1908 Bobcats
BOBCAT CALENDAR: Today in 1908 the Bobcats Finished their Season with a 5-0 Win Over the Grizzlies, Presented by Inland Northwest Toyota Dealers Association
11/21/2020 12:03:00 PM | Football
Charlie Fransham scored the day's only touchdown as MAC closed its first football season after a two-year hiatus
November 21
SPOTLIGHT: It's nothing more than a line in a media guide today, but Montana State's 5-0 win against the Grizzlies today in 1908 proved to be historic.
Most significantly, it capped a period of eight seasons that saw Montana's Agricultural College compile a 7-1-1 record against the University. It would be the College's final win against UM until 1929.
Said the Montanan: "The Varsity was puffed up before that game but extremely dejected after it for the Aggies won a glorious victory, with a score of 5 to 0. The visitors were lucky to get off with those figures for they were outclassed throughout the second half and, but for two costly fumbles we would have scored a couple more touchdowns."
At the Inter-State Fairgrounds, Charlie Fransham's 70-yard run "carrying the pigskin straight between the goal posts" accounted for the day's only points. (Touchdowns counted for five points during that period, and Fransham himself missed the extra point.) While the Exponent said the "University worked an invincible forward pass which was seldom broken up by the Aggies," Montana State controlled the line of scrimmage, advanced the ball freely on the ground, and won the game.
This was Montana State's first season on the gridiron after a two-year absence fueled by a desire of the faculty and administration to more thoroughly control both the eligibility and financial aspects of football at the school.
In 1905, the Aggies opened the season with a win over the Fort Shaw Indians, then lost at Idaho and Washington State on the team's first-ever out-of-state road trip. Nearly one month after returning, the College battled Utah State to a 5-5 tie, but an unnamed player under academic suspension from the school played in the game and four other players were implicated in the issue. The December edition of the Exponent explained it this way: "The annual Thanksgiving game with Missoula, we are sorry to say, had to be cancelled. In the Utah game the team played a man who was at that time under suspension and whom the faculty had forbidden to play. Four of the squad were suspended for this and as a result, the remainder of the team refused to play any more."
The Montana Agricultural College faculty abolished football for two years, according to The Blue and Gold Annual, published in the spring of 1906. The October 1907 Exponent reported:
"A special assembly was held on Wednesday, September 25, in order to discuss the feasibility of having a football team this season. After a thorough discussion by students and members of the faculty, the question was finally put to a vote of the student body but resulted in the majority of votes cast against football."
The primary reason cited for honoring the second year of what began as a two-year suspension of football was the Walter Knox, who coached basketball and the spring sports in 1906-07, could not get to Bozeman in time to coach the football team. It would also cost $250 to restart the program, and the funding wasn't available. Finally, the late start was cited as a hindrance." Left unsaid, but possibly a factor, was that "the Montana State College basketball team is the pride of the institution," according to the 1908 Montanan.
When Montana State's football program reassembled in 1908 new coach John McIntosh found a fair amount of talent. but McIntosh himself may have been the indication of some success. He had starred in football, earning all-league honors as a fullback, along with baseball and track, at Georgia, and after earning his law degree there he lived in New Mexico before coaching at Colorado Mines for a year and then becoming Colorado State's athletics director and football coach in 1904-05. After relocating to Butte, McIntosh was hired as Montana State's athletic director and coach as part of a reorginization that included the establishment of an athletics commission comprised of faculty members and student-athletes, a Faculty Committee on Athletics, and an executive committee including graduates of the college and local community members.
The Montanan put it this way in the spring of 1909: "Athletics underwent a change during the Spring and Fall of 1908. The new regime was ushered in with the establishment of a system whereby an athletic director, who has general charge of athletics and coaches each of the teams, was engaged. Heretofore coaching was done at M.A.C. in a desultory way. One season would see a coach and the next season would be marked by an absence of a coach and trainer. One team would have the advantage of coaching and another team would scuffle along as best it could without one. Last year the student body and the State Board arrived at the wise conclusion that a much better system was to bring to the college a man of education and competent to coach the several branches of college athletics. Such a man was to be with the institution by the year and to be a member of the faculty."
BOBCAT GAMES ON TODAY'S DATE
2015 - #17 UM 54, MSU 35
2009 - UM 33, MSU 19
1998 - at UM 28, MSU 21
1992 - at UNLV 26, MSU 7
1925 - at BYU 17, MSU 7
1908 - MSU 5, UM 0
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