FRISCO, Texas – When Tommy Mellott took the field for Montana State for the final time, the Bobcats required a miracle – or perhaps several. It was 8:52 p.m. on Monday night in Frisco, and the Bobcats trailed North Dakota State 35-25 with two minutes, 35 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of the national championship game. The end was near, and yet, in the cold snap of a chilly Texas night, Mellott led the Bobcats onto the field the same way that he had hundreds of times before, swinging his head from side to side in that inimitable manner like a wild horse angry at the bit.
It was the beginning of the final act of a remarkable career – one that had, without a bit of exaggeration, forever changed the Montana State football program and the university itself, taken the Bobcats to the doorstep of glory and forged an unbreakable connection with the fans, transforming the cherubic, articulate 23-year-old from Butte into the most famous person in Montana, the most accomplished Treasure State quarterback in generations and an object of near worship for MSU fans across the state.

“Touchdown Tommy,” a hundred fans on the Bobcat Express had whispered, with relieved smiles, across the aisle of their flight on Sunday when it touched down at DFW after a sketchy sidestepping descent. Now, a hundred times that number, filling up the stands behind MSU’s bench and circling a good portion more than 50 percent of Toyota Stadium, pleaded with their quarterback for more earth-bound salvation.
After all, they had seen it before. In the very first moments of Mellott’s career, the freshman went from special teams dynamo to leading the ‘Cats to one of the most magical playoff runs in recent FCS history in 2021. A month removed from kickoff coverage duties, Mellott coolly executed Sam Houston State, the defending national champions, in Huntsville, Texas, then returned home to Bozeman to quarterback MSU to a 31-17 victory over ascendant South Dakota State in the semifinals, the biggest non-rivalry win the stadium at the foot of the Bridgers had seen in decades.
That run ended with a sobering 38-10 loss to North Dakota State in the national title game in Frisco, a game Mellott left five plays in with a serious leg injury. Now, four years later, things had come full circle – the same two teams, the same two quarterbacks, the same city and the same stadium – and that circle was about to close.
At 8:59, Mellott stepped back on the field after the two-minute warning, facing second and 2 exactly at midfield, as the loudspeakers cruelly blared “In The Air Tonight.” Mellott had been waiting for this moment all his life. He just never imagined he would be on the other side of it. As an unrestrained athletic phenom growing up in Butte, he read books about the Mining City’s sports heroes, imagined himself in their shoes, then went out and led a paper-thin Butte High Bulldogs team to the state championship game as a senior.
As a freshman at Montana State, he set himself against the iron-clad accepted wisdom that athletically-gifted high school QBs from Montana inevitably move to other positions, and got the breaks and the backing from Brent Vigen and his coaching staff to make that true. As a quarterback, he led the Bobcats through four years of ups and downs – the magical run in 2021 tempered by playoff heartbreak in 2023, when a blocked overtime extra point against North Dakota State knocked MSU out in the second round while their blood rival Montana instead went on a serendipitous run to Frisco.

