Griz, Eagles try to get back on track Saturday

The road to win 26 straight regular season games stopped short last week for Montana football, ending with a solemn trip home.

“The first reaction was quiet,” said head coach Bobby Hauck. “Our trip home was awfully quiet.”

Now the Griz will try to do something they haven’t done in two seasons: rebound from a regular season loss, when they meet 23rd ranked Eastern Washington in Cheney on Saturday.

Even before the season began, Saturday’s match up had been regarded as the Big Sky Conference’s game of the year; now it really is. Both teams suffered chilling upsets last week on the road, with Hauck’s club falling 45-28 to Weber State on a day of torrential rain in Ogden, Utah; Portland State quarterback Drew Hubel simply poured on Eastern Washington, throwing for 623 yards and five touchdowns to lead the Vikings to a 47-36 win over the Eagles in Portland.

“It’s going to be really difficult for us to get a win,” said Eastern Washington head coach Beau Baldwin, noting that Montana traditionally plays well at Eastern, who will bring in additional seating to Woodward Field.

Last year’s matchup at Washington-Grizzly Stadium was a classic—Montana put together a last-minute drive, including a long fourth conversion to set up a Dan Carpenter field goal in the final seconds to cement a 24-23 win, nullifying a 17-catch, 234-yard receiving performance by wideout Aaron Boyce.

Both teams already hold one loss in conference play this season, which means Saturday’s game will be even more pivotal in the Big Sky race. The contest will be an attritional battle between Montana and Eastern’s defenses. Eastern is coming off a loss in which they weren’t able to manufacture a turnover despite Hubel’s 73 pass attempts, and Montana gave up four second quarter touchdowns to Weber and was unable to come up with a stop while trying to rally late.

“In the passing game, we need to make more plays on the ball,” said Hauck adding that his defense didn’t take much away from Higgins, who passed for 237 yards. “We weren’t getting clean breaks on the ball. We just need to make some plays.”

Hauck also noted that this week’s emphasis has been to reestablish their pass rush, which generated 10 sacks in their first three games. Montana hasn’t registered a sack in their last two games against Central Washington and Weber State.

Like Central Washington’s Mike Reilly and Weber State’s Cameron Higgins, Montana will face another sure-fire signal caller on Saturday in Matt Nichols, the returning Big Sky Conference player of the year. Complementing him is Boyce, who had 13 catches for 181 yards and a touchdown last week against Portland State.

“This week will be another challenge for us,” said junior safety Shann Schillinger, adding that Eastern has a plethora of playmakers. Hauck agreed.

“Nichols, he’s a good player. He was the offensive player in the conference a year ago for a reason,” Schillinger said.

Boyce’s performance from last season still lingers in his mind as well. “He made the catches he should’ve made, but he made some he shouldn’t of probably too,” Scillinger said.

Offensively, Montana can only hope to expose Eastern like last weekend—although senior quarterback Cole Bergquist said they probably will not see the same scheme on Saturday as Portland State.

Rather, he said, the unit is striving to eliminate the costly turnovers which have stained credible performances the last two weekends with total offensive outputs. These turnovers combine to 66 points and over 400 yards of total offense in each of the contests. The Griz offense turned the ball four times last week—including two interceptions and two fumbles lost.

“Basically what it comes down to is our offense is playing really well,” said Bergquist, quickly adding, “If you could take away two plays from the last couple of games.”

Hauck said his team couldn’t afford the turnovers (or to give up seven sacks, as they did at Weber) if they want to win at Cheney. Since so much is riding on the line for these two conference heavyweights, the stadium will be buzzing Saturday.

“Two really good teams on the road,” said Hauck of playing back-to-back games at Weber and Eastern. “You certainly don’t want to come out of this one 0-2 in the league, which would put our backs to the wall.”

roman.stubbs@umontana.edu