Stephen F. Austin head football coach Colby Carthel woke up before 6 a.m. Monday, beginning a week full of sleep-deprived days in preparation for a challenging game.

As he put together notes for a team meeting, he compared that morning’s weather in Nacogdoches, Texas — where SFA is located — to the temperature in Bozeman — where SFA will play Friday in the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs.

“It was 36 (degrees) here and it was 38 there,” Carthel said in a press conference Monday. “I told the team, ‘Heck, we’re going to be warming up going to the mountains.’”

The seventh-seeded Lumberjacks (11-2) will face No. 2 Montana State (11-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Bobcat Stadium. The teams have faced each other six times prior to this quarterfinal game, most recently in 2013, when SFA won 52-38 in N

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