You could not have followed the football fortunes of the programs at the University of Montana and Montana State University for as long as I have without developing some pretty strong historical perspectives.
I’ve had the opportunity, and the pleasure, to have closely watched the Grizzlies and Bobcats for nearly 50 years – the first 35 as a sports journalist, and more recently as a supportive fan of both programs.
I’ve seen up-close-and-personal the highs and the lows — the national championships, as well as the long losing streaks.
I’ve seen the really good – the Walter Payton and Buck Buchanan awards for outstanding individual players. And I’ve seen the not-so-good – coaching staffs fired whether they deserved it or not.
It’s been a good long run since I arrived in Montana back in 1975, fresh from jobs in Wisconsin and Oregon and anxious to see what kind of football they played out here in Big Sky Country.
It didn’t take me long to discover that the MSU Bobcats played good enough football to win the NCAA Division II national championship in 1976. And that they were plenty good enough to capture the Division I-AA national title in 1984, a game I covered in Charleston, South Carolina.
It took a few years, but the Montana Grizzlies finally earned their first I-AA national championship in 1995 behind the pride and joy of Great Falls, quarterback Dave Dickensen, who guided UM past Marshall in the Thundering Herd’s own stadium in Huntington, West Virginia. I was there that week along with about 4,000 other Treasure State fans to witness Grizzly sports history being made by a CMR legend and plenty of other Treasure State athletes.
That feat ignited the greatest run of success in UM annals, as the Grizzlies advanced to the national championship game five times in the next 13 years, although they won just once, in 2001 when coach Joe Glenn brought home a title in only his second year on the job.
Over the years, I saw plenty of outstanding quarterbacks guide the offenses in Bozeman and Missoula. Travis Lulay and DeNarius McGhee each accumulated more than 10,000 yards through the air in their MSU careers, and were good runners and fine team leaders. But they were not national champions.
Montana also boasted many superb throwers like Brian Ah Yat and Grady Bennett, capable of 400-yard performances every game. But they were not national champions.
Neither the Cats nor the Griz were able to develop another quarterback quite like Dickensen, an undersized athlete with the ability and the intellect to elevate an entire offense — and an entire football program – to new heights.
Until now.
When Tommy Mellott arrived in Bozeman four years ago, he brought a new and dynamic element to a good program that hadn’t been great in many years. Yes, it took a while for the Bobcat staff to realize that Tommy wasn’t just a good prospect, but an athlete with the strength and speed and brains to lift the program to a new level. Turns out, a much higher level.
Like Dickensen, Tommy is a homegrown kid, a Butte High graduate who went unrecruited by bigger schools who weren’t sure he had the skills to be a traditional quarterback. The Bobcats even tried him at receiver and on kicking teams before making him their starting QB late in the 2021 season.
The rest is history.
Touchdown Tommy led MSU to the Football Championship Subdivision title game in 2021, and to playoff runs the next two years despite sharing quarterback duties with Sean Chambers.
This season, finally healthy and operating as the No. 1 option in the run-pass option attack designed for him by coach Brent Vigen, Tommy has guided the Bobcats to a 15-0 record heading into the national championship game Monday night in Frisco, Texas. The eyes of the football world will be on the Cats as they shoot for their first national title in 40 years.
Like Dave Dickenson 29 years ago, Tommy heads into the Big Game as the winner of the Walter Payton Award, symbolic of the best offensive player in the FCS ranks. They are the only UM or MSU players to be so honored. Like Dave, Touchdown Tommy has been humble about receiving national honors, preferring to share the glory with his teammates.
Whether Tommy joins Dave as a national champion will be determined in just a few hours. But in the mind of this keen observer, those two are already at the top of the list when it comes to Treasure State football heroes.
Author: Staff
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