BOBCAT HISTORY LESSON: MSU's Return to the Gridiron Echoes a 1919 Trip to Casper
9/3/2021 10:40:00 AM | Football
MSU's trip to Wyoming reverberates through the decades
BOZEMAN, Montana – Excitement is in the air as the Montana State Bobcats travel to Wyoming for a program reboot, after a global pandemic wiped out the previous season. The presence of a first-year head football coach raises the anxiety level.
But the question exists: what year are we talking about, exactly? Because this has happened before.
Before dawn on October 10, 1919, the Bobcats boarded a train at the depot on Bozeman's eastern edge and headed to Casper, Wyoming, where the Cats and Cowboys got together in the first meeting between these schools and the first football game for Montana State since 1917. It was time to go.
Walter Powell and manager Harold Dickson led a contingent of 16 men, thinned by World War I and lingering military obligations, and also by eligibility requirements that banned the use of freshmen. Returning star Homer Taylor paced the Cats at quarterback, and some of the program's best players of its first quarter-century populated the roster. Pat Morphey, Anker Christensen and Gob Robertson manned the middle of the line, and ends John and Ladimir Mashin also proved formidable as the season progressed.
Wyoming brought an experienced unit on what passed for a bus in 1919, having a deeper group of returners to begin with and having already dropped a couple of contests to rival Colorado A&M. Wyoming blocked a Bobcat punt and recovered on the Montana State eight, but the Bobcats held and took over on downs. In the second quarter the Bobcats marched to the Wyoming 20, but an interception ended that drive. The first half ended scoreless.
Wyoming received a boost in the third quarter when Wilson, the team's starting quarterback, entered the game. He had been injured against Colorado A&M and was not expected to play, but in giving it a go engineered a drive to the Montana State five. From there Layman punched it in for the game's only score. Milward Simpson missed the PAT, and Wyoming's 6-0 margin was never really threatened in the remainder of the game.
The Exponent reported that the "small crowd" was "vociferous and enthusiastic. Several times during the game the referee was compelled to take out time to warn the spectators to back off the field when they pressed over the sidelines in their eagerness to watch the plays."
In the years after World War I, Montana State began operating as a Rocky Mountain Conference school, beginning a series with Wyoming – the teams met 14 times from 1919 to 1936, when Wyoming joined several of the league's schools in forming the Skyline Conference – and regularly playing the loop's western schools in Utah. The Cats finished Walter Powell's only campaign in Bozeman 1-3-1, with the only win against Montana Tech and while tying the Grizzlies. Under Tubby Graves' direction the Cats improved in 1920 and 1921, but in 1922 Ott Romney showed up and led the program to its best years until the 1950s.
There was not much chatter in the Exponent or Montanan in 1919 about returning from the trauma of war and pandemic, but that won't be the case for Montana State when the Cats take the field at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie on Saturday. The excitement for college football's return has been high for months.
But the question exists: what year are we talking about, exactly? Because this has happened before.
Before dawn on October 10, 1919, the Bobcats boarded a train at the depot on Bozeman's eastern edge and headed to Casper, Wyoming, where the Cats and Cowboys got together in the first meeting between these schools and the first football game for Montana State since 1917. It was time to go.
Walter Powell and manager Harold Dickson led a contingent of 16 men, thinned by World War I and lingering military obligations, and also by eligibility requirements that banned the use of freshmen. Returning star Homer Taylor paced the Cats at quarterback, and some of the program's best players of its first quarter-century populated the roster. Pat Morphey, Anker Christensen and Gob Robertson manned the middle of the line, and ends John and Ladimir Mashin also proved formidable as the season progressed.
Wyoming brought an experienced unit on what passed for a bus in 1919, having a deeper group of returners to begin with and having already dropped a couple of contests to rival Colorado A&M. Wyoming blocked a Bobcat punt and recovered on the Montana State eight, but the Bobcats held and took over on downs. In the second quarter the Bobcats marched to the Wyoming 20, but an interception ended that drive. The first half ended scoreless.
Wyoming received a boost in the third quarter when Wilson, the team's starting quarterback, entered the game. He had been injured against Colorado A&M and was not expected to play, but in giving it a go engineered a drive to the Montana State five. From there Layman punched it in for the game's only score. Milward Simpson missed the PAT, and Wyoming's 6-0 margin was never really threatened in the remainder of the game.
The Exponent reported that the "small crowd" was "vociferous and enthusiastic. Several times during the game the referee was compelled to take out time to warn the spectators to back off the field when they pressed over the sidelines in their eagerness to watch the plays."
In the years after World War I, Montana State began operating as a Rocky Mountain Conference school, beginning a series with Wyoming – the teams met 14 times from 1919 to 1936, when Wyoming joined several of the league's schools in forming the Skyline Conference – and regularly playing the loop's western schools in Utah. The Cats finished Walter Powell's only campaign in Bozeman 1-3-1, with the only win against Montana Tech and while tying the Grizzlies. Under Tubby Graves' direction the Cats improved in 1920 and 1921, but in 1922 Ott Romney showed up and led the program to its best years until the 1950s.
There was not much chatter in the Exponent or Montanan in 1919 about returning from the trauma of war and pandemic, but that won't be the case for Montana State when the Cats take the field at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie on Saturday. The excitement for college football's return has been high for months.
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