Northern Notebook: MSU-Northern turns on the Jett

There were so many incredible storylines to come out of the Montana State University-Northern Lights’ 49-20 win over the Mayville State Comets Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium.

There were stories of redemption, triumph, new beginnings, and the list goes on and on. But when it comes to redemption, no story was bigger than MSU-N junior Jett Robertson’s day against the Comets.

For his first two years in Havre, the Arizona junior mostly watched and backed up and learned behind the greatest running back in MSU-N history, Zach McKinley. Then, in the spring of 2017, it was becoming Robertson’s turn to shine. A highly-recruited speedster out of high school Robertson was ready to take what he had learned from McKinley, and take the Light’s offense by storm. But things don’t always work out as planned, and Robertson missed the entire 2017 season with injuries.

In that time, it would have been easy for Robertson to fade away, to look to a future without football, but he didn’t do that. He never quit working, and he never gave up on the idea that, one day, he would be the man in Northern’s backfield.

That day finally came. Saturday, Robertson rushed for a career-high 167 yards on 28 carries. He scored four times, caught five passes for 82 more yards, blocked for his quarterback, and ripped off three different runs of 20 yards or longer in Northern’s dominating performance.

“It felt good today; I felt great,” Robertson said. “But I have to give it all to my offensive line. Those guys did a great job. They opened up holes for me. Today wouldn’t have happened without them.”

“I thought we played pretty well as a unit,” added Northern offensive tackle Clint Willis, as the Lights rushed for over 200 yards. “Jett was great. He did a great job of getting into the holes, and then, he’s so strong and so fast, he just does the rest. It was a lot of fun to watch him go to work like that.”

Fun, and exciting. Because while Robertson had a career day Saturday, it’s only the beginning. He has 10 games left this season, and a whole senior year to go. But on this day it became quite clear that, in Andrew Rolin’s fast, but physical and run-oriented offense, the Lights are in good hands with a healthy Jett Robertson.

“Jett, he’s the man,” Rolin said. “He’s the toughest, hardest-working guy on this team, and he showed everybody exactly what he can do today.”

Explosive Lights

Robertson’s huge game was only part of Northern’s day offensively. Tommy Wilson threw for 397 yards, a career high, Fotios Jordanoglou had 131 yards on seven catches, and over the course of four quarters, MSU-N’s offense was simply too much for a reeling Mayville defense to handle.

But it wasn’t all methodical. No, the Lights had a ton of explosive plays against the Comets.

Northern’s first touchdown of the day was set up by a deep pass down the sideline from Wilson to Bryce Bumgardner. On the Lights’ second and third drives of the day, Robertson twice went for 20 or more yards. In the second quarter, Northern also had a 12-play, 73-yard drive that included a huge third-down catch and run from Wyatt McKinlay, a fourth-down catch by Jordan Pugh, and an end-around run by Jordanoglou, who also had an explosive catch later in that same drive. Marvin Williams and Seth Roemmele each caught big third downs, and late in the fourth, Bryce Missey threw a perfect deep pass as well.

Yes, the Lights may have run all over the Comets Saturday, but they were also as explosive as they’ve been in a long, long time, and they were efficient, too. Wilson didn’t throw an interception, and Northern was a stellar 8-for-14 on third-down conversions.

“It felt really good today,” Wilson said. “We got going fast, and we were clicking offensively. We had a ton of different guys make plays. I thought we came out and executed really well for the most part.

“You can see, when this offense is really clicking; we’re pretty hard to stop,” Rolin added.

Even the bad can be good

There were certainly some rough patches to Saturday’s game. But if there was ever a time when you knew it was going to be the Lights’ day, it was midway through the second quarter.

Northern was deep into MSU-N territory when a slew of penalties wound up backing up the Lights all the way up to what seemed like an impossible first-and-50. In fact, I couldn’t find a single thing on Google that would indicate that there’s ever been a team faced with such long odds, though I’m sure in the history of football, it’s happened. And yet, the Lights overcame it, and wound up scoring. On first down, Robertson picked up just two yards, but Jordanoglou got back 15 on second down. He then picked up 17 more, and the Lights went for it on fourth-and-17. And Wilson, under pressure, stepped up and hit Jordan Pugh for 19 yards and an incredible first down. The Lights would score two plays later.

The other weird sequence of the day came in the third stanza, when, the two teams traded fumbles not once, but twice. Mayville coughed it up first at the 7:33 mark, but, less than a minute later, Northern gave it back. On the very next play however, Mayville’s Creighton Pfau muffed the handoff with his running back for the third turnover in less than a minute, and, just 10 seconds later, Wilson was stripped, for what was the fourth fumble in just over one minute of actual game time.

Penalties also played a key role. Mayville was hit with 12 flags for 103 yards, while the Lights were flagged nine times for 94 yards.

And while it wound up being a banner day for Northern, with a great win, and a huge home crowd, Rolin knows his team must clean things like the turnovers and penalties up before Rocky Mountain College comes calling this Saturday.

“I think the foolish penalties really hurt us the most,” Rolin said. “That’s a maturity thing, and we’ve got to become a more mature football team. I thought we did better in the second half, but those things just can’t happen. We’re a young team, and execution-wise, mistakes will happen. But overall, we know we’ve got to clean a lot of that stuff up, and be a more mature football team going forward.”