Montana State's veer offense was missing two of its top runners from weeks past, but it still lived up to its billing as the Big Sky's No. 1 rushing team Saturday against Weber State.
At Sales Stadium on homecoming, the Bobcats ran the ball 77 times, gaining 315 yards, mostly on quick dives up the middle, on the way to a 31-27 win over Weber.Forty-four of the runs were dives, and three of those went for touchdowns. Freshman backup tailback Si Ryan's 4-yard dive won the game with 5:40 left. It was Ryan's third TD of the day.
Ryan was listed as No. 2 on the depth chart for Saturday's game, but he'd been lower than that until top tailback Mark Rinehart went down for the season a month ago and another tailback, Steve Haugeberg, went out two weeks ago with a head injury.
Ryan ran 26 times for 112 yards, quarterback John Tetrault provided 106 yards on 21 carries and two more Bobcats had 50 or better yards on the ground.
Weber, meanwhile, ran for 85 yards and passed for 260 yards, Ryan Schmidt doing all the throwing as freshman Jamie Martin never entered the field, although Coach Dave Arslanian had said Martin deserved to play more.
Weber's young receivers piled up good yardage - Melvin Maxwell had two catches for 93 yards, Trevor Shaw four for 49, Nathan Burchette three for 27, and Dave Hall and Rob Trebilcock had one catch each for 16 and 35 yards.
But the I-AA nation's top pass receiver, Peter Macon, who averaged nine catches a game, had but two on Saturday. One pass went off his hands for an interception, and a couple of others bounded away from Macon.
Arslanian explained that a lot of Macon's routes cross over the middle, and Montana State batted the ball away, or Schmidt couldn't throw Macon's way over the outstretched hands. Also, he said, the slick, cold field (it was snowing) made it more difficult for a receiver crossing the middle to keep his footing and look for the ball at the same time. "You don't see the ball coming as quickly, and it slips off those hands," he said. "Take Macon out of there, and it hurts us a lot."
But Macon was there, open on the 4-yard line with minutes left on fourth down, as Weber's final drive that could have produced a winning score ran out. Schmidt, sacked on second and third downs and then chased on fourth down, overthrew Macon. Schmidt said he took too long to throw because of the rush.