{"id":657461,"date":"2026-01-06T02:48:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T02:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/657461\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T02:48:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T02:48:44","slug":"live-updates-montana-state-battles-illinois-state-in-the-2025-26-fcs-football-national-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/657461\/","title":{"rendered":"Live updates: Montana State battles Illinois State in the 2025-26 FCS football National Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Montana State leads Illinois State 21-7 after a pair of late scores from both teams. While the Redbirds got score after the two minute warning to finally get on the board, the Bobcats might&#8217;ve had the score that will be pivotal to the game.<\/p>\n<p>Montana State&#8217;s third touchdown of the day puts the Bobcats up two scores at halftime. If the Bobcats didn&#8217;t score, Illinois State would&#8217;ve been down just one score, with Montana State receiving the second half kickoff.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a game-changing touchdown that gives Montana State some breathing room.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Where there&#8217;s a will, there&#8217;s a way to the endzone \ud83e\udd0c<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa ESPN<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FCSChampionship?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#FCSChampionship<\/a> x <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MSUBobcats_FB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@MSUBobcats_FB<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3UG2tzhJs9\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/3UG2tzhJs9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NCAA FCS Football (@NCAA_FCS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NCAA_FCS\/status\/2008363789834444924?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 6, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Impressively, Montana State has a two-score lead with only four rushing attempts from their 1000-yard running back duo of Adam Jones and Julius Davis. Will the Bobcats lead on its backfield to run some clock up a few scores in the second half?<\/p>\n<p>If not, can Justin Lamson continue his accurate day from the pocket? He&#8217;s 12-of-13 passing for 228 yards and a touchdown so far.<\/p>\n<p>On the other side of the ball, Illinois State has to figure out how to convert third downs. The Redbirds are 0-5 so far, albeit 2-2 on fourth downs. Star wide receiver Daniel Sobkowicz has been largely held in check compared to his eight playoff touchdowns. He&#8217;ll need to have an impact in the second half.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/game\/6500875\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Click or tap here for live stats<\/a>. See stats from the first half below.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot 2026-01-05 at 8.12.25\u202fPM.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"stats\"\/><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montana State leads Illinois State 21-7 after a pair of late scores from both teams. While the Redbirds&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,55283,2806,49,48],"class_list":["post-657461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-illinois-st","tag-montana-st","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115845877214944571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}