It's off to the early bye week for Montana who's sitting at 2-0 and already playing some incredibly tough and physical football. I'm truly amazed at how much this team has progressed in the last few years and the Griz showed last night that the Washington win wasn't some fluke, this is what we can expect all season. This team so far is showing the benefits of the investment in the training center, the support and systems of the staff, and the players commitment towards RTD.
The game started choppy, mostly for the offense - but they got things in gear as the game went on. I think this is just what we'll see most of this season. There certainly seems to be a "warming up" phase that the offense goes through, and once they hit it they tend to get in stride from there.
Defensively, I don't know if I've seen a more physical and intense group at Montana. Yes it's early, lets see if we hold this attitude and style all season, my bet is they will though. The secondary shut down one of the Missouri Valley's best passing attacks and kept (allegedly) one of the best FCS WRs to just over 40 yards. These guys just dole out punishment, 6 sacks and 3 forced fumbles (2 recovered). It' been over 7 quarters of football since a team has scored on this defense. WIU didn't even make it into the redzone last night.
Its funny because at the half I just didn't feel all that convinced that this team had the same mojo going. We had hit a nice last second TD but otherwise it was feeling a little ho-hum to me. I was somewhat concerned about the running game as Childs had lost a fumble and Bergen was hanging in there. Then in the 3rd the Griz just settled in and with some incredible passes from Cam, some great running by Childs, and some more tough defense the Griz just calmly and quickly put WIU away. Pulling the stats its so impressive to see how the offense piled up almost 520 yards of offense and that the defense held WIU to 151 total. WIU was the 4th best overall offense in the MVFC spring season, and last night they were absolutely shut down.
Some additional thoughts:
- Congrats Bobby Hauck on your 100th win! From this fan I'm damn glad you're back at Montana.
- Didn't like that Montana was -1 overall in turnovers. Cam's first pick, as it seemed to me, was just a bad/rushed throw on 3rd and long. The second one was something he falls issue to - being a bit behind the WRs on crossing routes.
- I know it's early and who the hell knows how the rest of the season will go but Patrick O'Connell is on a pace to just shatter all sorts of numbers at Montana. He's at 4.5 sacks in just 2 games (he had 6.5 in all of 2019), and the dude leads the team in tackles. I've said this on the GFP and probably posted it here but this guy reminds me so much of Kroy Biermann in the way he plays.
- Cam Humphrey had a far better overall outing and really was able to settle in once the running game got going. It seems to me that as long as the ground game can keep churning, Cam can deal and play really well. His 3rd quarter (save the pick) was the best I've seen him play as a Griz. I want to see how he continues to progress as QB1, if he can continue to smooth out these rougher patches and play the way we saw in the 2nd half of both these last two games, we'll be in great shape. What I still need to see though is if Cam can be "that guy" in a game where the ground game gets stuffed, can he keep the team moving? One last thought, Cam's pocket awareness is very good - he showed it again last night, we don't see a lot of FCS QBs able to confidently step up in the pocket and avoid pressure as well as he can.
- No sacks for WIU, and 242 rushing yards for the Griz. This O-line is something else. I actually met a few WIU parents before the game and #36's mom told me her son will sack our QB 3 times in the game. I told her back that UW only got to Cam once so her son must be better than any player on Washington. (It was all in jest, we had a beer together at my tailgate, they were really good folks). No matter what WIU threw at this O-line, they took it in stride and were unphased.
- #41 Michael Lawson on WIU is a tremendous player. I think his knee was down on the 6 on his first interception, but it's all good.
- This could be one of the better defensive secondary units that Montana has had in my recollection. That EWU game next month is going to be an impressive test.
- I had told people and posted on here to "just wait" for when Marcus Welnel got a chance to show you all what he could do.
- How great was it to see Malik Flowers finally show off what he can do as a receiver? Just like Welnel he had to put in work and wait for his time to shine, and once it was - he's made the most of it.
- The UM needs to figure out a better way for entrance into the stadium. That was a total mess. I got in line later than I intended to (5:50) and stood in line for nearly 30 min to get in and missed Montana's first two possessions.
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Alright, we're 2-0 and headed into the bye on a roll. This is shaping up to be a real fun season and I just can't wait to see the Griz back at it in 2 weeks against Poly. There's plenty needed to improve, and lots of things to pick apart here - but keep in mind that this team wants to be playing its best football in Nov/Dec. Think about what this group can do if they're just playing at 70% of their potential right now... wow.