In four years, he’d taken MSU to three semifinals and two national championship games, winning eight playoff games in total – one fewer than in the program’s entire history to that point. Along the way, he’d become less a football player than an ambassador for Montana State, his babyface the one the university showed to the world. A 4.0 student in financial engineering. A quarterback blessed with rare athletic gifts and an analytical mind. An articulate speaker, gracious with his time. A quiet, effective leader with an incredible work ethic. The picture of small-town Montana success.
“Tommy Mellott is simply amazing,” Montana State president Waded Cruzado told Skyline Sports’ Colter Nuanez. “To sustain all of that pressure when you are that young is absolutely incredible. To see this extraordinary athlete who is totally committed to his sport but also totally committed to his academic program, that’s so wonderful for our university.”
THE LEGEND OF TOUCHDOWN TOMMY: Butte boy leads Bobcats to unprecedented heights
At 9:03, the final pass, completion and touchdown of Mellott’s career, an arcing moonball to the front left corner of the end zone, landed perfectly in fellow Montanan Taco Dowler’s hands. It would be the final statistical mark of a season that surpassed any of his previous accomplishments, a four-month-long apotheosis – 43 total touchdowns, two interceptions, a 15-0 record and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. The Saturday night before the title game, he was named the Walter Payton Award winner as the top offensive player in the FCS, recognition that made him the first-ever Bobcat to take home that trophy and seemed to foreshadow the fairytale season coming to a fairytale end on the field Monday.
Instead, Payton runner-up Cam Miller and the evident chip on his shoulder seized the momentum for North Dakota State, running for touchdowns on the Bison’s first two possessions and adding a touchdown pass in the final minute of the first half to give NDSU a 21-3 lead at halftime. Down three scores to the team that had won nine of the previous 13 FCS crowns, Mellott took the game in his own hands coming out of the break, leading an 11-play touchdown drive, zipping a 53-yard completion up the seam to Ryan Lonergan to set up another short touchdown and then outrunning everybody up the sideline for a 44-yard touchdown. That play, with his field-shrinking, time-warping speed on full display, induced gasps in the press box and brought MSU back to within 28-25 with just under 12 minutes left. All told, Mellott would finish the game with 330 total yards – 195 passing, 135 rushing.
“That’s one of the all-time greats in our program,” Montana State head coach Brent Vigen said simply after the game.
None of it was enough. When Mellott’s pass fell into Dowler’s hands, the game clock read 1:26. If they failed to recover an onside kick, the Bobcats’ best-case scenario with two timeouts left was to get the ball back with around 12 seconds remaining.
Mellott walked back to the bench with his arm around wide receiver Ty McCullouch and, as Myles Sansted’s extra point settled into the net, accepted a ball from backup quarterback Jordan Reed, spinning it in his hands as though that act of preparation could somehow grant him another impossible chance.
At 9:07, Brendan Hall’s onside kick skittered just past Montana State cornerback Andrew Powdrell’s hip, a whisker away from a miraculous ‘Cats recovery. Instead, North Dakota State’s Bryce Lance, who tortured MSU all game long with 107 yards receiving, fell on the ball.
On the Bobcats’ sideline, Mellott continued to warm up, expressionless, zipping throws back and forth, preparing for a chance that would never come.
At 9:14, North Dakota State players clustered around the ball after the Bison’s punt on the final play of the game, downing it as the clock hit all zeroes. As fireworks exploded behind the north end zone and the Bison bench rushed towards the trophy stage, Mellott hugged cornerback Simeon Woodard, then Powdrell, then everyone else he could find in blue and gold.
Thank you. I love you. I appreciate you.

At 9:17, he faced the fans in the stands for the final time, pumping his helmet in his right hand as he led the team in singing the fight song. As tears welled in his teammates’ eyes, Mellott stayed stone-faced, a quick glance downward at the end of the song the only sign of emotion.
At 9:22, he finally found safety Rylan Ortt – like Mellott, a Montana boy, a senior from Missoula. In his final game, Ortt had finished with a game-high 10 tackles, eight of them solo, and the pain of the effort and the disappointment shone clear on his face. As the two embraced, Mellott’s eyes glistened, and he blinked to clear them. Still, the tears didn’t come.
On the field, the postgame chaos continued to expand. Fans in blue in gold made their way down from the stands – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, former teammates and old men who had seen Montana State’s last and only national championship in 1984. All of them seemed to have one goal – to shake Tommy Mellott’s hand – and, one by one, they offered Mellott the only thing they could say.
Thank you. Thank you for the run, they said, hoping those simple words could somehow encompass a career.
Four years ago, he’d been a phenom, the whole world of possibilities open, the end incomprehensibly far away. Somehow, the last grains of sand in the hourglass had just run out, and still, Tommy Mellott circled the field for five minutes, 10, hearing the same words over and over again.
Thank you.
Then, finally, at 9:33 p.m. on the final night of his college football career, Tommy Mellott walked off the field for the last time. Halfway up the tunnel, just past the tattered remains of the motivational quotes hanging on the wall, he stopped, staring back out at the field. He crouched down, helmet cradled in his arms. He stayed that way for a minute, maybe two. Then Tommy Mellott turned back around, walked up the tunnel, turned the corner and was gone.

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