George Ferguson Column: Cats may not take Darth Vader down, but playing in Fargo in December shows just how far they've come

It's been some time since the Montana State Bobcats have been to where they'll be Saturday afternoon - into the second round of the FCS playoffs. It's been six years to be exact.

The fact that the Bobcats are into the second week of the playoffs is an absolute credit to head coach Jeff Choate and the job he's done to build MSU into the type of program he wanted it to be when he was hired after the end of the 2015 season.

And building that vision into a reality has, at times, been a painstaking process, one that has required patience and perseverance.

Yet, here the Bobcats are, and Saturday they'll be in a spotlight they haven't been in almost a decade. No, it's not just the fact that the Cats are one of four Big Sky Conference teams to be playing in the second round of the playoffs this weekend, it's more so who and where MSU is playing, as the reason why the Cats will be under a microscope Saturday afternoon.

Saturday is indeed MSU's shot to shine, because the Bobcats are going to the Fargo Dome to play the vaunted North Dakota State Bison. In FCS football, a game doesn't get any bigger than when you're playing the Bison.

Let's review shall we?

NDSU won eight NCAA Division II national championships before moving up to the FCS in 2008. It took just two years before the Bison made the playoffs, and ironically, in their first FCS playoffs, they beat Montana State in Bozeman on their way to the semifinals. The following season, NDSU won its first of five straight FCS national championships, and after one year of barely giving up the crown, the Bison were back on top in 2017.

So do the math. Since 2011, NDSU has hoisted the national championship trophy six times, which makes dominant runs by Georgia Southern, Youngstown State and Appalachian State absolutely pale in comparison.

During that incredible run, the Bison have gone 28-2 in the FCS playoffs, won the Missouri Valley Conference championship every year, have had five different undefeated seasons, and for good measure, have knocked off six straight FBS Power Five teams, including a stunning 23-21 victory over 13th-ranked Iowa in 2016. In multiple years, NDSU has also received votes in the AP Top 25, and was even ranked in the Top 20 of the College Football Playoff Poll in 2015.

Oh yeah, and ESPN's College Game Day, they've been to Fargo not once, but twice. NDSU is the only FCS team outside of the Ivy League to ever host a Game Day.

To put it bluntly, NDSU's run of greatness is completely unprecedented, it's unheard of, and it doesn't seem to be going away. It pains me to say it, but it even puts the University of Montana's historic decade from 2000-2010, in which the Grizzlies were one win ahead of Oklahoma for the most wins in college football during that era, to shame.

What NDSU is doing now, no one has even come close to, and it doesn't appear to have an end in sight.

The Bison are once again undefeated, the top seed in the playoffs and hammering the competition with a junior-senior laden team with four-year starting quarterback Easton Stick at the controls. Remember Carson Wentz? The Bison were supposed to fall off after he left, and Stick took the reins. So much for that happening.

And while teams here and there, like the Griz, South Dakota State and James Madison, have cracked the Bison code on occasion, on a year-to-year basis, the gap is still a wide one and now, it's Montana State's turn to take their shot at Goliath.

Yes, after three straight losing seasons, the Bobcats now have a chance to put their stamp on FCS history. If they were to go into Fargo and win Saturday, it would be an upset of epic proportions, and given the strengths of MSU's team, there is the possibility that the Cats will give the Bison a tougher than expected battle.

NDSU is built on power and strength, on a running game that absolutely wears people out, on a defense that's as close to impossible to score on as it gets. And yet, the Bobcats have some of those same traits.

MSU is a power-run team with arguably the best runner in the FCS actually playing quarterback. The Cats have a really good offensive line, one that's built to wear a defense down. And like NDSU, MSU plays a physical, hard-nosed brand of football on defense. So, in terms of scheme, and philosophy, even in coaching style, the Cats do seem to match up with the Bison.

And that begs the question. Could MSU pull the upset? The answer is, of course the Cats could. The Griz did it to the Bison with Wentz as a senior. James Madison has done it to NDSU. And the Bison themselves have done it at Minnesota, at Kansas State, at Iowa State and at Iowa among others. Those were all games the Bison weren't supposed to win.

In other words, anything is possible. But will the Cats beat the Bison? Probably not. In reality, MSU is still a young football team. In reality, Choate is still in the early stages of building the program he wants MSU to be. In reality, the Cats are still a team that went 5-3 and finished in fourth place in the Big Sky Conference. They didn't come close against Eastern Washington or South Dakota State either, and those are the two teams that are more likely to upset the Bison in the playoffs.

And that's my point of this trip down the Bison's memory lane. It doesn't matter if the Bobcats don't shock NDSU Saturday. What matters is, the Cats are there, getting their shot, and in the grand scheme of things, the fact that they have a shot at the Bison is enough for MSU fans to fully trust that, the Bobcats are back.

I'm sure some of you are thinking: "It must really hurt George to utter those words." And if you're thinking that, you'd actually be mistaken. Not everything is about the Cat-Griz rivalry to me, and, I've said so many times, the state of Montana, and the rivalry itself is much better off when neither the Cats, nor the Griz are struggling. And right now, the Cats aren't struggling.

Right now, the Bobcats are where they've been striving to be for a long time, back in FCS relevancy. It's been a long, arduous process for MSU, one that saw the program struggle through three straight losing seasons, and plenty of heartache.

Put another way, for a stretch there, the Cats were not relevant in FCS football.

But that's over now. Montana State has everyone's attention. They certainly have the Grizzlies' attention, perhaps even their obsession after winning three straight Brawl of the Wild games. The Cats also have the Big Sky on notice. With Troy Andersen being easily the best football player in the Big Sky, no one is going to overlook MSU in the next two years.

And this week, the Cats will have the attention of Darth Vader himself, because that's what the Bison have become. They win so much, and they're so good, they truly are the Evil Empire now. Do I think the Bobcats will be able to blow up the Death Star? No I don't. But again, I also don't think it matters because, once and for all, and mainly thanks to hiring Jeff Choate, the Bobcats are back, and I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon.

Saturday's game between MSU and NDSU kicks off at 1 p.m. in the Fargo Dome. The game can be viewed on ESPN+.