Even when another team besides North Dakota State wins the FCS Championship, it has been hard to keep the 10-time champion Bison 100% out of the picture.
This time around, former NDSU tight end and assistant coach Brent Vigen won his first national championship as a head coach with Montana State on Monday in a 35-34 overtime thriller in Nashville. The Illinois State Redbirds, which beat the Bison in the second round, pushed the Bobcats to the brink with a second-half rally.
“What a hard-fought game. These things aren’t supposed to come easily,” Vigen told reporters afterward. “The first thing I want to do is credit Coach Spack and that team. We knew their track record, and we knew they wouldn’t go away.
Vigen knows that championship pedigree all too well. He served on staff for the first three FCS national championship teams at NDSU between 2011 and 2013. He then left with former Bison head coach Craig Bohl to serve on Wyoming’s staff from 2014 to 2020 before he took the Montana State job.
In five seasons, Vigen has led the Bobcats to three national championship game appearances, but the first two were losses to NDSU. The third time around ended a 41-year title drought.
Second Half Comeback Turned FCS Championship Into an Instant Classic
Montana State had a 21-7 lead at halftime, but Illinois State crept back, and Redbirds quarterback Tommy Rittenhouse tied things up 28-28 with two fourth quarter touchdown passes. It took a pair of blocked kicks by the Bobcats to keep the Redbirds off the podium.
“We certainly had some moments in the second half where we could’ve extended the lead, and we just didn’t do it. A ton of credit goes to them, but also a ton of credit goes to us, our players, our coaches,” Vigen said. “I remember sitting up at this podium in Frisco a year ago. That belief that maybe pulled us through doesn’t come easy. Our players and their constant work and their constant wanting to be coached, I can’t say enough about our mindset.”
Illinois State grabbed the lead in overtime, 34-28, but Bobcats quarterback Justin Lamson came up big with a fourth-down touchdown pass to Taco Dowler to knot things up, 34-34. Bobcats kicker Myles Sansted then walked off the Redbirds with the extra point.
MSU Reloaded For 2025
Vigen and company needed to reload after the 2024 runner-up season with half of the coaching staff moving on in addition to losing seven All-Americans.
“Putting a new coaching staff together, that group coming together to figure it out, continuing to find ways to put our guys in the best position on Saturdays and in this case on Monday, it’s impressive,” Vigen said.
It wasn’t without growing pains as the Bobcats lost the first two games of the season — albeit one was against FBS powerhouse Oregon.
“If you followed our season, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It was rocky at times,” Dowler told reporters on Monday. “We had a blue-collar mentality. And breathing — we do breathing exercises to be calm. The game today is a great testament to the good men in the program, and I couldn’t be prouder of the guys.”
Former North Dakota State Player, Coach Wins National Championship