than that both teams are rather pedestrian when it comes to
returning.As far as covering kicks and punts, both teams
have been solid. And a week after seeing onside kicks attempted
by each team at Sac State, don’t expect to see anything as whacky this week.
Edge: Montana State
Depth chartsMontana State
OffenseLEFT TACKLE
72 Mike Person 6-5/295 Sr
70 Killian Fitzpatrick 6-8/270 Fr
LEFT GUARD
57 Casey Dennehy 6-1/270 So
71 Jesse Hoffmann 6-4/286 Sr
CENTER
56 Shaun Sampson 6-0/249 So
61 Alex Terrien 6-4/285 Jr
RIGHT GUARD
61 Alex Terrien 6-4/285 Jr
71 Jesse Hoffmann 6-4/286 Sr
RIGHT TACKLE
50 Leo Davis 6-4/271 Jr
70 Killian Fitzpatrick 6-8/270 Fr
QUARTERBACK
9 Denarius McGhee 6-0/197 Fr
12 Cody Kempt 6-2/211 Sr
RUNNING BACK
8 Orenzo Davis 5-9/185 Jr
20 C.J. Palmer 6-0/210 Jr
W RECEIVER
14 Everett Gilbert 5-9/180 So
27 DeSean Thomas 6-1/180 Jr
X RECEIVER
1 Elvis Akpla 6-1/187 Jr
86 Tanner Bleskin 6-3/210 Fr
Z RECEIVER
82 Julius Lloyd 6-0/184 Sr
10 Kruiz Siewing 5-11/182 So
TIGHT END
81 Kyle Begger 6-2/245 Jr
88 Shane Robison 6-5/250 Jr
KICKER
15 Jason Cunningham 6-1/162 Jr
DefenseBANDIT
90 Dan Ogden 6-0/270 Sr
34 Preston Gale 6-2/239 Fr
TACKLE
96 Zach Minter 6-2/277 So
63 Zach Logan 6-3/295 Fr
NOSE TACKLE
45 Jason D’Alba 6-2/277 Sr 98 Christian Keli’i 6-0/282 So
END
11 John Laidet 6-5/250 Jr
49 Caleb Schreibeis 6-3/245 So
SAM LINEBACKER
44 Aleksei Grosulak 5-10/250 Fr
9 Roger Trammell 6-1/230 Jr
MIKE LINEBACKER
42 Clay Bignell 6-2/236 Jr
44 Aleksei Grosulak 5-10/250 Fr
WILL LINEBACKER
23 Jody Owens 6-1/214 So
59 Tanner Ripley 6-1/214 Sr
BOUNDARY CORNER
26 Arnold Briggs 5-10/185 Sr
17 Sean Gords 5-10/185 Fr
FREE SAFETY
22 Michael Rider 5-11/196 Sr
32 A. Cosme-Peko 5-11/209 Sr
ROVER
7 Jordan Craney 6-1/205 Sr 5 Joel Fuller 6-0/200 So
FIELD CORNER
13 Darius Jones 5-10/167 So
24 James Andrews 6-1/187 Jr
PUNTER
18 Rory Perez 6-2/180 Fr
Portland State
DefenseLEFT END
99 Jack Forbes 6-3/225 Jr
94 Bryant Long 6-3/245 Fr
LEFT TACKLE
95 Julious Moore 6-0/290 Fr
97 Alika Vaiese 6-1/275 Jr
RIGHT TACKLE
92 Travis Beckley 6-4/285 Sr
98 Josh ah Toon 6-3/280 Fr
RIGHT END
93 Carl Sommer 6-4/260 Jr
32 Brian Walters 6-0/220 Sr
LINEBACKER
42 Joel Sisler 6-2/210 So
40 Quinn Stewart 6-2/220 Jr
LINEBACKER
56 Ryan Rau 6-1/230 Jr
44 Shane Melbo 6-1/220 Jr
LINEBACKER
41 DJ Macarthy 6-0/235 Sr
54 Jaycob Shoemaker 6-0/230 So
CORNERBACK
6 David Ross 6-0/180 Jr
25 Michael Williams 5-9/165 So
STRONG SAFETY
15 Manoa Latu 6-1/205 Jr
27 Donte Almond 6-2/195 Jr
FREE SAFETY
22 Nathan Snow 5-11/190 So
2 Nick Green 6-2/200 So
CORNERBACK
24 Deshawn Shead 6-2/195 Jr
29 Denzel Davis 5-9/170 So
PUNTER
30 Thomas Duyndam 6-4/215 So
OffenseLEFT TACKLE
79 Dustin Waldron 6-6/280 Jr
51 Nick Gale 6-4/280 So
LEFT GUARD
67 Manuel Rojas 6-2/290 So
51 Nick Gale 6-4/280 So
CENTER
61 Adam Kleffner 6-3/310 Jr
72 Dalton Jasso 6-2/280 So
RIGHT GUARD
66 Mitch Gaulke 6-2/265 Fr
73 Seth Giandomenico 6-4/275 Jr
RIGHT TACKLE
69 Kyle Ritt 6-2/290 So
64 Mitchell Van Dyk 6-9/270 Fr
QUARTERBACK
10 Connor Kavanaugh 6-0/180 Jr
14 Tygue Howland 6-3/220 Sr
RUNNING BACK
1 Cory McCaffrey 5-9/180 Jr
28 Willie Griffin 5-8/195 Jr
TIGHT END
91 Rory Richards 6-3/225 Sr
81 Julius Thomas 6-5/240 Sr
RECEIVER
83 Nick Hutter 5-11/180 Sr
12 Kalua Noa 6-1/205 So
RECEIVER
84 Justin Monahan 6-2/185 So
85 Nevin Lewis 6-2/195 So
FLANKER
