MSU football: Season's result a letdown after promising start to Rob Ash era

By TIM DUMAS Chronicle Sports Writer

How much has the routine changed?

Montana State head football coach Rob Ash spent more than an hour Sunday afternoon with his wife walking their dog in the couple's new neighborhood northwest of Bozeman.

And it was nearly 6 p.m. before he took his first look at game film.

Usually on Sundays, Ash has run through the tape at least twice by then from the previous day's game.

But there are no more games to be played until September. Time to take a breather.

“Everybody on the staff has worked every day, basically, since June 11 (the day Ash was hired),” the coach said after attending a seniors-only banquet at the GranTree Inn. “Most of the guys aren't doing too much today.”

Ash will officially shut things down with Quarterback Club meetings in Bozeman and Billings today and in Helena Tuesday.

Ash's first season with the Bobcats started with the promise of a 400-plus-yard effort against Texas A&M and a 5-2 record through mid-October, only to have it free fall into a 1-3 finish that kept the team from playing in the postseason.

Which is the main reason Ash made the move from Drake University (the Bulldogs also finished with a 6-5 record this season), in the first place.

He had been the head coach there for 18 years and won league titles, but never coached in a playoff game.

He'll have to wait until at least next fall to get that chance.

“It was disappointing to me personally. That's why we came here,” Ash said. “It's extremely discouraging.”

Montana State began the season with one of the most opportunistic defenses in the country, returning four interceptions for touchdowns during a three-week span in September.

By November, however, the Bobcats weren't quite the same on that side of the ball.

The unit did not force a turnover in two of its last three games and surrendered a combined 77 points in the final two contests, including a season-high 41 to Montana on Saturday to close the season.

The Grizzlies, meanwhile, after completing an 11-0 regular season, will host Southern Conference champion Wofford this Saturday at 12:05 p.m. to begin the Division I Football Championship playoffs.

Eastern Washington, which received an at-large bid, plays at 11-0 McNeese State Saturday at 6:05 p.m. Mountain Time.

What started Montana State's spiral this season was the loss to last-place Northern Colorado on Oct. 27. The team also lost four offensive players, effectively, for the season due to injury that day and struggled to recover the momentum it had gained through the season's first seven weeks.

“That game just knocked us off our perch,” Ash said of the 16-13 last-second setback to UNC. “But I'm a competitor, our assistant coaches are and all the players who are returning next year are all competitors.

“Our goals aren't going to change. Nothing I've seen this year leads me to believe that it's not possible.”

Ash still has a shot at being named Big Sky coach of the year today when postseason awards are announced this afternoon, but he'd rather be preparing for Game No. 12.

When asked what will stick out in his mind from his first season in Bozeman, Ash pointed to his first game at Bobcat Stadium.

That much-anticipated day, Sept. 15, followed a bye week and marked one of the few home games all season that the sun shone brightly on what became a 61-7 victory over Dixie State.

Playing in front of nearly 80,000 constantly-cheering fans at Texas A&M was indeed memorable. The chance to walk from Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, surrounded by MSU's faithful, and into the sold-out stadium for the home opener trumped his Big 12 Conference experience, however.

“I sat in my office all summer all the way through camp and looked out there at that stadium and there was a tremendous amount of anticipation,” Ash recalled.

“The expectations were high and the curiosity was high ... the game went well and the fans were terrific. That's a crystalized moment for me that I'll never forget about this first season.”

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