Before Gold Rush, Montana State students tried to paint Bobcat Stadium blue

First, a promotion somebody called silly

Average attendance at the time hovered around 13,000. The student 'Paint It Blue' effort got the athletic department's marketing director, Drew Ingraham, thinking about color as a crowd-builder. He took the idea and made it gold, the other half of the Bobcats' blue and gold. According to Lamberty, Ingraham still calls it a silly T-shirt promotion.

The silly promotion debuted on Sept. 15, 2007. More than 14,000 fans in gold shirts watched Montana State beat Dixie State, the school now called Utah Tech, by 61-7.

Next, the fans took over the design

For its early years the shirt was designed in-house by the athletics department. A little more than 10 years ago, according to Montana State athletics marketing director Holoakea Husen, it became a fan competition. The process is simple and a bit democratic. Fans submit designs, a committee picks four finalists, and then the whole fan base votes on social media.

The 2026 contest drew more than 40 entries. The winner, Angus O'Keefe (KBZK calls him Gus), is a Montana native who has been going to Bobcat games most of his life. His shirt reads 'Champions Wear Gold' and lists the program's four national title years: 1956, 1976, 1984 and 2025. More than 6,500 shirts were made for students and staff alone.

Then the team joined in

Since 2017, the Bobcats themselves have worn gold jerseys for each home season opener, according to KULR. The crowd matches the team, and the team matches the crowd. It is hard to think of a cleaner piece of home-field theater.

During Gold Rush 2026

The 2026 edition, on Sept. 5 against Butler, was the first home game since the national title. The official attendance was 22,277, which tied the Bobcat Stadium record set at the playoff semifinal against Montana the previous December. The Air Force Academy's Wings of Blue parachute team jumped into the stadium at halftime from a Montana Air National Guard C-130. So a gold tradition that began as a blue one got a little blue back, falling from the sky. Montana State won 51-24.

Lamberty has watched the whole arc. He arrived in Bozeman on Oct. 16, 1990, when the Bobcats drew 6,000 or 7,000 fans a game.

How to take part

• Gold Rush is always the first home game of the Montana State football season.
• The official shirt changes every year. In 2026 it cost $20 and went on sale July 24 at the MSU Bookstore, Universal Athletic stores around Montana and online.
• Any gold shirt gets you into the spirit of it; the official one simply gets you the year's design.
• If you want to design one, watch Montana State athletics channels for the annual contest call.

One small puzzle I could not settle. The university describes 2026 as the 19th year of the shirt tradition, yet counting from 2007 gives 20 home openers. There may have been a year without a Gold Rush game, but I found no source that says which one, so we are leaving the arithmetic open rather than guessing.

A fan named Emma Wulff put the reach of it best in a KULR interview: you pick people up at the airport, and there are people on your plane already wearing the shirt. The dorm kids in 2006 only wanted to see some blue from the upper rows.