At the end of the day this team provided some all-time great moments. Beating UW, MSU, and EWU. Ford and OConnell with ridiculous seasons, Junior’s emergence. Akem with his record breaking performance. Boomschini making the punt so exciting again. Flowers electricity with the ball in his hands. The long stretches without a TD that happened multiple times. And many, many more!
They did it with a next man up mentality all year. Our young guys got invaluable experience and it’s clear that the culture is night and day different than it was when Hauck took over. The fans are back and Washington-Grizzly was absolutely rocking those last two games. Expectations are now higher once again, and that is a testament to what we’ve seen the last decade. The recruiting is starting to pay dividends and now we can focus on one or two areas with deficiencies and correct them as opposed to a huge program rebuild from top to bottom like was needed. The injuries were the worst I’ve seen for a team I’ve followed this closely at least consistently at key positions. Running back will be a huge difference maker next year and go a long ways to curing some of the offensive woes, and we will get to see a good qb competition in the spring and fall camps. I expect some big drop down transfers for this team given the landscape, and that’s where we relied heavily as part of the rebuild, but moving forward that Montana grit and backbone that makes up a huge part of our teams historical success has been restored.
What could’ve been is a dangerous mentality. Now that the season is over it’s time to give them all the credit that is due.
