Had to have some fun with the title there. The Grizzlies completed a 2 week in a row road stretch against two of the worst teams in the Big Sky and were able to show some strong improvement defensively. Now, the real test lies ahead, against the best offense in the Big Sky, if not the FCS. I've been harping a lot on what I wanted to see from the defense in these few weeks and it started with turnovers. The Grizzly defense seems to have found something! Today they grabbed 2 picks, 1 fumble, had another fumble recovery wiped out by targeting, and forced 3 turnovers on downs. Those 3 turns on downs came on the UM 27, Poly 40, and UM 34. Between all of these turnovers the Grizzlies scored 21 points off them.
This game was not without some added frustration, but that's just a fact of life here for the Griz this year. The ground game could not get going, the injury to Cannon Panfiloff compounded those issues there as well. I think the frequent QB rotation might have messed with consistency more than hurt it. And I'm bummed we won't have Rostad for the first half of UCD. 132 penalties yards is flat out bad, yes I know some of the calls were suspect, but still.
Those concerns aside, this is a good road win, now two in a row that were generally "low stress" games where the Griz knew they were better, played better, and came away with a win where the opponent really never stood a chance.
Some more quick thoughts:
- Junior Bergen, to me, already holds the title as the best Grizzly returner of all time. Today he cemented that with a Big Sky Conference record 6th punt return. I don't know how entirely healthy the kid really is but once again he showed that his talent can even shine through even if he's not 100%.
- Griz offense was kind of stale and inconsistent today, after some barn burning numbers their last two games have really pulled back. Is this because they've been figured out? The QB rotation? Bobby rope-a-dope anticipating the next few games? Treating these two games like scrimmages? We'll find out soon enough.
- Riley Wilson was a one man wrecking crew for quite some time in the game. Poly started dedicating an RB to just chip the guy, but then we saw Tirrell, Nuce, Harris, and even Mata'afa tally up some TFLs and sacks. Another small thing that I just liked seeing was a handful of our D-line guys make some critical plays and stops. 4 sacks, 11 TFLs by the defense. That is huge!
- I thought Ah Yat and Fife both had good, and bad moments. I'm as baffled as ever as to what the plan is with these guys, but maybe that is the plan. Rotation, tough to prep for two, etc. Ah Yat was more "in tune" with the WRs today, some nice connections with X, Fontes, and White. Racanelli had a great 1 handed grab, White's TD was something else. But, Fife had a bad pick, missed a TD, and that end of the first half series was baffling (not sure play calling or execution). Ah Yat's RPO / zone read wasn't as crisp as we're used to seeing and he was behind WRs a bunch on crossing routes.
- REALLY liked the more heavy use of the zone for the defense. Husteadt's pick you can credit to the design and him recognizing and acting on it. Not sure it'll work against Davis, but hell who knows.
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Alright, the Grizzlies still aren't playing perfect football, but I think we can all agree that the last two games are BETTER football than we'd seen before. We'll find out in a week + 4 hours from this post if it's all fools gold or if they're making those small improvements to just get back to the type of football we expect to see. Rest up Griz - the games you remember are played in November and it's crunch time!
Go Griz!
This game was not without some added frustration, but that's just a fact of life here for the Griz this year. The ground game could not get going, the injury to Cannon Panfiloff compounded those issues there as well. I think the frequent QB rotation might have messed with consistency more than hurt it. And I'm bummed we won't have Rostad for the first half of UCD. 132 penalties yards is flat out bad, yes I know some of the calls were suspect, but still.
Those concerns aside, this is a good road win, now two in a row that were generally "low stress" games where the Griz knew they were better, played better, and came away with a win where the opponent really never stood a chance.
Some more quick thoughts:
- Junior Bergen, to me, already holds the title as the best Grizzly returner of all time. Today he cemented that with a Big Sky Conference record 6th punt return. I don't know how entirely healthy the kid really is but once again he showed that his talent can even shine through even if he's not 100%.
- Griz offense was kind of stale and inconsistent today, after some barn burning numbers their last two games have really pulled back. Is this because they've been figured out? The QB rotation? Bobby rope-a-dope anticipating the next few games? Treating these two games like scrimmages? We'll find out soon enough.
- Riley Wilson was a one man wrecking crew for quite some time in the game. Poly started dedicating an RB to just chip the guy, but then we saw Tirrell, Nuce, Harris, and even Mata'afa tally up some TFLs and sacks. Another small thing that I just liked seeing was a handful of our D-line guys make some critical plays and stops. 4 sacks, 11 TFLs by the defense. That is huge!
- I thought Ah Yat and Fife both had good, and bad moments. I'm as baffled as ever as to what the plan is with these guys, but maybe that is the plan. Rotation, tough to prep for two, etc. Ah Yat was more "in tune" with the WRs today, some nice connections with X, Fontes, and White. Racanelli had a great 1 handed grab, White's TD was something else. But, Fife had a bad pick, missed a TD, and that end of the first half series was baffling (not sure play calling or execution). Ah Yat's RPO / zone read wasn't as crisp as we're used to seeing and he was behind WRs a bunch on crossing routes.
- REALLY liked the more heavy use of the zone for the defense. Husteadt's pick you can credit to the design and him recognizing and acting on it. Not sure it'll work against Davis, but hell who knows.
----------------
Alright, the Grizzlies still aren't playing perfect football, but I think we can all agree that the last two games are BETTER football than we'd seen before. We'll find out in a week + 4 hours from this post if it's all fools gold or if they're making those small improvements to just get back to the type of football we expect to see. Rest up Griz - the games you remember are played in November and it's crunch time!
Go Griz!
