As (paraphrased) stated to me by Sacramento State president Luke Wood himself, "Montana is just better, they're the best. They do everything so well and it shows, this program is the best."
Apologies for the tardy post game recap, my head hit the pillow around 5am this morning. Being on the team flight was another fun/fascinating experience to the inner workings of what happens during a road game. And while an overnight trip home wasn't the most glamorous it sure is was a total blast over the last 36-48 hours. As most of you know the Sac president invited me, by way of the GFP, to come see him in his suite. I did take up the invite, went there quickly pre-game and then over the half and got to chat with him for a few minutes then. I know he's the boogeyman for a lot of you on here but in my talk with him he was gracious and friendly, he helped some Griz coaches with a locked door to the coaches room I believe, and he fully believes in his vision - even if it's bound to fall short. For the game itself though, I was in the stands with the large Griz contingent that was there. At one point Luke Wood did walk by the Griz section, he had caught one of the mini plush pandas that some fans brought and were tossing out - he got the reaction you'd expect haha.
The game itself though, being there in person, and then re-watching this early afternoon it was clear that this was a matchup of a group of tremendous "me-ball" athletes and a TEAM that believed in each other. And that team, the Grizzlies, kicked the Hornets ass last night. It was even more apparent on TV to see how fractured and leaderless Sac is as a squad. There were players screaming at each other, the QB continually getting his guys set, stupid penalties, excessive cheap shots, throwing punches during the handshake, secondary players quitting on effort, and players celebrating alone on big plays rather than the team celebrating together. Montana, on the other hand, was calm and focused on the field. They executed when needed and were never rattled by whatever Sac attempted to throw at them.
Montana was prepared, well coached, and was able to execute - Sacramento was none of those.
As for other observations:
- Michael Wortham now has nearly 1500 all purpose yards and 11 total TDs, he has played his way onto the Payton watch list and is one of the most dynamic players in the entire FCS. It's hard to single handedly point to one guy on this offense as MVP because of the contributions of Gillman and Ah Yat as well, but what Mike has brought to this team has lit this offense on fire.
- Eli Gillman ran like a man possessed and made so many massive plays, the early 3rd and 10 conversion seemed to flip a switch and other players responded in kind. He leads the Big Sky in scoring and rushing yards, he's 4th overall in APY. It's kind of wild that with the season that others are having around him many of us are just taking for granted (to some extent) the contribution he makes for this team.
- There was A LOT of chatter on here, on twitter, and in other spaces on the OL this week. While it wasn't a perfect game by any measure, I think the OL had a very good evening. Montana out-rushed the #1 rushing offense in the Big Sky on 4.7 YPC and only allowed 1 sack on a bit of a total breakdown play where Ah Yat ran into his own lineman. Amick in his 2nd game at RT looked pretty good to me on the re-watch.
- I'm on the fence with some of the expressed worry about the pass defense. Giving up 337 to a running team is obviously awful, two of their bigger plays came on Griz DBs tripping. The Grizzly defense clearly built a plan to disrupt the run game and that put the Griz secondary on islands a lot. As the game went on the Griz blitzed more and it finally got to their QB and forced him to really play poorly.
- Best game of his career by Caleb Otlewski, the centaur. (At least from my perspective, especially re-watching on TV)
- Didn't really love all the lateral runs, especially on 3rd down and medium-ish or short, I don't think it resulted in much success either.
- Has there been another player who has accelerated and improved his play more than Kenzel Lawler? 2 TFLs for a corner, and a few great breakups.
- Let's see how today shapes up but Peyton Wing and his 3 sacks, including 1 resulting in a turnover on downs, has to have him as our defensive player of the week. He continues to impress with his play and his speed.
- Great game for Wilkinson as well, 2 sacks himself, a few PBU's and 2nd on the team with 8 total tackles.
- Ah Yat is a warrior, that was a wicked hit. 3 more TDs to put him up to 17 passing, to go with his current 3 rushing.
- Once again, special teams really shows up. The two players I keep talking about that are DUDES on special teams again made plays. Finch catches a dime of a fake punt pass to help put the dagger in Sac. Huff grabs a muffed punt which Montana would use to get to half up 7, and then score on their opening 2nd half drive that would keep Sac at 14 or more points away from Montana the rest of the game. Meanwhile undisciplined Sac wipes out a KR touchdown on a holding (which on replay was bad and a long ways away from the ball), they fumble a punt, and pull of a nice fake themselves but the punter trips (and I think Optiz was going to stop him short anyways).
- Brent Pease needs his flowers, he and his staff are killing it with the skill they have and the results they're getting.
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The Griz get an extra day of rest and will hit the road again, these next few games are ones where we need to see this team continue to iron out some issues that are still showing up, but overall I'm really liking the trajectory they're on right now. I was worried going into this game that Montana wasn't really showing that upward improvement that we need to see... but now my feelings are really changing on that. Great team win Griz - hell of a game!
