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Post Game: 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

BWahlberg

BWahlberg

Well-known member
DONOR
A day later and I'm still just baffled about the 2024 Grizzlies. This offense is one of the highest scoring and dangerous we've seen in a while, and the defense can't stop a nose bleed. Weber State came into Wa Griz and absolutely diced up the Griz. Montana grabbed the lead 3 times in the 4th quarter and couldn't hold it, giving up big play after big play. It's just wild to have the immediate thought than when Montana scored with 59 seconds to go, you just new it was scored too soon.

I don't know if defensively it's the guys, the coaches, the design, or a blend of everything, but right now it is at a level of bad that I personally have never seen from a Grizzly team. The only thing that doesn't statistically make this defense look any worse is the Morehead St outlier game. Take a look at it from a few angles:

  • Before this game Weber's offense was averaging 393 ypg, 202 pass / 191 rush. Yesterday, 527 yards, 355 pass / 172 rush.
  • As was pointed out to me by someone else, the last time a Montana defense gave up over 100 points in 2 games was the late 60's
  • The last 3 games Montana's defense is giving up an average of 519 yards per game
  • If you remove the Morehead State game Montana is allowing 208 ypg rushing / 287 ypg passing, that's 495 yards per game
  • Montana's defense has forced just 5 turnovers halfway through the season

I don't see how this gets "fixed" this year, if it can be at all. A fact of life for the 2024 Montana Grizzlies unfortunately seems to be that the defense is going to give up A LOT of yards, is not going to force many turnovers, and will allow a lot of big play TDs. Also concerning is the fact that special teams is usually a glimpse into the future on defense, and now two weeks in a row we've seen the kick return unit give up long returns and even a TD now.

If you flip to the other side of the page though, this offense is stacked, the only thing getting in it's way (it seems) is some curious decisions/designs, but otherwise they are putting up consistent numbers that we don't normally see for the Griz. Logan Fife I think has cemented his position as the starting QB, yes the sealing fumble was bad, but he was dealing out there and seems to be pretty well dialed in with his WRs/TEs/RBs. Eli Gillman showed that he's more than just a rushing threat, and Keelan White has exploded on the field with Fife getting him the ball. There's some stuff we can nitpick about the offense, the OL play lacked overall consistency especially after Panfiloff had to sub out, the essential 4 and out after the fumble recovery to end the half was brutal, and some of the short/screen throws on 3rd and long were head scratching. This offense will have to just keep putting up video game numbers, that's it. The best defense this team will have is the fact that they can answer and score all over the field. They will keep the Griz in every game as long as they play like this.

As I reflect back on the game, these things stand out the most to me:

  1. The defense / ST giving up so many big play TDs. Was there supposed to be so much single coverage or was there more errors made in the secondary?
  2. The Griz had 3 (4 if you count OT) series on the Weber side of the field with no points. The Ah Yat series, Ostmo fumble, 4 and out at the half. Yikes
  3. The illegal touching by Weber, I don't understand that rule, I'd love to hear from an actual referee vs fans on that. However if Weber doesn't score a TD there, they probably do soon, or kick a field goal and Montana most likely still loses.
  4. If the Griz didn't fail the 2 point conversion earlier, or just kicked for the PAT Weber needs a TD to win the game and that late field goal wouldn't matter
  5. Eli Gillman needs more touches, I will die on this hill

I know a lot of fans are frustrated, I would venture you can at least double that frustration from the Montana locker room and staff. Backs are to the wall now for Montana, they're going to need to find a way to piece together things and get right quick. It'll start this weekend when a dangerous NAU team comes to town. Fans, we can bitch and moan all we like (hell, look at me!) However, don't give up on these guys! Let's rally for the Griz, show up, and cheer them on.

Go Griz!
 
Absolutely stunning watching the defense play this way. They're getting WORSE as the season goes on. I'm with you I don't know if it's the scheme but also I've never seen a Grizzly team this bad at tackling. There were so many plays yesterday where guys were in the right spot to make a play and they just lunge tackle and completely whiff. Every one of our transfers seems like a huge miss. None of them are making an impact in a positive way. The corners are burnt toast. Have we had a single actual pass deflection on the season? The D Line is awful they're getting blown off the line 4 yards every play. We used be a linebacker factory but it seems like our guys now either can't read the play or are just getting tackles 6 yards down the field.

It's pretty frustrating to see. I think it's a nasty combo of a huge talent dropoff from last season and a coaching staff that doesn't have an answer to make up for it. Head scratching.
 
good points, all, brint. i'm not sure if you can point to one or even two reasons why the D if flailing this season. we graduated a significant amount of talent last year that has not been matched or even partially replaced this season. particularly at LB. i don't think we miss gubner more than we thought we would. that kid was pretty generational for DL at this level, and most knew it would be a huge hit. but what surprises me is how poorly the LB's have played this year. bad angles, bad fills, missed tackles.....again, we knew there would be a drop off from last year's unit, but this is more precipitous than i expected for sure. we also knew we had to replace some experience from our secondary from last year. expected some growing pains, but the real head scratcher here is guys that played a lot or started from last year and are back this year look just as lost and out of position as the newer/younger guys. i think from a talent perspective there is a yooj (yes it's a word) drop off from last year. the combination of that AND breaking in new guys has spelled disaster for this defense thus far. i suppose you can tie in coaching inadequacies/errors into the argument as well, but i think your basic pedestrian fan (99% of us here) tends to use that as a lazy argument when we, in truth, have little insight as to what is really going on in the meeting rooms and practice sessions. if you don't have the talent or experience (or both), i'm not sure any defensive staff can overcome that very easily. even the venerated ronnie bradford. i have little doubt that there will be some improvement as the season goes on, but right now it looks like the ceiling is (shorty got) low, low, low, low, low, low, low.
 
