Bobcat Playoff Notebook
12/1/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Zach Wolf is finally making it back to the playoffs.
Montana State’s fifth-year senior, who retired after a series of arm and knee surgeries last spring and who graduates soon from MSU, made his Bobcat debut when Mike Kramer inserted him at center during the first-round playoff game at McNeese State during his freshman year, burning his redshirt. Wolf’s activation came in the wake of injuries to starting center Nic Stevenson and backup Ryan Henning.
Wolf played 10 snaps, and after Mike Quast and Travis Lulay misfired on the first snap of the second half, Mataio Toilolo finished the game at center. That was remarkable in and of itself, because Toilolo was considered a no-go with a knee injury.
The next year, as MSU’s starter, Wolf suffered an arm ailment during the week, and underwent surgery on the day the Bobcats traveled to Cedar Falls, Iowa for a first-round game against Northern Iowa in 2003. Kramer brought Wolf – and injured defensive tackle Andy Matakis, who retired during the season due to injuries – along with the team this week to Appalachian State.
“This is Zach’s playoff trip,” Kramer said. “He didn’t get a fair shot at McNeese, and didn’t get to go at all in 2003, so this is his trip.”
• Montana State arrived in the Appalachian region late Thursday night, bussing past the Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, to the delight of Bozeman’s resident NASCAR diehard Gretchen Kramer.
• The Appalachian State campus resides on a spot which, history has it, once served as a hunting camp for Daniel Boone when the legendary frontiersman resided as a young man with his family in Virginia. The Boone family lived for a time south and east of present-day Boone, near Salisbury, before migrating west to Kentucky and eventually Missouri.
• Warren Koegel, the NCAA representative at the MSU-Appalachian playoff site, has some subtle ties to Bobcat head coach Mike Kramer. An assistant coach at Wyoming in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Koegel was nicknamed “The Big Human.” Or, as Kramer now refers to him, “The Original Big Human.” People with ties to both programs transferred that title to Kramer in the mid-1980s. “A very fine person,” Kramer says of Koegel, who he knew during their time as assistants in different parts of the Rocky Mountains. Koegel is now in the process of building a Division I FCS power as the Athletic Director at Coastal Carolina. Coastal lost in the first round at Appalachian State last week.
• By winning the I-AA National Championship last year, Appalachian State became the first school in North Carolina to win an NCAA football title, and the first public school to win a football crown at any level.
• Appalachian State has won 25 straight games at Kidd Brewer Stadium, known as The Rock.
• Saturday’s game is Appalachian State’s eighth home game this year, matching the school record set in 1987.
• Boone is known as the “Firefly Capital of the World,” probably by someone who never spent time in the Midwest.
• App State coach Jerry Moore was Nebraska’s offensive coordinator in the 1970s.
• Appalachian State’s game against the Bobcats Saturday is the Mountaineers’ sixth on an ESPN Family of Networks station, but is MSU’s third, and its first since 1984.
• The Mountaineers are 9-5 in home FCS Playoff games, while MSU is 1-2 in road playoff games, 0-2 at the I-AA level.
• Appalachian State is 0-1 all-time against the Big Sky, while the ‘Cats are 1-0 all-time against the Southern Conference.
Montana State’s fifth-year senior, who retired after a series of arm and knee surgeries last spring and who graduates soon from MSU, made his Bobcat debut when Mike Kramer inserted him at center during the first-round playoff game at McNeese State during his freshman year, burning his redshirt. Wolf’s activation came in the wake of injuries to starting center Nic Stevenson and backup Ryan Henning.
Wolf played 10 snaps, and after Mike Quast and Travis Lulay misfired on the first snap of the second half, Mataio Toilolo finished the game at center. That was remarkable in and of itself, because Toilolo was considered a no-go with a knee injury.
The next year, as MSU’s starter, Wolf suffered an arm ailment during the week, and underwent surgery on the day the Bobcats traveled to Cedar Falls, Iowa for a first-round game against Northern Iowa in 2003. Kramer brought Wolf – and injured defensive tackle Andy Matakis, who retired during the season due to injuries – along with the team this week to Appalachian State.
“This is Zach’s playoff trip,” Kramer said. “He didn’t get a fair shot at McNeese, and didn’t get to go at all in 2003, so this is his trip.”
• Montana State arrived in the Appalachian region late Thursday night, bussing past the Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, to the delight of Bozeman’s resident NASCAR diehard Gretchen Kramer.
• The Appalachian State campus resides on a spot which, history has it, once served as a hunting camp for Daniel Boone when the legendary frontiersman resided as a young man with his family in Virginia. The Boone family lived for a time south and east of present-day Boone, near Salisbury, before migrating west to Kentucky and eventually Missouri.
• Warren Koegel, the NCAA representative at the MSU-Appalachian playoff site, has some subtle ties to Bobcat head coach Mike Kramer. An assistant coach at Wyoming in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Koegel was nicknamed “The Big Human.” Or, as Kramer now refers to him, “The Original Big Human.” People with ties to both programs transferred that title to Kramer in the mid-1980s. “A very fine person,” Kramer says of Koegel, who he knew during their time as assistants in different parts of the Rocky Mountains. Koegel is now in the process of building a Division I FCS power as the Athletic Director at Coastal Carolina. Coastal lost in the first round at Appalachian State last week.
• By winning the I-AA National Championship last year, Appalachian State became the first school in North Carolina to win an NCAA football title, and the first public school to win a football crown at any level.
• Appalachian State has won 25 straight games at Kidd Brewer Stadium, known as The Rock.
• Saturday’s game is Appalachian State’s eighth home game this year, matching the school record set in 1987.
• Boone is known as the “Firefly Capital of the World,” probably by someone who never spent time in the Midwest.
• App State coach Jerry Moore was Nebraska’s offensive coordinator in the 1970s.
• Appalachian State’s game against the Bobcats Saturday is the Mountaineers’ sixth on an ESPN Family of Networks station, but is MSU’s third, and its first since 1984.
• The Mountaineers are 9-5 in home FCS Playoff games, while MSU is 1-2 in road playoff games, 0-2 at the I-AA level.
• Appalachian State is 0-1 all-time against the Big Sky, while the ‘Cats are 1-0 all-time against the Southern Conference.
Wednesday, August 19
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Monday, March 23
Friday, March 13