Apologies for the tardy post game recap, my head hit the pillow around 5am this morning. Being on the team flight was another fun/fascinating experience to the inner workings of what happens during a road game. And while an overnight trip home wasn't the most glamorous it sure is was a total blast over the last 36-48 hours. As most of you know the Sac president invited me, by way of the GFP, to come see him in his suite. I did take up the invite, went there quickly pre-game and then over the half and got to chat with him for a few minutes then. I know he's the boogeyman for a lot of you on here but in my talk with him he was gracious and friendly, he helped some Griz coaches with a locked door to the coaches room I believe, and he fully believes in his vision - even if it's bound to fall short. For the game itself though, I was in the stands with the large Griz contingent that was there. At one point Luke Wood did walk by the Griz section, he had caught one of the mini plush pandas that some fans brought and were tossing out - he got the reaction you'd expect haha.
The game itself though, being there in person, and then re-watching this early afternoon it was clear that this was a matchup of a group of tremendous "me-ball" athletes and a TEAM that believed in each other. And that team, the Grizzlies, kicked the Hornets ass last night. It was even more apparent on TV to see how fractured and leaderless Sac is as a squad. There were players screaming at each other, the QB continually getting his guys set, stupid penalties, excessive cheap shots, throwing punches during the handshake, secondary players quitting on effort, and players celebrating alone on big plays rather than the team celebrating together. Montana, on the other hand, was calm and focused on the field. They executed when needed and were never rattled by whatever Sac attempted to throw at them.
Montana was prepared, well coached, and was able to execute - Sacramento was none of those.
As for other observations:
- Michael Wortham now has nearly 1500 all purpose yards and 11 total TDs, he has played his way onto the Payton watch list and is one of the most dynamic players in the entire FCS. It's hard to single handedly point to one guy on this offense as MVP because of the contributions of Gillman and Ah Yat as well, but what Mike has brought to this team has lit this offense on fire.
- Eli Gillman ran like a man possessed and made so many massive plays, the early 3rd and 10 conversion seemed to flip a switch and other players responded in kind. He leads the Big Sky in scoring and rushing yards, he's 4th overall in APY. It's kind of wild that with the season that others are having around him many of us are just taking for granted (to some extent) the contribution he makes for this team.
- There was A LOT of chatter on here, on twitter, and in other spaces on the OL this week. While it wasn't a perfect game by any measure, I think the OL had a very good evening. Montana out-rushed the #1 rushing offense in the Big Sky on 4.7 YPC and only allowed 1 sack on a bit of a total breakdown play where Ah Yat ran into his own lineman. Amick in his 2nd game at RT looked pretty good to me on the re-watch.
- I'm on the fence with some of the expressed worry about the pass defense. Giving up 337 to a running team is obviously awful, two of their bigger plays came on Griz DBs tripping. The Grizzly defense clearly built a plan to disrupt the run game and that put the Griz secondary on islands a lot. As the game went on the Griz blitzed more and it finally got to their QB and forced him to really play poorly.
- Best game of his career by Caleb Otlewski, the centaur. (At least from my perspective, especially re-watching on TV)
- Didn't really love all the lateral runs, especially on 3rd down and medium-ish or short, I don't think it resulted in much success either.
- Has there been another player who has accelerated and improved his play more than Kenzel Lawler? 2 TFLs for a corner, and a few great breakups.
- Let's see how today shapes up but Peyton Wing and his 3 sacks, including 1 resulting in a turnover on downs, has to have him as our defensive player of the week. He continues to impress with his play and his speed.
- Great game for Wilkinson as well, 2 sacks himself, a few PBU's and 2nd on the team with 8 total tackles.
- Ah Yat is a warrior, that was a wicked hit. 3 more TDs to put him up to 17 passing, to go with his current 3 rushing.
- Once again, special teams really shows up. The two players I keep talking about that are DUDES on special teams again made plays. Finch catches a dime of a fake punt pass to help put the dagger in Sac. Huff grabs a muffed punt which Montana would use to get to half up 7, and then score on their opening 2nd half drive that would keep Sac at 14 or more points away from Montana the rest of the game. Meanwhile undisciplined Sac wipes out a KR touchdown on a holding (which on replay was bad and a long ways away from the ball), they fumble a punt, and pull of a nice fake themselves but the punter trips (and I think Optiz was going to stop him short anyways).
- Brent Pease needs his flowers, he and his staff are killing it with the skill they have and the results they're getting.
-----------------
The Griz get an extra day of rest and will hit the road again, these next few games are ones where we need to see this team continue to iron out some issues that are still showing up, but overall I'm really liking the trajectory they're on right now. I was worried going into this game that Montana wasn't really showing that upward improvement that we need to see... but now my feelings are really changing on that. Great team win Griz - hell of a game!
