FCS National Championship: Montana State vs. Illinois State Offensive Spotlight

No. 2 seed Montana State (13-2) will face Illinois State (12-4) in the 2026 FCS national championship game in Nashville, Tennessee. Kickoff is scheduled for Jan. 5th at 6:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.

As we prepare for the national championship game, we wanted to take a look at how the talent on the field will stack up on each side of the ball. We've done this exercise for the past two years, and it gives us an excellent chance to spotlight some of the top players for each team.

We will combine the rosters of Montana State and Illinois State to evaluate a potential starting lineup featuring players from both teams. We selected the best player at each position.

Both teams mostly run a spread offense and use 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs), the same structure we used for this exercise. In the end, we selected six Montana State players and five Illinois State players. The competition for these spots was very close, and multiple decisions were extremely difficult.

Let's break down our picks and why these players were selected.

QB - Justin Lamson (Montana State)

RB - Adam Jones (Montana State)

WR - Daniel Sobkowicz (Illinois State)

WR - Taco Dowler (Montana State)

WR - Dylan Lord (Illinois State)

TE - Rocky Lencioni (Montana State)

LT - Jake Pope (Illinois State)

LG - Landon Woodard (Illinois State)

C - JT Reed (Montana State)

RG - Titan Fleischmann (Montana State)

RT - Logan Brasfield (Illinois State)

At quarterback, I went with Justin Lamson over Illinois State signal-caller Tommy Rittenhouse. Both players are veterans, but Rittenhouse has more starting experience. Each are mobile weapons that prefer to do damage with their arms, but can make plays happen with their legs, especially on third down and in the red zone.

I sided with Lamson for several reasons. Primarily, he's just done a way better job taking care of the football than Rittenhouse. He's only thrown four turnover-worthy passes all season compared to 13 for Rittenhouse. You can make an argument that Rittenhouse's turnovers were the only thing that kept NDSU in the game earlier this postseason. Accuracy is the other advantage for Lamson. He's posted an adjusted completion% (Accounts for drops) of 80% compared to Rittenhouse's 71.1%.

Also, an important factor is that Lamson has been much better under pressure. Rittenhouse has only completed 45.1% of his passes for 6.2 yards per attempt (YPA) when pressured. Lamson has completed 63% of his passes under pressure, averaging 7.7 YPA in those situations. Finally, I would also rather have Lamson's size at 6-2, 210 pounds. It gives him a significant advantage in the red zone over Rittenhouse at 5-11, 195 pounds.

Running back was one of the most difficult decisions in this exercise. There are four great options for only one spot. Julius Davis has been Montana State's most dependable option the whole season. Wenkers Wright has battled injuries this year, but has over 2,600 career yards and 21 touchdowns and will return in Nashville.

Victor Dawson has been an absolute workhorse for the Redbirds. He has a level of physicality that opponents have been unable to match, wearing opposing defenses down as the game goes on. Despite all of that, I'm going to ride the hot hand and go with Montana State's Adam Jones.

Jones has blown up in the postseason, going for over 100 yards in each of Montana State's three games. He's the best breakaway "home run" threat of any running back in this game. He leads all running backs in this game with 18 runs of 15 or more yards this season. Jones has also been the most effective receiving threat out of the backfield, giving him the edge over these other talented options.

Wide receiver may have been the easiest decision of the whole exercise. Daniel Sobkowicz and Taco Dowler were no-brainer selections. Both have had huge playoff moments and been the No. 1 targets for their teams. Sobkowicz leads all receivers in this game with 129 targets; the next closest on his team only has 80. Dowler has been targeted 94 times, and no other Bobcat receiver has 50 targets this year.

Sobkowicz has proven himself to be one of the best players in the entire country. He has an incredible 18 touchdowns and 15 contested catches. Rittenhouse trusts him implicitly, as Sobkowicz leads the country in contested catch targets, and he pulls in nearly 50% of them.

As for Dowler, he makes an impact in a completely different way. He leads all receivers with 18 forced missed tackles; the next closest has only seven. Both Sobkowicz (2.54) and Dowler (2.44) incredibly average over two yards per route run.

I went with Illinois State redshirt freshman Dylan Lord for the third pick at wide receiver. He ranks 2nd in targets (80) despite only playing significant snaps later in the year. Lord has recorded an impressive 60 catches on those 80 targets, while also only having one drop on the season.

At tight end, there were several options, but I went with the player who I think is the most dangerous receiving weapon. That was Montana State redshirt freshman Rocky Lencioni, who has the most targets despite being listed as the third-string tight end.

Lencioni leads all tight ends in this game with six receiving touchdowns. He's also been reliable with 18 catches on 21 targets and no drops. He also leads all tight ends with 6.2 yards after catch per reception this season.

Offensive line was another tough position to break down because both teams have been excellent across the board. Illinois State, by nearly every metric, has been the best pass-blocking team in the country. On the other side, Montana State has been the best run-blocking unit for the past few seasons.

Left tackle was the toughest position to call between Braden Zimmer and Jake Pope. Both have been incredible, but I went with Pope due to his overall experience. He's played nearly 3,000 career snaps over his college career.

For the rest of the offensive line unit, I went with Landon Woodard (ISU), JT Reed (MSU), Titan Fleischmann (MSU), and Logan Brasfield (ISU). Brasfield leads all tackles with only 10 pressures allowed this season, while Woodard has only allowed one sack in 16 games. Reed and Fleischmann help anchor the interior of an excellent all-around Montana State unit.

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