By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
October 13th has been a good day for Grizzly football over the last 50 years. Since 1962 the Griz are 6-0-1 in games played on October 13th. The October 13th tie came in 1984 when the Griz and Eastern Washington battled to a 14-14 tie, which would be the final tie on UM’s record as two years later 1-AA adopted the overtime procedure now in use.
This is the first time in 10 years that the Thunderbirds of Southern Utah have come to visit in October. It was a wild shootout back in October of 2002 as the Griz outlasted the T-Birds 68-45.
Teams making their first Big Sky Conference visit to Missoula have not fared well. Of the nine teams that have joined the Big Sky since it was chartered only one team has claimed a win in the first conference visit to Missoula that was Nevada in 1979.
The Montana State Bobcats look to go 7-0 as they host the Eastern Washington Eagles. The Eagles have made themselves right at home in Bozeman, winning 4 of their last 6 visits to Bobcat stadium. Worth noting for Cat fans is that the only 2 times the Bobcats beat Eastern in Bozeman later that same season the Bobcats have come to Missoula and beat the Griz.
Former Griz coach Joe Glenn has had trouble getting wins in his first season as head coach at South Dakota, but relief might be right down the road. Glenn takes his USD Coyotes into Springfield Missouri to take on the Missouri State Bears. The Bears of MSU have lost their last 6 home games.
The Ravens’ Michael Oher is the adoptive brother of Sean Tuohy Jr. (AP Photo; Photo from Sean Tuohy Jr.’s Twitter account)
In the movie “The Blind Side” college football coaches had to woo young Sean “SJ” as much as star recruit Michael Oher. It seems that recruiting experience has come in handy for Sean Touhy JR., as he is a very talented basketball player. Instead of OLE Miss Sean Touhy has made a verbal commitment to play at Loyola Marymount in the West Coast Conference.
As college football fans across the nation this week join the fight to “Stand Up To Cancer,” it is worth remembering that even in 2012 sports is touched by the threat of cancer. Currently Indianapolis colts head coach Chuck Pagano is on a leave from the team to battle Leukemia. Pagano has some Big Sky Conference experience in his career having coached the linebackers at Boise State in 1987 and ’88.
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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.