NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Montana State football team now knows the routine.
Fly into the host city for the FCS national championship game on Friday and arrive at your hotel to a welcoming crowd of fans and parents. Get your team photo taken at the stadium Saturday, answer questions from media members and then go through practice.
There are events, gatherings and obligations — among countless distractions in a destination like Music City and place like the Gaylord Opryland Resort, where the team is staying — throughout a whirlwind weekend before the biggest game of the season eventually kicks off at 6:30 p.m. local time on Monday.
HEAR FROM THE BOBCATS:
“This stuff is great and doing this is a great opportunity, but we’re not here for the media day,” Bobcats offensive lineman Titan Fleischmann said during his scrum with reporters Saturday at FirstBank Stadium. “We’re not here for the Nashville environment, we’re not here for all that. We’re here to play a football game and win a football game.”
Fleischmann’s message was a common refrain among the Cats players, who have seemed to follow the lead of their even-keeled coach. Brent Vigen held his first on-site press conference Saturday on the campus of Vanderbilt University.
“We’re real excited to be back and real excited to be here in Nashville,” Vigen said in his opening remarks. “This opportunity we don’t take lightly. It’s a long road to get here.”
Photos: Montana State, Illinois State meet media in Nashville
It’s a road Vigen and the Bobcats have learned well. The program has reached the semifinal round of the FCS playoffs five times since 2019 — that 2019 appearance under Jeff Choate ended a drought that extended to 1984 when the Bobcats last won the national title.
During Vigen’s five-year tenure, Montana State has played in the semifinals four times and now advanced to the championship game three times. The Bobcats lost to North Dakota State in their past two trips to the title game.
“Right after (last season's) national championship game, me and Paul (Brott) called on the phone for quite a while, and we were just like, ‘We’re going to do this, we’re going to get this done,’” recalled Fleischmann, a redshirt junior. “Like, everyone’s counting us out. Like, endless amounts of tweets about how we’re not going to make it back here. Well, guess what? I’m here talking to you.”
The Bobcats’ path to Nashville hasn’t been without its hiccups. They started the season with two consecutive losses, and injuries forced them to shuffle their offensive line. Fleischmann, for example, is playing his first season at guard after previously starting at tackle.
But players have quickly acclimated and “young bucks,” as Fleischmann calls them, have filled roles vacated by the likes of Marcus Wehr and Conner Moore on the offensive line and Brody Grebe and Rylan Ortt on defense.
Montana State has 25 freshmen and sophomores listed on its two-deep roster, and more than a dozen figure to play crucial roles in Monday’s title tilt with Illinois State.
“You got to keep the main thing the main thing. You can’t go out there and worry about all the outside noise,” senior defensive end Kenneth Eiden IV said. “Yes, we’re in a cool hotel. Yes, we’re in a new stadium. Yes, we’re in a whole new environment.
“But at the end of the day, it’s still the same group of guys doing the same thing — playing football, knowing your job, doing your job. And so I think that’s just something that we’ve tried to take as a forefront of this trip — make sure we’re keeping the main thing the main thing, stay focused, enjoy it, have fun.
“But we’re here to win a football game.”
