George Ferguson Column: Great moments in an intriguing football season

Every season, football just seems to get bigger and bigger. It seems to get put under a more powerful microscope. That’s probably because it’s the most popular sport in the U.S. right now, and it’s not even close anymore.

Football on the Hi-Line, and across Montana is no exception to that standard. With each passing generation, it just seems like more and more people are becoming more and more passionate about the game of football.

The football days on the Hi-Line are now in the rearview mirror, and for the next four months, basketball and wrestling will take center stage.

But, it’s not too late to take a look back on what was a very intriguing football season in our area. And here’s some of my top moments from the fall.

• The Havre Blue Ponies certainly gave us a wild ride this season, but they saved their best inside Blue Pony Stadium for last. Back in early November, the Blue Ponies played host to the Miles City Cowboys in a Class A quarterfinal, and for a time, things didn’t look good. The Ponies fell behind 20-7 in the first half, only to storm back with two touchdowns in the final 24 minutes, while also pitching a shutout in the second half. Havre’s 21-20 win over the Cowboys was its first playoff win in two-plus seasons, and it was also the first time the Ponies beat the Cowboys in a decade. Not to mention, HHS did it with one last defensive stand, stopping a Cowboy’s game-winning drive inside the 10-yard-line in the final seconds.

• Perhaps the second-most interesting moment from the Blue Pony football season also came against the Cowboys. Havre hosted Miles City in a nonconference game in early September, a game which ended in a 6-6 tie. Thunderstorms, which seemed to be common all summer long, rolled through the Havre area that night, and once the teams were pulled off the field for safety, they couldn’t get them back on. It was a rare sight to see a high school football game end in a tie, but it worked out, because the two long-standing rivals got to settle it with that playoff game two months later.

• Blue Pony Stadium was also sight of an intriguing win for the Montana State University-Northern Lights. Fresh off a loss at Carroll College, the Lights made the most of their Sept. 14 home opener, beating Eastern Oregon 45-27. The win was a springboard to a three-game winning streak by the Lights, who, at one point, were ranked No. 18 in the NAIA and stood alone in first place in the Frontier Conference standings.

In hindsight, the win became more impressive considering what Eastern Oregon went on to do with the remainder of its season. After losing in Havre, the Mounties had fallen to 0-3, but from that point on, they went 6-2 the rest of the way, including a stunning win over Carroll College and a road victory at rival Southern Oregon. EOU also closed the season with four straight victories, finishing 6-4 in the Frontier. So, while it may not have seemed like it on that hot and sunny day at Blue Pony Stadium, Northern beat a very good team that afternoon.

• Week-to-week, it was a tough year for the Lights, who lost five straight games to end the season, but one constant was the emergence of a new star. Northern red-shirt freshman Zack McKinley burst onto the scene in 2013, and it was fun to watch. The Great Falls native captured the starting tailback job, vacated by Northern’s all-time leading rusher, Steven Silva, in fall camp, and he never let go of it.

McKinley rushed for exactly 1,100 yards, just five shy of Silva’s single-season record he set in 2011. He also scored 12 touchdowns, and had four 100-yard games, six 90-yard games, one game of over 200, and finished the season averaging 110 yards per game, which was third-best in the Frontier and 13th nationally. McKinley’s career high of 202 yards came in the above-mentioned game against Eastern Oregon, while he finished strong, too, rushing for 164 yards against Montana Tech and 139 yards in the regular season finale against Rocky Mountain College. And while it was a rough season for the Lights, McKinley certainly showed that Northern’s offense is in good hands for years to come.

It wasn’t just an interesting football season in Havre either.

• The season got started with a third straight nail biter between Chinook and Chester/J-I. The two teams have become bitter Northern C rivals of late, and both in 2011, and 2012, the two teams played classic games. This fall was no different. Back in August, the Hawks went into Chinook’s Hoon Field and won a defensive slugfest, 18-12. It was the start of what was another fabulous season for Jim Vinson’s Hawks, while Chinook stayed strong for a while after, but tumbled to a fifth-place finish in the Northern C, and no playoffs for the first time in a while.

• Football excitement also came to Box Elder this fall. The Bears, who just three years ago, didn’t field a varsity team, finished 3-5 in the difficult Six-Man North Division, and were thrilling to watch. Box Elder averaged nearly 40 points per game this season, and a 53-44 win over Augusta on Oct. 5 in Box Elder really stamped the Bears as a football team to be reckoned with. The Bears high-flying offense was a pleasure to watch this season, and while three wins might not seem like many to casual observers, anyone who knows the recent history of Box Elder football, and just how rough and tough the North Division is, will tell you it was a crowning achievement for the program.

• Of course, no football retrospective would be complete without mentioning the Montana Grizzlies and Montana State Bobcats. After all, people around here care every bit as much about those two teams as they do in Missoula and Bozeman.

And while both teams provided some great moments this season, neither really achieved the greatness their respective fan bases were hoping for. Still, the annual Cat-Griz showdown was once again the biggest sporting event this state saw in 2013. Bozeman's Bobcat Stadium saw a record crowd of over 21,000 gather for the Brawl of the Wild, where the Grizzlies proceeded to win 28-14. Montana's victory was the fifth straight by a road team int he Cat-Griz showdown, something that's becoming a bizarre trend in what is a great rivalry.