Schubert Dyche (left), pictured with Tom Dolan and Felt Adams of the 1929 coaching staff, led the Cats to Lubbock and beyond in 1938
Photo by: MSU Library
BOBCAT HISTORY LESSON; Montana State's First Trip to Texas Tech was Quite an Odyssey
8/30/2019 12:00:00 PM | Football
The 1938 season opener launched a three-week, three-game season-opening trip
Here's a look at the history of Montana State's series with this week's opponent, including memories by men who saw the games.
All-Time Series: Texas Tech leads 1-0, a 35-0 win at Tech Field in Lubbock to open the 1938 season.
In Bozeman: The teams have never met
At Opponent: Texas Tech leads 1-0
Streaks and Stuff
Since one game does not a winning streak comprise, the most interesting streak from the data available is that the Red Raiders have shout out Montana State in four consecutive quarters.
Here's a Good Story
Montana State opened its 1938 season at Texas Tech on September 17, 1938, and from a distance the 35-0 Red Raiders victory appears somewhat ordinary. But that season opener was anything but routine.
The Bobcats left for West Texas on August 31 by train, and Coach Schubert Dyche, assistant Brick Breeden, athletic trainer Felt Adams and the team's 36 players (per the 1939 Montanan) made stops in Casper, Denver, Trinidad, Colorado, and Amarillo, Texas along the way. The Cats were outfitted with blue-and-gold embroidered jackets advertising Gallatin Gateway as an access point to Yellowstone National Park, and "(u)pon reaching (the) Lubbock, Texas, stomping ground of Texas Tech, our boys were shown real western hospitality – that is to a certain point," the Montanan recorded. "The Red Raiders entertained our boys In truly royal fashion" and "presented our team with a beautiful blanket of Texas Tech colors…"
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said the plight of "the Montanas was the same that a minor league baseball team would have against the Yanks or the Pittsburghs, and this is said with all due respect to Coach Dyche and his clan. The Bobcats were outweighed, outnumbered and generally outclassed." Montana State's one shining moment came on a 21-yard run by Max Stark, then a star Bobcat halfback and in years to come the father of MSU track coach Rob Stark and a fixture for years in Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. The sophomore "unreeled the Bobcats' longest run, a 21-yard sprint that had the folks rising to their feet and applauding."
But in the end Texas Tech logged a 35-0 win, and that was not the end of the story. After that contest against the powerful Red Raiders, whose undefeated regular season included wins over Montana and Wyoming before a Cotton Bowl loss to Saint Mary's closed the season with a no. 11 national ranking, the Cats headed for a game at New Mexico State the next Friday. Montana State visited Carlsbad Caverns setting up headquarters in El Paso, Texas. The Cats and Aggies were tied 7-7 at halftime, but NMSU pulled away for a 27-7 win. Dyche had identified finding a "speed merchant to put an individual threat in the offense" as a top priority after the Texas Tech game, per the Billings Gazette, along with shoring up "a gaping weakness in the pass defense."
Of Texas Tech's 348 total yards, 135 came through the air on just four pass completions. The pass defense may not have improved much in Las Cruces. While the Montana described a Bobcat team that "showed a more determined spirit and more driving power than had previously been shown," the team's undoing was "a sizzling New Mexico passing attack, which seemed to have befuddled the Bobcats completely…"
And if this wasn't enough football for the Cats before classes had even begun in Bozeman, the team trooped on to Salt Lake City, where "the travel-weary Bobcats met Utah University's mighty Redskins." Utah scored two touchdowns in the game's first five minutes, won 34-0, and the final damage on Montana State's three-week, three-game season-opening road trip was 96 points allowed, seven points scored. (Thanks to Jeff Welsch of 406mtsports.com for archival research.)
Memory
From Sam Drake, Sports Editor of the Toreador, Texas Tech's student newspaper, in the September 19, 1938 edition: "Those Red Raiders – practically all 43 of them – rambled rough-shod over the Montana State's (sic) baubling Bobcats Saturday night. In piling up five touchdowns to win 35-0, the silk-bedecked Raiders opened the season's 'cobblestone' slate auspiciously against and eleven highly regarded in the Rocky Mountain league. From now on it's 'There goes the Raiders–clear the way.'"
Texas Tech crossed the goal line on three of its four first quarter possessions, and held the Cats to just two first downs and a net -2 total yards in the game. Texas Tech's final two touchdowns were somewhat curious. Leading 21-0 in the second quarter, Red Raider reserve Jodie Marek "shot a pass to Prince Scott" for a 52-yard gain, according to the Toreador. "(Several) Bobcats tackled him seven hards short of the goal line. The ball bounded from his arms and rolled over the goal line. Leonard Latch made haste and covered it for another touchdown." In the fourth quarter, "(m)ost of (Texas Tech's) regulars had returned for the final session." A 49-yard pass set up an easy touchdown to provide the final margin. "Coach Dyche's squad was a willing and ambitious squad. (Lineman) Max Kimberly and one or two others showed quite a lot. But the Bobcats were outclassed, outnumbered, and out-weighed."
