Dowler Brothers Ready for the Pressure as Montana State Defends Its Crowns
- Madison McCord
- 23 minutes ago
- 10 min read
SPOKANE, Washington — Twin brothers Taco Dowler and Caden Dowler grew up being competitive with one another, so it only makes sense that the duo have kept that fire burning on the football field.
“There was never ego involved, but yeah we were super competitive growing up,” Taco Dowler said. “Who could get better grades, who can run or jump the fastest, that kind of stuff. But you have to compete or you will get left behind.”
And that is exactly what happened to the rest of the Football Championship Subdivision last year as the Dowler brothers helped lead Montana State to its second FCS national championship in program history with a 35-34 overtime victory over Illinois State in Nashville, Tennessee.
Now, the Bobcats are back with an even bigger target on their backs both nationally and in what is expected to be an ultra-competitive Big Sky Conference, which held its annual Big Sky Kickoff media day Monday at Northern Quest Resort and Casino.
“We’re looking to win in everything that we do,” Caden Dowler said. “We are intentional in stretch lines, we want to win every rep in practice, and that’s how our whole team is.”
Taco Dowler, an All-American wide receiver and returner, and Caden Dowler, an All-American defensive back, are just two of the pieces from coach Brent Vigen’s championship squad that made the decision to return to Bozeman this fall in hopes of repeating as champions.
MSU also brings back All-Big Sky preseason selections Justin Lamson (quarterback), Adam Jones (running back), Titan Fleischmann (offensive line), Braden Zimmer (offensive line), Burke Mastel (offensive line), Zac Crews (defensive line), Cole Taylor (linebacker), Tayden Gray (defensive back), Myles Sansted (kicker) and Jabez Woods (kick returner).
“Bringing the guys back that we have shows that they really value the experience and you hope that this thing we have is something that doesn’t have a price tag on it,” Vigen said. “They matter to each other, and while we were able to do more for them financially it doesn’t match some of the offers they were getting. So I think that shows as a group we get the big picture.”
But Vigen and the Dowler brothers also know that another unbeaten run through the Big Sky and success in the playoffs is far from guaranteed in a conference of this caliber.
“It’s hard to win in this conference because every team is good at something,” Taco Dowler said. “But we go into every week with a game plan and learn more about teams as the season goes on. But every player is a good player and every coach is a good coach, you can’t play or coach in the Big Sky if you aren’t really good.” One of those teams that the Bobcats might need to watch a little more film on throughout the season is their in-state rival, Montana.
After Bobby Hauck, the winningest coach in Big Sky history with 151 victories, left the program in February, the Grizzlies turned to former wide receivers coach Bobby Kennedy to take the reins of a squad which made the semifinals last year.
But much like Montana State, Kennedy inherits a Griz squad with plenty of talent returning. All-Big Sky preseason selections Eli Gillman (running back), Jake Mason (defensive line) and Peyton Wing (linebacker) return for Montana, along with last year’s first-team quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat and honorable mention wide receiver Brooks Davis.
“Coach (Kennedy) has kept the same standard as our last coach. He’s kept it Montana football, he just loves to connect,” Gillman said. “You can feel the family environment. Missoula loves football. Montana loves football. It’s important for all of us to be at a place where we feel appreciated.”
The conference’s third FCS playoff team from last season, UC Davis, also returns a strong core of players, landing seven players on the All-Big Sky preseason team, including defensive standouts Rex Connors and Porter Connors. UC Davis coach Tim Plough will have to fill the gap left at quarterback though, after freshman phenom Caden Pinnick departed the program this offseason to join Washington State.
“Over the past 50 or 60 years, if we’ve proven anything it’s that we will have a good quarterback at Davis,” Plough said. “I feel really good about the transfers we brought in and the young guys that are already in our program. We saw a bunch of those guys have a good spring and now we’re going to let them go out and swing at it again in the fall until halfway through camp when one guy shows he’s ahead.”
Montana and UC Davis are just two of 12 other teams looking to dethrone the Bobcats this fall, but Taco Dowler said that the Bobcats are ready to embrace the expectations when their season kicks off August 29 at Utah Tech. “We got a target on our back because we did something good,” Taco Dowler said. “So come and hunt us, see if you can beat us and we’re going to keep focusing on our process.”
