CHENEY, Wash. – The Montana State football team concludes its second bye week of the season with a Big Sky Conference game against Eastern Washington on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time at Roos Field.

Second-ranked MSU (8-0, 4-0 Big Sky) is looking for its fourth straight win against EWU (2-6, 1-3). The Bobcats defeated the Eagles 57-14 at Bobcat Stadium last November, won 38-35 at Roos Field in 2022 and went 23-20 at The Inferno in 2021.

MSU’s 13-32 record against the Eagles is its worst against any team it has faced at least 20 times, according to MSU Sports Information. The Cats are 6-16 away against EWU and 3-3 at Roos.

MSU won 44-14 at Portland State two weeks ago, while EWU lost 38-28 at Idaho last Saturday.

The Cats are 14½ point favorites to win Saturday’s game.

EWU starting quarterback Kekoa Visperas will not play on Saturday. The redshirt junior suffered an injury to his right leg in last week’s game. Senior Jared Taylor will start at QB on Saturday.

The Eagles will also be without starting wide receivers Nolan Ulm and Miles Williams, who have missed the last four games due to injuries. Starting defensive tackle Jacob Newsome is still injured and also unable to play.

For MSU, Neil Daily will start at “Mike” linebacker for the second straight season in place of Danny Uluilakepa, who is out for the season with a torn ACL – the same injury that also struck starting defensive back Caden Dowler and co-starting nose tackle Blake Schmidt joined earlier this season.

MSU starting QB Tommy Mellott is just 106 yards away from becoming the third player in program history to reach 3,000 career rushing yards. Running back Scottre Humphrey is 48 yards shy of 1,000 rushing yards this season.

This story will be updated.