2019 Week 3 - Western Illinois vs Montana State

[ST_Lawson]

VS
Western Illinois VS Montana State Bobcats
Saturday, September 14 at 3 PM (Central)

Radio: Leatherneck Sports Network
TV : ESPN+

Game Notes
Western Illinois: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _Notes.pdf
Montana State: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... _3_WIU.pdf

History: WIU and MSU have played 3 times, with MSU leading the series 3-0.
WIU in 2018 - 5-6 overall, 5-5 against FCS teams, 4-4 against MVFC teams
WIU in 2019 - 0-2 (losses at North Alabama and FBS Colorado State)
MSU in 2018 - 8-5 overall, 5-3 in the Big Sky conference, 1-1 in FCS playoffs, beat WIU by 3 in their home opener
MSU in 2019 - 1-1 (lost at FBS Texas Tech, beat Southeast Missouri State)

Location: Hanson Field, Macomb, IL
Weather Prediction: Sunny, 81 degrees, 49% humidity, 1% chance of rain, ~10 mph wind

Odds:
Massey Ratings - 43% chance of WIU win, predicted score of 24-21
Sagarin Ratings - MSU 84% chance of a win, ~15-16 point margin

[sealhall74]

Did I see somewhere this a "Wear Gold" game or did I get that confused with the MSU "Gold Rush" game last week. I went through all of my drawers and closet yesterday pruning out stuff to donate to Goodwill. I have a "Think Purple" Tshirt, a "Real Men Wear Purple" Tshirt, a puprle and white Camo T, a purple Leatherneck Nation T, a purple WIU sweatshirt, a purple WIU slipover light jacket. Not a damn thing in Gold.

I got a feeling I am not the only one in this predicament.

[cats2506]

VS
Western Illinois VS Montana State Bobcats
Saturday, September 14 at 3 PM (Central)

Radio: Leatherneck Sports Network
TV : ESPN+

Game Notes & Preview:
Coming Soon

History: WIU and MSU have played 3 times, with MSU leading the series 3-0.
WIU in 2018 - 5-6 overall, 5-5 against FCS teams, 4-4 against MVFC teams
WIU in 2019 - 0-2 (losses at North Alabama and FBS Colorado State)
CSU in 2018 - 8-5 overall, 5-3 in the Big Sky conference, 1-1 in FCS playoffs, beat WIU by 3 in their home opener
CSU in 2019 - 1-1 (lost at FBS Texas Tech, beat Southeast Missouri State)

Location: Hanson Field, Macomb, IL
Weather Prediction: Sunny, 77 degrees, 56% humidity, 3% chance of rain, ~7 mph wind

Odds:
Massey Ratings - 43% chance of WIU win, predicted score of 24-21
Sagarin Ratings - MSU 84% chance of a win, ~15-16 point margin

MSU not CSU

Cat fan here looking forward to the game. Watched your UNA game, they looked a little out of sorts to me, I think you have some athletes and I am sure they are beginning to come together for your first home game.

What is a breakdown for your thoughts on your team this year? If you have any questions about the Cats iether I or other Cat fans will try our best to answer.

Also anyone interested can visit us on http://bobcatnation.com

[cats2506]

MSU coaches presser looking forward to Western Illinois

[ST_Lawson]

[sealhall74]

MSU coaches presser looking forward to Western Illinois

HC played Linebacker in college and looks like he is in pretty good shape to this day.

[ST_Lawson]

MSU not CSU

Cat fan here looking forward to the game. Watched your UNA game, they looked a little out of sorts to me, I think you have some athletes and I am sure they are beginning to come together for your first home game.

What is a breakdown for your thoughts on your team this year? If you have any questions about the Cats iether I or other Cat fans will try our best to answer.

Also anyone interested can visit us on http://bobcatnation.com

Thanks cats...fixed. I was copying and pasting from last week's post and forgot a couple of instances of CSU->MSU. And thanks for stopping by.

Yeah, I think we're all kinda down a bit after our first couple of games, which is why there hasn't been much response around here. It's a situation where we knew that this year was probably going to be a bit of a struggle, although we were hoping we'd be able to compete for a playoff spot. Technically we still can of course, it's only 2 games in and we haven't played any conference games either. I think it's just been a rough showing so far, hurt by a handful of some injuries to some key players. The above tweet that I posted is from Darron Wheeler, who was likely to be an every-game starter at DB this year, plus a couple of our big offensive pieces haven't seen the field this season. We struggled on offense (especially the run game) last year anyway, and with all the new faces, it's taking them time to really "gel".

Our defense has looked pretty promising at times, forcing a couple of turnovers against Colorado State (and narrowly missing out on a couple more). D-Line seems pretty solid at stopping the run, although the backfield has been burned sometimes by big plays.

If we want to win this game, our defense has to keep doing what they're doing mostly, backfield has to get a bit better at tackling, and on offense, we need to keep working on the run game, and need our QB to maybe just relax a bit (there were a decent number of open receivers that he over or under-threw against CSU last weekend).

For any of your fans who are making the trip to Macomb this weekend, this is also our Family Weekend, where we have our "Food, Family, Farming, Football BBQ" competition. In Q-Lot (the big parking lot near the stadium) they'll have a BBQ competition where you can buy tasting tickets and vote on your favorite...that's before the game.

[sealhall74]

Is Kendon Walker good to go this week? Didn't he come up lame after that long run last week?

[wiu712]

Montana State is ranked #15 in this week's Coaches Poll:
https://www.espn.com/college-football/r ... asontype/2

[cats2506]

We are pretty excited and think we have a team that can compete with the top of the FCS this year, but there are a lot of games left to play and we still need improvement in many areas.

The heart of our team is our defense. Troy Andersen has moved from QB to linebacker. We have added a couple of more Washington transfers to our D line. The D line is our strength but the secondary is pretty good too, we are 2 deep with experienced safety’s and have a solid stable of DB’s. The LB group is very deep but still has some young players. I think all across the board we have upgraded our defense with both quality and depth.

On offense we have a very experienced OL that will pave the way for our run first offense. With TA’s move to defense we have redshirt Freshman Casey Bauman, he 6’7” with a rocket arm but he is still young and developing. We have a solid stable of physical running backs, led by Isaiah Ifanse who is questionable for this week’s game. We also employ a wildcat offense that will include Troy Andersen or Travis Jonsen in the QB position, we will run the wildcat QB’s 20-25 plays a game. Troy will also play a little running back too. I think our offense is still developing, I don’t think we have seen too much of our playbook from our young OC Matt Miller who finds creative ways to put the ball in playmakers hands.

Overall the Bobcats are going to play a brand of tough physical football and wear you down and try to take control in the second half.

I finally watched your CSU game last night; I thought the Leatherneck’s played better in that game. I feel like I have to throw out the UNA game now, they just looked off for some reason in that game. It looks to me like the O and D lines are the strength of your team, this should be a good matchup in the trenches as the lines are our strength too.

This game just feels like a trap game to me. I think WIU is better than their record, and the Cats are coming off a big win at home and have a difficult travel route to the game. I still think that if our kids can keep focused, we can get the W, I am expecting a tough physical game.