Commissioner talks transfers, eligibility rules: Big Sky commissioner Tom Wistrcill talked about a variety of subjects at his State of the Conference address ahead of media day, ranging from expansion of the NCAA Basketball Tournament to the impact of sports gambling. But it was discussions on federal legislation on college athletics that brought out the most passion from the commissioner.
“We need to get the Protect College Sports Act on the floor of the Senate, and we have to get that passed,” Wistrcill said. “We can't have this unlimited transfer portal. It goes against what we stand for as institutions, and the reason that all these coaches got into business was to develop young people.
“And we're not allowed to do that right now. The financial transactions in college athletics have become too focused and it's the first conversation rather than one of the conversations,” Wistrcill added.
Wistrcill hopes that the bill, which is sponsored by Texas senator Ted Cruz and co-sponsored by Washington senator Maria Cantwell, can get to the senate floor within two weeks. Under the bill, student-athletes would be allowed one free transfer, but would be required to sit out for any additional transfer.
Wistrcill also talked about the NCAA’s new age-based eligibility, where student-athletes have five years to play five years.
“No more waivers, no more redshirts, and I think that will help stabilize the environment,” Wistrcill said. Two new programs into the fold: After losing Sacramento State from the conference this offseason, the Big Sky will add new member Utah Tech and returning member Southern Utah into the fold this fall.
“Everybody keeps saying that we are coming back, but we have only two guys that have ever played in the Big Sky that have transferred in and maybe one coach that has coached in this conference,” Southern Utah coach Delane Fizgerald said. “I’m sure we have some fans that say we are coming back, but for our football program we just say that we are going to the Big Sky and couldn’t be happier.”
The Thunderbirds were Big Sky members from 2012-2021, before departing the conference for the Western Athletic Conference and then the United Athletic Conference.
Utah Tech also joins the Big Sky from the UAC, but was a Division II program as recently as 2019. “There’s so much at stake with every game and every event here,” Utah Tech running back Ace Chatman said. “It’s such a prestigious conference so we are grateful to be here. But we have played a lot of these teams before, so it makes it more competitive and just better for us to be a part of.”
Top quarterbacks return: Five of the conference’s top seven passing-yardage leaders from last season are back this fall, making it one of the deepest and most talented positions in the league. Montana’s Ah Yat, MSU’s Lamson, Northern Arizona’s Ty Pennington, Idaho State’s Jordan Cooke and Idaho’s Joshua Wood are all back under center for their respective teams, something Wood said drives him to want to play even better than he did last year.
“I believe I can meet a standard and be right up there with those other guys,” Wood said. “We have such great quarterbacks in this league and so it’s really great to compete against them every week and understand there are other guys working out there just as hard as I am.”
With Cooke and Pennington back at signal caller, both Idaho State and Northern Arizona respectively believe they are set up for big jumps this season.
“We know that we are very talented and we have a lot of good players, but none of the polls or rankings mean anything until we go out there and win games,” Cooke said.
Northern Arizona linebacker Ammon Allen agreed that accolades must be earned on the field, but he’s happy with the progression he’s seen over the past three years in Flagstaff.
“We’ve progressed immensely over the past three seasons from when I first showed up to now,” Allen said. “The culture that coach Brian (Wright) has instilled in us and the standard that we live by is something that is helping us build each day to go out and dominate.”
New faces behind the clipboards: Montana’s Kennedy is not the only new head coach across the conference this season, as Weber State’s Eric Kjar, Cal Poly’s Tim Skipper and Portland State’s Chris Fisk are also new to their posts.
Kjar spent the past eight years as the coach of Corner Canyon High School in Utah, where he went a combined 112-10 and won eight state championships.
“At the high-school level you have a bit more freedom to try things that are maybe a little unconventional,” Kjar said. “I think in coaching we have a lot of copycats and doing things a certain way because of who mentored you. So some of what helped my development was having that freedom to try different things and be a little bit different than the norm.”
