GREELEY — The smile on Clarence Bumpas’ face belies the fact that he doesn’t like it much.
The Northern Colorado junior middle linebacker doesn’t mind that his team is once again facing an opponent on its homecoming.
However, he is pretty sure the reason the Bears are scheduled as Montana State’s homecoming opponent Saturday in Bozeman, Mont., is the undefeated and No. 2-ranked Bobcats (3-0) believe the Bears (1-2) will be an easy victory.
“It is a disrespectful thing, but it makes me smile,” Bumpas said. “I feel flattered, honestly, because I love to be slept on. Because if David can beat Goliath, then we can beat anybody. That is my mentality.”
After only 10 victories since joining the Big Sky Conference, the Bears players understand why teams are scheduling UNC as a homecoming opponent. Montana State is the fourth Big Sky school to schedule UNC as its homecoming opponent over the past three seasons.
Still, UNC coach Earnest Collins Jr. isn’t convinced the Bears’ past record has anything to do with being selected as a homecoming opponent.
“I think the fans and the media make a bigger deal about it, because I honestly didn’t know it was their homecoming until now,” Collins said. “Homecoming is really about scheduling. If everybody scheduling their homecoming has control over it and you just want a sure victory, you’re going to schedule who you want every year. Well, we have Montana for homecoming this year, and hopefully we get to the position where we are going to beat them on homecoming.”
However, the Bears would like nothing better than to put a stop to it.
In fact, nothing would give them greater pleasure than to go into Bozeman this weekend and shock the Football Championship Subdivision world by knocking off the Bobcats in front of a raucous homecoming crowd.
UNC cornerback Courtney Hall and his teammates are happy the Bobcats chose the Bears for homecoming.
“We actually like it when teams pick us in their homecoming game,” Hall said. “Then we can go in and spoil the whole weekend. They got us on their homecoming, so we are going to go in as a team, and we will come celebrate back in Greeley while they are home in Montana not doing anything, just miserable because we spoiled their weekend.”
Besides, pride is on the line for the Bears, who want to make a statement that they are no longer a pushover in the Big Sky, homecoming or not.
“This will definitely be a statement. So we are definitely going to go in there and defend our pride,” Bumpas said. “They’ve got to know and we’ve got to show that UNC is not a stepping mat, you know what I mean? This (program) is definitely going to be in the nearby future something to be reckoned with.”
