Yesterday's win cemented a few things for this team. First and foremost Logan Fife is our QB for the rest of 2024, and secondly the Griz have secured a spot in the playoffs. This team's goals were also to win the conference and they'd fallen short of that already after last week's loss, however if they can pull off a major upset road win they will for sure secure a bye and a favorable seed.
Looking back on the Portland game though, it went from pretty dire to a fast turnaround between each half. Maybe the biggest moment of the game didn't really happen on the field, but off it, when after a personal foul on a TD the broadcast picked up a shouting match between Hauck and Fife. At first you see Bobby ripping Logan with what sure looked like some f-bombs, and cut to commercial. Upon return from the TV break we saw Fife return his feelings to Hauck and Coach Green had to separate the two. A few minutes later the TV shows the two hugging and talking and it was addressed post-game by both as well. Could this have been an unplanned/unintended moment where QB leadership finally broke through? The Grizzly offense sure seemed to respond to it. Will it fix all of the Grizzlies issues? Probably not. But it's been a bit of an excruciating season with this QB rotation and that moment, coupled with Fife's play from there on out sure seems to lift one concern a lot of us have had.
The wild thing about it all was on a re-watch. Ah Yat had a few errors you can chart up to inexperience, there was the pick where Fontes was open more in the middle of the field, an RPO that was thrown into the face of a PSU player, and a throw off his back foot that resulted in a breakup. Beyond that though his WR's couldn't hang onto the ball and a few bad drops killed drives. It sounded like / seemed like his injury wasn't bad - that's great to hear. We all know the future is Ah Yat, he'll get there.
A few more observations I had:
- What a game by Jace Klucewich, and I'm not just talking about the 2 INTs. Kluce had a few key stops on 3rd down, one being an open field tackle. He was around the ball a lot too. Casual fan observation but I'd venture this was his best game in his Griz career so far, it's not often one guy gets two RZ turnovers in a single game! Hopefully he got some time off on some ranch work today.
- The Grizzly defense for quite a while was really having issues with PSU's zone read, and that doesn't bode well for the game ahead. A lot of PSU's edge/outside runs, especially on their two second half TD drives the outside contain was totally gone. I'd see it over and over, linebackers and safeties leaving the edge to crash in on the first read and leaving that edge open. This far into the season, can they correct that? They're squaring off against a team that has to be loving what they see on film this weekend.
- Sawyer Racanelli had himself a day with Keelan White out. And Aaron Fontes, another all over the place up/down game, some great catches and plays, some bad drops, and a flag for unsportsmanlike.
- Ryder's targeting call was dumb, I'm just glad it happened in the first half not the 2nd, we'll have him the whole game in Bozeman.
- Griz KR coverage was a little dicey....
- TJ Rausch is an interesting dude for me, he came in for Ryder and finished up 2nd on the team with 10 stops and 1 TFL, good stats. Seemed (to me) that some of the areas PSU was exploiting in the run game and up the middle in the pass game might've also been in his direction - testing the new guy.
- Again, we know this defense is bend, don't break. They held the 2nd leading APY guy in the conference to a net of 194 total yards (passing/rushing). They forced 5 turnovers, 2 in the red zone, and they were on the field for a staggering 38:00 of TOP all while doing it. This defense is doing what it needs to do to to keep the Griz in every game (so far). I think they've generally done what they can to shore up the issues that really popped out during the first portion of the season, it's not perfect and it leads to some frustrations, but they're playing better overall as a unit.
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Alright, it's cat week, our "rival" Portland State is in the rear view mirror. We're settled on QB and now the guys can focus on protecting the divide trophy and hopefully locking up a top playoff seed! Let's GO GRIZ!
Looking back on the Portland game though, it went from pretty dire to a fast turnaround between each half. Maybe the biggest moment of the game didn't really happen on the field, but off it, when after a personal foul on a TD the broadcast picked up a shouting match between Hauck and Fife. At first you see Bobby ripping Logan with what sure looked like some f-bombs, and cut to commercial. Upon return from the TV break we saw Fife return his feelings to Hauck and Coach Green had to separate the two. A few minutes later the TV shows the two hugging and talking and it was addressed post-game by both as well. Could this have been an unplanned/unintended moment where QB leadership finally broke through? The Grizzly offense sure seemed to respond to it. Will it fix all of the Grizzlies issues? Probably not. But it's been a bit of an excruciating season with this QB rotation and that moment, coupled with Fife's play from there on out sure seems to lift one concern a lot of us have had.
The wild thing about it all was on a re-watch. Ah Yat had a few errors you can chart up to inexperience, there was the pick where Fontes was open more in the middle of the field, an RPO that was thrown into the face of a PSU player, and a throw off his back foot that resulted in a breakup. Beyond that though his WR's couldn't hang onto the ball and a few bad drops killed drives. It sounded like / seemed like his injury wasn't bad - that's great to hear. We all know the future is Ah Yat, he'll get there.
A few more observations I had:
- What a game by Jace Klucewich, and I'm not just talking about the 2 INTs. Kluce had a few key stops on 3rd down, one being an open field tackle. He was around the ball a lot too. Casual fan observation but I'd venture this was his best game in his Griz career so far, it's not often one guy gets two RZ turnovers in a single game! Hopefully he got some time off on some ranch work today.
- The Grizzly defense for quite a while was really having issues with PSU's zone read, and that doesn't bode well for the game ahead. A lot of PSU's edge/outside runs, especially on their two second half TD drives the outside contain was totally gone. I'd see it over and over, linebackers and safeties leaving the edge to crash in on the first read and leaving that edge open. This far into the season, can they correct that? They're squaring off against a team that has to be loving what they see on film this weekend.
- Sawyer Racanelli had himself a day with Keelan White out. And Aaron Fontes, another all over the place up/down game, some great catches and plays, some bad drops, and a flag for unsportsmanlike.
- Ryder's targeting call was dumb, I'm just glad it happened in the first half not the 2nd, we'll have him the whole game in Bozeman.
- Griz KR coverage was a little dicey....
- TJ Rausch is an interesting dude for me, he came in for Ryder and finished up 2nd on the team with 10 stops and 1 TFL, good stats. Seemed (to me) that some of the areas PSU was exploiting in the run game and up the middle in the pass game might've also been in his direction - testing the new guy.
- Again, we know this defense is bend, don't break. They held the 2nd leading APY guy in the conference to a net of 194 total yards (passing/rushing). They forced 5 turnovers, 2 in the red zone, and they were on the field for a staggering 38:00 of TOP all while doing it. This defense is doing what it needs to do to to keep the Griz in every game (so far). I think they've generally done what they can to shore up the issues that really popped out during the first portion of the season, it's not perfect and it leads to some frustrations, but they're playing better overall as a unit.
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Alright, it's cat week, our "rival" Portland State is in the rear view mirror. We're settled on QB and now the guys can focus on protecting the divide trophy and hopefully locking up a top playoff seed! Let's GO GRIZ!
