By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
From 1957 to 1985 the Montana Grizzlies won just twice over the MSU Bobcats in Bozeman compared to 12 wins for the Bobcats. Since the 1987 Griz-Cat game UM has won 11 of 13 visits to Bozeman (yes, the 2011 game was vacated).
For the Bobcats, their last home win over the Griz came in 2005 when in Travis Lulay’s final game for the Cats, MSU claimed a 16-6 win. Saturday will be the final home game for another Bobcat award winning quarterback Denarius McGhee. An MSU win would mean that McGhee had guided the Cats to three wins over the Griz, something only Lulay and Dennis Erickson have achieved.
Saturday’s game will feature the Big Sky leader in punt returns (Grizzly Ellis Henderson) and the leader in kickoff returns (Bobcat Shawn Johnson). In two significant stats area the Griz outmatch the Bobcats by a wide margin. And in Red-Zone defense MSU is the more porous defense in the league while the Griz rank as the second most difficult defense to score on in the Red Zone. Montana has the second fewest penalties and is second in opponent penalty yards.
The Grizzlies now have posted 9 regular season wins for the 17th time in the last 25 years.
The MSU Bobcats enter the 113th “Brawl of the Wild” with a 2-game losing streak. The last time the Bobcats came into the annual meeting with the Griz on a 2-game losing streak was 2004 when the Griz beat the Cats 38-22.
The Wolf pack of Glacier High School plays for a state football title for the first time in its history. Flathead’s last football title came in 1970 and the Braves have reached the title game only twice since then in 1980 and 2000.
Friday Wayne Tinkle has a chance to become the third winningest coach in Griz basketball history as UM faces the Dons of San Fransico. Tinkle’s first official win as Montana coach came on November 10, 2006 when the Griz routed MSU-Northern. Twenty-eight years ago Saturday Tinkle made his Griz debut in a win over Seattle.
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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.