Skipper comes to Cal Poly after a nine-game stint as the interim head coach at UCLA last season. Under Skipper, the Bruins went 3-6, including wins against Penn State and at Michigan State.
“This program’s identity has nothing to do with scheme, but always being on the rise,” Skipper said. “The whole idea is that today is better than yesterday but tomorrow is definitely better than today.” Fisk joins the Vikings from Division II Central Washington, where he hopes to translate the success, he had going 48-22 and winning three conference titles.
“Out identity comes from coach Fisk. We build it every day by saying ‘character, strength and honor,’ “Portland State linebacker Jaxton Helmsteler said. “That’s the core of our team and the identity we are trying to build and from there you can find yourself winning some games.”
Pointing in the right direction: After missing out on the FCS playoffs each of the past four seasons, Eastern Washington coach Aaron Best believes that the Eagles are back on the right trajectory after stringing together a three-game winning streak in the middle of last year and dropping a five-point contest at Montana.
“I think quite a few games last year we won ugly, kind of deemed ourselves ugly win guys,” Best said. “I’d like to win pretty. So that’s the next step, finding a way to score more is an obvious solution, but a few less high-blood-pressure moments would also be ideal.”
The same goes for Northern Colorado, who narrowly lost at FBS Colorado State and South Dakota, before earning key victories at Idaho and against Portland State.
“As we start to win more games, we’ll get better players that want to come here and it will all just escalate from there,” Northern Colorado offensive lineman Levi Johnson said. “But we also kind of expect to win games now, where before it was just like ‘we’ll give it our best.’”
Putting together the schedule puzzle: Between balancing a conference schedule with an odd number of teams, to protecting decades-long rivalries, Big Sky deputy commissioner Dan Satter is a busy man.
Satter laid out the conference’s future plans in terms of how it will schedule games moving forward, with conference matchups and locations already set and shared with teams through the 2031 season.
“When you’ve got an odd number of teams and we’re going to play an odd number of games, naturally that’s going to create some oddities,” Satter said. “But we’ve worked nonstop for the last year plus on the schedule and future schedules once we knew we were going from 12 to 13 teams.”
One of the big changes is the move to nine conference games for each team, with the exception of Utah Tech and Southern Utah, one of which will have eight each year as part of their agreement to join the conference.
“It’s going to be a two-year cycle, so this year and next year Southern Utah will have eight Big Sky games, and then in 2028 and ‘29 it will be Utah Tech,” Satter said.
Each school also submitted their requests for protected rivalries to play each season, which the conference will consider when it assigns three annual opponents for each team.
Satter also mentioned the importance of releasing home/away future conference matchups as early as possible for teams to fill their nonconference slates, along with pointing out that teams will likely play each other at least twice in a three-year period.
Bobcats favorites among coaches, media: Montana State finished first in both the coaches and media Big Sky preseason polls, earning 11 of 13 first-place votes from the coaches and 35 of 38 first-place votes from the media.
Montana was second in both polls, receiving one first-place vote in the media poll. UC Davis rounded out a clear-cut top three, receiving the remaining two first-place nods in both polls.
Northern Arizona, Idaho State, Southern Utah, Idaho and Eastern Washington took up the midfield spots in the coaches poll, rounded out by Weber State, Northern Colorado, Cal Poly, Portland State and Utah Tech.
The media poll had a few changes with Idaho State and Northern Arizona swapping places, as did Idaho and Southern Utah. EWU was eighth as well in the media poll, followed by Cal Poly, Weber State, Northern Colorado, Portland State and Utah Tech.
Gillman, Dowler preseason MVPs: One year after earning conference MVP honors, Montana running back Eli Gillman and Montana State defensive back Caden Dowler are once again the favorites to bring home the honors again this fall.
The duo was named the Big Sky preseason Offensive and Defensive MVPs ahead of the upcoming campaign by conference coaches and media.
Gillman rushed for 1,540 yards over 15 games last season with 23 total touchdowns for the Grizzlies. Gillman was also named a preseason All-American and to the Walter Payton Award Watch List.
Dowler recorded 91 tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss and six interceptions for the Bobcats a season ago. He also landed on the Buck Buchanan watch list to start the year.
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