All-Time Series: Texas Tech leads 1-0, a 35-0 win at Tech Field in Lubbock to open the 1938 season.
In Bozeman: The teams have never met
At Opponent: Texas Tech leads 1-0
Streaks and Stuff
Since one game does not a winning streak comprise, the most interesting streak from the data available is that the Red Raiders have shout out Montana State in four consecutive quarters.
Here's a Good Story
Montana State opened its 1938 season at Texas Tech on September 17, 1938, and from a distance the 35-0 Red Raiders victory appears somewhat ordinary. But that season opener was anything but routine.
The Bobcats left for West Texas on August 31 by train, and Coach Schubert Dyche, assistant Brick Breeden, athletic trainer Felt Adams and the team's 36 players (per the 1939 Montanan) made stops in Casper, Denver, Trinidad, Colorado, and Amarillo, Texas along the way. The Cats were outfitted with blue-and-gold embroidered jackets advertising Gallatin Gateway as an access point to Yellowstone National Park, and "(u)pon reaching (the) Lubbock, Texas, stomping ground of Texas Tech, our boys were shown real western hospitality – that is to a certain point," the Montanan recorded. "The Red Raiders entertained our boys In truly royal fashion" and "presented our team with a beautiful blanket of Texas Tech colors…"
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said the plight of "the Montanas was the same that a minor league baseball team would have against the Yanks or the Pittsburghs, and this is said with all due respect to Coach Dyche and his clan. The Bobcats were outweighed, outnumbered and generally outclassed." Montana State's one shining moment came on a 21-yard run by Max Stark, then a star Bobcat halfback and in years to come the father of MSU track coach Rob Stark and a fixture for years in Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. The sophomore "unreeled the Bobcats' longest run, a 21-yard sprint that had the folks rising to their feet and applauding."
But in the end Texas Tech logged a 35-0 win, and that was not the end of the story. After that contest against the powerful Red Raiders, whose undefeated regular season included wins over Montana and Wyoming before a Cotton Bowl loss to Saint Mary's closed the season with a no. 11 national ranking, the Cats headed for a game at New Mexico State the next Friday. Montana State visited Carlsbad Caverns setting up headquarters in El Paso, Texas. The Cats and Aggies were tied 7-7 at halftime, but NMSU pulled away for a 27-7 win. Dyche had identified finding a "speed merchant to put an individual threat in the offense" as a top priority after the Texas Tech game, per the Billings Gazette, along with shoring up "a gaping weakness in the pass defense."
Of Texas Tech's 348 total yards, 135 came through the air on just four pass completions. The pass defense may not have improved much in Las Cruces. While the Montana described a Bobcat team that "showed a more determined spirit and more driving power than had previously been shown," the team's undoing was "a sizzling New Mexico passing attack, which seemed to have befuddled the Bobcats completely…"
And if this wasn't enough football for the Cats before classes had even begun in Bozeman, the team trooped on to Salt Lake City, where "the travel-weary Bobcats met Utah University's mighty Redskins." Utah scored two touchdowns in the game's first five minutes, won 34-0, and the final damage on Montana State's three-week, three-game season-opening road trip was 96 points allowed, seven points scored. (Thanks to Jeff Welsch of 406mtsports.com for archival research.)
Memory
From Sam Drake, Sports Editor of the Toreador, Texas Tech's student newspaper, in the September 19, 1938 edition: "Those Red Raiders – practically all 43 of them – rambled rough-shod over the Montana State's (sic) baubling Bobcats Saturday night. In piling up five touchdowns to win 35-0, the silk-bedecked Raiders opened the season's 'cobblestone' slate auspiciously against and eleven highly regarded in the Rocky Mountain league. From now on it's 'There goes the Raiders–clear the way.'"
Texas Tech crossed the goal line on three of its four first quarter possessions, and held the Cats to just two first downs and a net -2 total yards in the game. Texas Tech's final two touchdowns were somewhat curious. Leading 21-0 in the second quarter, Red Raider reserve Jodie Marek "shot a pass to Prince Scott" for a 52-yard gain, according to the Toreador. "(Several) Bobcats tackled him seven hards short of the goal line. The ball bounded from his arms and rolled over the goal line. Leonard Latch made haste and covered it for another touchdown." In the fourth quarter, "(m)ost of (Texas Tech's) regulars had returned for the final session." A 49-yard pass set up an easy touchdown to provide the final margin. "Coach Dyche's squad was a willing and ambitious squad. (Lineman) Max Kimberly and one or two others showed quite a lot. But the Bobcats were outclassed, outnumbered, and out-weighed."
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