5 Ray Fry 5-8/180 Sr
87 Keitrell Anderson 5-9/170 So
KICKER
19 Zach Brown 6-1/180 So
THE EDGEportlanD state at Montana state
Passing: Outside of Washington State, this Portland State secondary may be the most talented Denarius McGhee has seen this season. DeShawn Shead has proven himself at the Big Sky level, and fellow corner David Ross, who was ranked the 15th-best corner in the nation coming out of high school when Nigel Burton recruited him to Oregon State, has no business being in the Big Sky. Throw in ballhawking safety Manoa Latu, another member of Burton’s outstanding first recruiting class, and you see why even a team like Arizona State wasn’t able to decimate the Vikings through the air. With sizable and rangy corners like Shead and Ross, don’t expect another huge day from Julius Lloyd or Elvis Akpla. But McGhee has shown he can get by when opposing teams work to take away those weapons. And because PSU doesn’t have any linebackers or safeties who can stick with slot receivers like Everett Gilbert, DeSean Thomas and Kruiz Siewing, along with tight ends like Kyle Begger and Shane Robison, expect those players to come to the forefront today. But the key to all of this is still McGhee. As good as the Vikings may be in coverage, they can’t cover forever. And while Viking defensive end Carl Sommer, another Oregon State transfer, has made strides, PSU’s pass rush is more anemic than the ones MSU has faced the past two weeks. It means McGhee will
have even more time to dissect defenses today, which isn’t good news for PSU. Rushing: Don’t be surprised if you see more of C.J. Palmer this week. In his 12-carry, 131-yard, two-touchdown performance in MSU’s 64-61 win over Sacramento State last week, Palmer showed the kind of speed that has kept him from being a feature back his whole
career. And following that performance, he got much more work in practice this week than he has at any other point this season. If Orenzo Davis isn’t careful, he may end up becoming the change of pace back with Palmer getting the majority of the carries. Both should have success against Portland State’s run defense, which, regardless of the presence of solid linebackers like Ryan Rau and D.J. Macarthy, is bad. Say what you will about the Oregon Ducks and how they’re going to run the ball on anybody, good rush defenses never give up 528 yards to any opponent. I know the Vikings held both UC Davis and Idaho State to under 76 yards on the ground, but both teams are the worst at running the ball in their respective conferences. Meanwhile, MSU is the best rushing offense in the Big Sky, averaging five yards a carry with 12 rushing touchdowns. And the Bobcats may even get two starting offensive lineman back this week. They have all the personnel they need to run on the Vikings today. Edge: Montana State
WHEN MONTANA STATE HAS THE BALL
EDGE
Passing: The strong statement made about the Bobcats’ pass defense in this column last week was supported over the first 30 minutes against the Hornets, as MSU held Sac State quarterback Jeff Flem-ing to 51 yards on less than a 50 percent completion rate while picking him off twice. But everything changed in the third quarter, when MSU gave up a staggering 258 pass yards, with Fleming completing 15 of 24 passes for 258 yards and three touchdowns.
