Montana State football fans woke up Sunday morning asking themselves, "How?"

How could their team come off a win over Division I-A Colorado and lose to Division II Chadron State College?

It was a sports rarity and to date no one has determined if a I-AA team has ever beaten a I-A team one week and then lost to a Division II team the next.

The answer is a simple one: The Bobcats didn't perform well in any phase of the game. Offensively, they didn't execute well in the words of quarterback Cory Carpenter and defensively captain Clive Lowe echoed Carpenter's sentiments.

The special teams made big mistakes with holding and roughing-the-punter penalties and the coaching staff seemed a bit impatient when it opted to go for a fourth down conversion instead of taking a field goal just before the half.

Fans often prod their coaches to 'go for it' in fourth down situations, but that isn't the high percentage choice. Not putting points on the board that are there for the taking more often than not come back to haunt the team in later stages of the game.

The Bobcats, who have an excellent kicker in Jeff Hastings, opted out of a field goal attempt on a fourth-and-two from the 17 just before halftime. Instead of giving Hastings a shot from 35 yards - he's never missed a kick inside 40 yards for MSU - they went for it and failed.

Even if MSU had made a first down, that doesn't assure its offense will punch it into the end zone. They could turn it over on a subsequent play or still have to settle for three. It just wasn't the time to give up three points.

The Bobcats went on to score first in the second half, but trailed 28-16, instead of 28-19. There was still plenty of time on the clock to simply kick the extra point, but with the score at 28-16 MSU needed to go for two in that situation. They failed again and trailed by 12 instead of eight - a significant margin at that juncture.

Instead of being in position to score another touchdown and go for two to tie, or need a touchdown and field goal, MSU needed to score two touchdowns. There's a big difference between needing to get in the end zone twice in the final 10 minutes and just needing one TD and one field goal. It was also much easier for Chadron State to play with a 12-point lead than a lead of eight.

Former Helena High star Dan Carpenter is going to have a tough time repeating his act from this past Saturday.

The University of Montana kicker was forced into double duty when punter Tyson Johnson went down with an apparent knee injury. But double duty turned into quadruple duty in the Grizzlies 36-7 win over South Dakota State.

Carpenter set a school record with five field goals, averaged 63 yards on his kickoffs, but punted just once despite setting up to do so five times. Those other four snaps are what doubled his already doubled workload.

He threw a 14-yard pass for a first down to sustain a drive that ended in his own field goal and he took a pitch and rambled 45 yards out of punt formation. You could add a fifth job assignment when considering he drew two roughing-the-kicker penalties.

Going for the two-point conversion and the win versus taking the safer extra point kick for the tie was a hot topic this past weekend. No. 11 Tennessee was able to stop Air Force and closer to home Butte did the same to Helena High as both the Falcons and Bengals failed to convert and lost their respective games by one point.

Reportedly in the NFL the chances of converting two are 43 percent, while in college it's at 40 percent. There have been handbooks developed that explain when to go for two and when not to depending on the time remaining and the score of the game. None definitively say whether or not a coach should go for two in the situation that Air Force and Helena High were in last Saturday.

The call boils down to the feel that the coach has, and one factor coaches refer to is whether or not their team is at home.

For the second straight week Montana State inside linebacker Bobby Daly had 10 tackles, which was the second most on the team. He now has 20 on the season and leads the Bobcats in that category.