Montana State leads FCS preseason All-America team with eight selections

Montana State put eight players on the 2026 Stats Perform FCS Preseason All-America Team, the most in the subdivision, and the spread across offense, defense and special teams showed why the Bobcats begin the fall as the team everyone else is trying to catch. The list was released July 13 and gave the national champion a clean snapshot of its staying power.

Seniors Caden Dowler and Taco Dowler both made the first team, keeping Montana State centered around two of the most important names on the roster. Caden Dowler enters the season after being named the Big Sky Conference’s 2025 Defensive Player of the Year, while Taco Dowler remains one of the FCS’s most versatile pieces after earning All-America recognition as an all-purpose threat. Titan Fleischmann, Adam Jones and kicker Myles Sansted also landed on the first team, quarterback Justin Lamson was placed on the second team, and linebacker Cole Taylor and safety Tayden Gray made the third team.

That distribution matters because it shows Montana State is not leaning on one unit to carry the load. The Bobcats have first-team talent in the trenches, in the backfield and on special teams, plus another tier of proven production at quarterback, linebacker and safety. Five of the eight selections, including both Dowler twins, Fleischmann, Jones and Lamson, had already earned All-America honors after the 2025 season, which gives Brent Vigen a returning core that still looks intact rather than patched together.

The title backdrop is what gives the preseason recognition its weight. Montana State beat Illinois State 35-34 in overtime on Jan. 5, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee, to win the 2025 FCS national championship, its second overall and first since 1984. Vigen, who took over as head coach on Feb. 8, 2021, guided the Bobcats to what the athletics department calls the fourth football national championship in school history.

Montana State’s recent awards track record makes the eight-player total less a surprise than a continuation. The Bobcats put five players on the 2025 Stats Perform All-America team, tied for second-most in the FCS with Stephen F. Austin, and had five players on the 2024 preseason list and six on the 2023 version. With Caden Dowler anchoring the defense, Taco Dowler supplying all-purpose production and Lamson back in the mix, Montana State opens 2026 with the kind of proven depth that turns preseason praise into a national standard.