The true Bobcat pass defense is somewhere in between. It obviously hurt them a week ago not having Jordan Craney, having Darius Jones play with a massive cast and having to rely more on true freshmen Sean Gords and Steven Bethley. All those parties should be back at full strength and with more seasoning this week, so it stands to reason that against Portland State’s passing offense, which looks even more lethargic than Sac State’s did coming in, a return to form for MSU’s pass defense, which was the second best in the conference before the Hornet game, could be in order.
The key for the Vikings, like MSU, is their quarter-back. Connor Kavanaugh is not a great passer, but he has a knack for avoiding pressure, which helps him find open receivers and scramble for big gains. The key for MSU today will be containing him, which may be tough for a battered MSU defensive line. But these PSU receivers aren’t exactly special, so at the very least, don’t expect MSU to be gashed through the air for a second straight week.
Rushing: Going back to the point just made, keeping a lid on Kavanaugh is the
key to slowing all aspects of the PSU attack, and that includes rushing. In wins against UC Davis and Idaho State, Kavanaugh rushed for over five yards a carry. That forces defenses to key on PSU’s quarterback, which opens up holes for the crafty Cory McCaffrey, who gained an
astounding 8,460 yards in three years in high school, and the speedy Washington Husky transfer Willie Griffin.
In the Bobcats’ 28-10 win in an ugly, rainy game in Portland last year, they held Kavanaugh to 67 yards on 20 carries. He was sacked four times and passed for 67 yards. But the Bobcats had the services of Clay Bignell, who led the team with eight tackles and 2.5 tackles for a loss in that game, and a very healthy defense line, which logged 2.5 of those four sacks. It’s very likely the Bobcats will have neither today.
Expect Bignell, who didn’t practice all week, to miss his second straight game with an ankle sprain. Expect defensive tackle Dan Ogden, who is consistently banged up, to continue to have pains — growing and otherwise — as he shifts to defensive end to make up for the loss of Dustin O’Connell. Players like Aleksei Grosulak, filling in for Bignell, and Zach Minter, who is getting more work at defensive tackle, will have to prove they can play a full 60 minutes today. After getting scared last week at Sacramento State, expect that they will.
Edge: Montana State
WHEN PORTLAND STATE HAS THE BALL
20
overall Portland State has the ability to sneak up on teams this season, and its talented secondary and run-based pistol offense could both give MSU trouble. But Montana State has too much firepower on offense and will be too motivated on defense for the Vikings to have a chance at slipping by in Bozeman today. The Bobcats come out firing on all cylinders once again, and this time they manage to put their opponent away in the second half.
42Analysis by WILL C. HOLDEN of the Chronicle
special teams
EDGE
EDGE
bozeman daily chronicle Saturday, October 9 , 2010 6 |
BOBCAT GAME DAYPortland State at Montana State
1:35 p.m. Bobcat Stadium