It was great to see and talk with so many Griz fans too, that made last night extra special, to catch up and see a lot of my "Griz family" who I hadn't seen much of since 2019.
The game started choppy, mostly for the offense - but they got things in gear as the game went on. I think this is just what we'll see most of this season. There certainly seems to be a "warming up" phase that the offense goes through, and once they hit it they tend to get in stride from there.
Defensively, I don't know if I've seen a more physical and intense group at Montana. Yes it's early, lets see if we hold this attitude and style all season, my bet is they will though. The secondary shut down one of the Missouri Valley's best passing attacks and kept (allegedly) one of the best FCS WRs to just over 40 yards. These guys just dole out punishment, 6 sacks and 3 forced fumbles (2 recovered). It' been over 7 quarters of football since a team has scored on this defense. WIU didn't even make it into the redzone last night.
Its funny because at the half I just didn't feel all that convinced that this team had the same mojo going. We had hit a nice last second TD but otherwise it was feeling a little ho-hum to me. I was somewhat concerned about the running game as Childs had lost a fumble and Bergen was hanging in there. Then in the 3rd the Griz just settled in and with some incredible passes from Cam, some great running by Childs, and some more tough defense the Griz just calmly and quickly put WIU away. Pulling the stats its so impressive to see how the offense piled up almost 520 yards of offense and that the defense held WIU to 151 total. WIU was the 4th best overall offense in the MVFC spring season, and last night they were absolutely shut down.
Some additional thoughts:
- Congrats Bobby Hauck on your 100th win! From this fan I'm damn glad you're back at Montana.
- Didn't like that Montana was -1 overall in turnovers. Cam's first pick, as it seemed to me, was just a bad/rushed throw on 3rd and long. The second one was something he falls issue to - being a bit behind the WRs on crossing routes.
- I know it's early and who the hell knows how the rest of the season will go but Patrick O'Connell is on a pace to just shatter all sorts of numbers at Montana. He's at 4.5 sacks in just 2 games (he had 6.5 in all of 2019), and the dude leads the team in tackles. I've said this on the GFP and probably posted it here but this guy reminds me so much of Kroy Biermann in the way he plays.
- Cam Humphrey had a far better overall outing and really was able to settle in once the running game got going. It seems to me that as long as the ground game can keep churning, Cam can deal and play really well. His 3rd quarter (save the pick) was the best I've seen him play as a Griz. I want to see how he continues to progress as QB1, if he can continue to smooth out these rougher patches and play the way we saw in the 2nd half of both these last two games, we'll be in great shape. What I still need to see though is if Cam can be "that guy" in a game where the ground game gets stuffed, can he keep the team moving? One last thought, Cam's pocket awareness is very good - he showed it again last night, we don't see a lot of FCS QBs able to confidently step up in the pocket and avoid pressure as well as he can.
- No sacks for WIU, and 242 rushing yards for the Griz. This O-line is something else. I actually met a few WIU parents before the game and #36's mom told me her son will sack our QB 3 times in the game. I told her back that UW only got to Cam once so her son must be better than any player on Washington. (It was all in jest, we had a beer together at my tailgate, they were really good folks). No matter what WIU threw at this O-line, they took it in stride and were unphased.
- #41 Michael Lawson on WIU is a tremendous player. I think his knee was down on the 6 on his first interception, but it's all good.
- This could be one of the better defensive secondary units that Montana has had in my recollection. That EWU game next month is going to be an impressive test.
- I had told people and posted on here to "just wait" for when Marcus Welnel got a chance to show you all what he could do.
- How great was it to see Malik Flowers finally show off what he can do as a receiver? Just like Welnel he had to put in work and wait for his time to shine, and once it was - he's made the most of it.
- The UM needs to figure out a better way for entrance into the stadium. That was a total mess. I got in line later than I intended to (5:50) and stood in line for nearly 30 min to get in and missed Montana's first two possessions.
------------
Alright, we're 2-0 and headed into the bye on a roll. This is shaping up to be a real fun season and I just can't wait to see the Griz back at it in 2 weeks against Poly. There's plenty needed to improve, and lots of things to pick apart here - but keep in mind that this team wants to be playing its best football in Nov/Dec. Think about what this group can do if they're just playing at 70% of their potential right now... wow.
It was great to see and talk with so many Griz fans too, that made last night extra special, to catch up and see a lot of my "Griz family" who I hadn't seen much of since 2019.
) will make teams pay for man to man coverage. This team will be a handful,
