. . . Trailing 21-3 after a first half in which they were woefully outplayed in every phase of the game except punting, UC Davis put together one of its now-patented 2018 comebacks to rout the University of Montana, 49-21, before a stunned crowd of 24,141 fans Saturday afternoon at sun-drenched Washington-Denny Stadium.
“We went in very calmly at halftime and talked about what we needed to do,” head coach Dan Hawkins explained afterward. “A whole lot of little things went wrong in the first half, but once we got some momentum in the second half we were able to take control. Momentum is a deadly force, it really is. Our guys were able to put a rock on the gas pedal and then there was no stopping us.”
The 46-0 second-half outburst was reminiscent of last weekend’s 52-0 explosion after the Aggies trailed 10-0 at Cal Poly. Added to a 16-point second-half comeback in a win against Idaho State, it gives the Aggies three straight come-from-behind victories in what is rapidly becoming one of the most magical seasons in UC Davis’ 100 years of football. The win, UCD’s fifth straight, keeps the Aggies alone atop the Big Sky Conference standings at 5-0 and pushes their overall record to 7-1. The win also moves Davis another significant step toward its first-ever BSC title and first-ever Football Championship Subdivision playoff berth.
Montana, once the most-feared team in the circuit, fell to 2-3 in league play and 4-4 overall. It was the first time in eight tries, dating all the way to 1926, that the Aggies managed to beat the Grizzlies.
Noted a subdued Montana head coach Bobby Hauck afterward, “We came out strong in the first half and put a lot of heat on them. I told our kids at halftime that we were playing Grizzly football. But then we just couldn’t sustain it.” . . . The Griz finished the first half with 292 yards in total offense to just 113 for the Aggies, but by game’s end those numbers flipped to favor UCD, 519 to 413.