TheNorthRemembers said:
Absolutely stunning watching the defense play this way. They're getting WORSE as the season goes on. I'm with you I don't know if it's the scheme but also I've never seen a Grizzly team this bad at tackling. There were so many plays yesterday where guys were in the right spot to make a play and they just lunge tackle and completely whiff. Every one of our transfers seems like a huge miss. None of them are making an impact in a positive way. The corners are burnt toast. Have we had a single actual pass deflection on the season? The D Line is awful they're getting blown off the line 4 yards every play. We used be a linebacker factory but it seems like our guys now either can't read the play or are just getting tackles 6 yards down the field.

It's pretty frustrating to see. I think it's a nasty combo of a huge talent dropoff from last season and a coaching staff that doesn't have an answer to make up for it. Head scratching.
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We’ve had 2 pass deflections I can think of. One at eastern where Loud turned around and actually shoved the ball away and Gradney got a “lucky” break on a high pass that caused the receiver to slow down. There might be a couple more but those are the ones that stand out.
 
This may be unpopular, but I think the offense is going to be exposed against a good defense at some point as well. We have exceptional individual talent at WR, RB, and to a lesser degree QB....but I do not feel good about facing a legit defense later in the season.
 
brewskis said:
This may be unpopular, but I think the offense is going to be exposed against a good defense at some point as well. We have exceptional individual talent at WR, RB, and to a lesser degree QB....but I do not feel good about facing a legit defense later in the season.
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Most years, I feel that.
This year, the strength of the OL is run blocking. Also, if we make the playoffs, we'll be 4 deep at halfback. Fonoti can play all 4 playoff games. That's a great combination for the playoffs.

Plus we have 2 qbs that are multi dimensional, assuming AhYat can recover mentally from those hits. He looked a little off in his reps against Weber. I like the fact that Fife is getting the ball to our playmakers consistently.

I think our offense is fine, providing Hauck doesn't rein back Pease.
 
Tough loss for sure. It is obvious that the defense is terrible and seems to be getting worse from week to week. I attribute it primarily to a drop off in talent from last year and a group of transfers who have yet to show that they understand the system. Offense is great and I think if the Griz can score on almost every possession the season can still be a success but that is a big ask.
 
With the defense, do NOT blitz all the time. Every time there was a large number of players blitzing then the Weber QB torched the secondary with big plays.
The secondary is the suspect part of the defense. When the Griz D stacked the box and did not blitz it showed it has a good D, just look at the third quarter.
Then the D coach forces the blitzing every other play and the Griz secondary gets torched.
UNTIL the secondary can actually play one on one with no PI or getting burned then we should lay off the massive blitzing.
Biltzing is for when your secndary can cover a man and not get burned all the time.
 
Good summation BW. Unless defensive malaise is magically fixed I’m just hoping for a winning season. Our “post season” playoff game could be in Bozeman

Running out of time\opportunities to fix stuff.
 
Perhaps it is time for certain talented offensive players be considered for double duty on both defense as well as offense, especially in the secondary, similar to way cats used Troy Andersen..
 
This is a very undisciplined teams. Too many avoidable penalties keeping opponents on the field. Too many assignments blown.

Discipline was a Hauck trait for years. They beat more athletic teams on occasion by not helping opponents stay on the field.

I happened to see an entire family wearing number 37 Jersies after the game. They looked shell shocked.
 
we're all shell-shocked. Defense used to be our strength. Seems to have departed the room rather quickly. Really? We can't stop anyone from doing anything?
 
I finally got to watch the post-game presser. Less than seven min long, and I don't think I learned a damn thing. Milquetoast questions and non-answers. If this is par for the course, why bother. A waste of everybody's time
 
mtgriz said:
Missing the two-point conversion as a hindsight complaint is a red herring. They made one later so it's a wash on making two one-point kicks.
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Some people have a hard time with math. I also wondered why this was an issue for some. Kicking the 1 when down 2 actually proved one of the smarter coaching decisions of the day. Wasn't it once 2nd and 5 on that late second quarter "drive"? Where were Ostmo and Gillman on those next two plays? Offense stats were great but a few questionable play calls cost big time in this game.
 
Just a couple of thoughts, really more questions on the game yesterday.
1) does anyone know why the coaches made the change to AhYat in the 1st half? Was Fife dinged up on the previous series? Seemed odd at the time to me for the QB change and it ended with no production. (AhYat actually missed (did not see) a wide open Gilman coming out of the backfield for what would have been an easy first down.)
2) on the final Weber State possession in regulation, they made a pass play toward the sidelines, in bounds for a first down. Weber was in no hurry and the clock was restarted and ticking down under 20 seconds. A timeout was taken and I assumed it was Weber taking one of their final 2 timeouts, but later noticed the charged time out was charged to the Griz. This allowed Weber 2 more plays moving the ball forward enough to make it a 43 yard try instead of approximately a 47 yard try. Why would the Griz stop the clock with a timeout at that time? Do I have this wrong?
 
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