Full Count: A beginning, a middle and a next game

Dec. 11—Much has already been made about the postgame dust-up between Montana State running back Julius Davis and an opposing player, and his coach, and his teammate, and I don't mean to pile on.

When it was over, you could see MSU head coach Brent Vigen was still very — I think Vigen would prefer this word — animated inside the midfield prayer circle. But he struck a conciliatory tone after the game and again on Monday.

"The emotion of a hard-fought game like that. ... can get the best of you," he said Monday, a couple days after his No. 2-seeded Bobcats held off Yale 21-13 in a second-round playoff game.

It's certainly not the first time emotions got the better of a player and coach at the same time — last year's sideline confrontation between Montana's Bobby Hauck and quarterback Logan Fife comes to mind — and it won't be the last. The Saturday set-to was remarkable in that like "Happy Gilmore II," it had a beginning, a middle and then you wondered when it was going to end.

After Davis offered an apology on social media later Saturday, all is apparently well.

"I want to sincerely apologize to my teammate and my coach for my actions," Davis wrote. "Coach Vigen and I already talked, no one outside this team understands our relationship and how much respect I have for him."

Asked if the incident would affect Davis' playing time Friday night, when the Bobcats play host to Stephen F. Austin in a quarterfinal game, Vigen implied it wouldn't.

"No, I think we're settled on that," he said. "I feel good about where we're at."

Davis noted on social media, "I actually was dapping up a former teammate of mine from Wisconsin." That would be Marshall Howe, a backup quarterback for Yale who wears No. 3. Also in the area: Number 4.

"(Davis) is a fiery individual," Vigen said. "And the individual he was interacting with was fiery all throughout the game. And you'll be able to leave it there."

Fair enough. There's a quarterfinal to play, when the Bobcats will try corral former Griz QB Sam Vidlak, the Southland Conference's offensive player of the year, and the 11-2 Lumberjacks.

Win or lose, Vigen expects the postgame to go exactly so: "We need to be able to shake hands, sing the school fight song and have a team prayer, then go to the locker room and celebrate," he said.

Davis, 52 rushing yards away from 1,000, has become an internet meme. Perhaps that is punishment enough.

"It's not the first (such) operation that we've had," Vigen noted. "It was obviously right there for everyone to see and that's OK, I guess. I think he certainly respects me — and whether anybody thinks otherwise, that's their opinion. Everybody can make a judgment; that's the way the world works."

Reach Fritz at [email protected] or at 758-4463.