The Bobcat Nation

If you want to start worrying again, take a look at ISU.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Bengals will bring to Bozeman the best offense we've seen thus far.

They are averaging EXACTLY 400 yards per game; although they did play NAIA Western, they gave DI Kentucky ALL they could handle.

ISU is averaging 188 yards rushing and 212 passing per game. Their balance reminds me of..... that's right kids, Cal Poly!

Defensively, they gave up an eye-popping 425 yards to Eastern; that # would've easily been over 500 were it not for 4 turnovers.

This game could end up being our first "shoot out" of the season, unless our D establishes itself early.

We CANNOT turn the ball over in this game. Although I believe our offense will continue to improve as the season wears on, we are not as explosive as Eastern right now and they lost thanks mainly to turnovers.

The good news (not that these "game links" ever matter): ISU beat Southern Utah by a similar score that SFA did: ISU 38 SUU 13; SFA 40 SUU 17.

If you recall, we beat SFA in Bozeman pretty soundly. That's my early "silver lining" factoid of the day...

Sorry Gato, I'm not convinced that Idaho State is more than a one-hit wonder. I believe they are a very good team at home, on turf and under the dome. But get them away......

I'm taking the Cats in this one....by 10+

Meat,

I'm not saying I won't pick the Cats; I would just like to see EVERYONE prepare as if we were playing NDSU EVERY week.

El_Gato wrote:Meat,

I'm not saying I won't pick the Cats; I would just like to see EVERYONE prepare as if we were playing NDSU EVERY week.

I'd prefer it if were preparing like we were playing USC every week.

Idaho State might have the scariest receivers in the entire conference. Tall, fast guys. Remember the game last season-it appeared like they were going to have their way with us, then one of their best receivers drops an easy catch the would have been a touchdown. If I recall they ended up fumbling deep in their territory on the next play and MSU eventually eeked out the win.

ISU's message board:

http://thebengalden.com

lmao

bradb starts and finishes nearly EVERY thread. Count your blessings, citizens.

(Bac, you're not bradb, are you?)

I waste enough of the workday on the sites I visit already -- not enough time left for the Bengals, unfortunately. Some other poster ... with a serious case of brad envy, obviously!

El_Gato wrote:lmao

bradb starts and finishes nearly EVERY thread. Count your blessings, citizens.

(Bac, you're not bradb, are you?)

Not EVERY thread. In fact, only a few like on links to Big Sky news. For those of you who don't know, we were playing well on special teams. We were making EWU start from deep on their half. They had to work the ball down a good portion of the field while we were having great returns and ending up with great field position. That would help explain the number of yards that EWU posted. Oh yeah, EWU has Meyer, Kimble, and Cole to help as well.

I think it will be a good game. I was at Bozeman for your Homecoming last time and I remember what happened. I don't think I am the only one who does. This is going to be a pretty good game. I cannot make it this time but I am going to watch it on TV.

Hope to see more of you over on the Bengal board! By the way, bradb is the former "color guy" for Bengal football games, and he now hosts the weekly coaches show on the radio. There is actually an internet segment on the show where he takes questions which were posed on the message board and asks them to the coach. It's a great feature to integrate the two, actually. It's still a relatively new board, and more and more are using it (and I have no problem with people on there "encouraging" conversation).

Don't compare ISU's and SFA's scores with SUU. We easily could have scored 50 on the T'birds (they're just not that good), but by grinding it out on the ground, we're limiting the other's offense and taking up valuable time.

Here's to a good game this weekend!

snake,

Your offense will no doubt have some success with your balanced attack. As I stated, I worry about you moving the ball like Cal Poly did.

The thing is, I don't think your D is as talented as Poly's and I KNOW that ISU doesn't have Kramer locked in a brain-freeze the way Poly does. I do think our offense will have some success against your D and I'm confident that our defense won't be as porous as EWU's.

Add in the fact that weather will undoubtedly be a factor and I'd have to say MSU should be favored by a touchdown or so. In case you missed it, I predicted a win by you guys last week over EWU so I hope no one in Bozeman is "looking past" the Bengals.

I feel the same way. I don't want to look past MSU. The weather will be a factor. This is why each player is submersing themselves in ice water for 3 hours a day to adapt to the chilly weather of Montana. Just kidding.

I don't want to predict this game. I hope it comes down to the wire and ISU is in the red zone with a few seconds left. Should be interesting.

snake wrote:...I hope it comes down to the wire and ISU is in the red zone with a few seconds left. Should be interesting.

As long as we're up by 9, I'm cool with that!

Good luck!

El_Gato wrote:

snake wrote:...I hope it comes down to the wire and ISU is in the red zone with a few seconds left. Should be interesting.

As long as we're up by 9, I'm cool with that!

Good luck!

I think you meant what I knew.

It will be interesting to see how Bailey & Co. try to go about moving the football vs the Bengals this Saturday. ISU's D has been super vs the run, holding their first 4 opponents to to 60 yards/game on the ground.

Their pass D gave up 364 vs EWU last week but are yielding only about 250/game (not counting Western).

Our short passing attack was obviously effective vs NDSU but I would LOVE to establish the run and keep ISU's O off the field. Given our lack of success running thus far & ISU's ability to stop the run, I don't see that happening, however.

I suspect we'll see a lot more of what we saw against NDSU; dink/dunk and hope to occasionally get a big play over the top or pop a long run following a short catch. When ISU watches the NDSU tapes, no doubt their DB's will be looking to jump our short routes; I hope they end up going as big plays OUR way...

This is going to be another VERY tough game...

Look for a great game; hope I don't have to watch your receivers in the middle like the last game I watched in Bozo where your staff evidently saw Ioane liked to cheat and play the run and continually burned his butt. If Lewis watches what NDSU did on their last drive, Force and Grenfell are really going to have to step up and literally play over their heads--but I'm pretty certain our secondary coach won't allow the same type of meltdown we saw last year

Cat Grad wrote:Look for a great game; hope I don't have to watch your receivers in the middle like the last game I watched in Bozo where your staff evidently saw Ioane liked to cheat and play the run and continually burned his butt. If Lewis watches what NDSU did on their last drive, Force and Grenfell are really going to have to step up and literally play over their heads--but I'm pretty certain our secondary coach won't allow the same type of meltdown we saw last year

According to some fans on thebengalden.com, it sounds like ISU's quarterback has a tough time throwing the deep ball. It sounds like teams have had success loading the box to stop the run, and then taking their chances on the deep ball.

Evidently they haven't had that great of success, as ISU's only lost one game.

I hope you're right. I know we've been burned in the middle for too long now and I think it was ISU two years ago that exposed our secondaries tendency to play the run first--as I posted earlier, I think our new secondary coach will fix this real fast.

wbtfg wrote:

Cat Grad wrote:Look for a great game; hope I don't have to watch your receivers in the middle like the last game I watched in Bozo where your staff evidently saw Ioane liked to cheat and play the run and continually burned his butt. If Lewis watches what NDSU did on their last drive, Force and Grenfell are really going to have to step up and literally play over their heads--but I'm pretty certain our secondary coach won't allow the same type of meltdown we saw last year

According to some fans on thebengalden.com, it sounds like ISU's quarterback has a tough time throwing the deep ball. It sounds like teams have had success loading the box to stop the run, and then taking their chances on the deep ball.

Evidently they haven't had that great of success, as ISU's only lost one game.

But you know what happens when teams lob it up one-on-one against our secondary. Yellow laundry all over no matter what the outcome.

ISU is surely the dark horse this year after the win against EWU. Best of luck to the Cats in another tough game!