By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
The Griz win at North Dakota on Saturday marked the 567th win in Griz history. Here’s a better way to explain it: half of all Griz football wins have come since a September 1984 win over Don Read and his Portland State Vikings. Another way to put it is that one third of all Griz football wins have occurred since mid-October, 1996. By the way as the current Big Sky schedule is laid out the Griz will not return to grand Forks until 2018, this after having made the trip to Grand Forks each of the last 4 years.
The MSU bobcats are off to Davis California to face the Aggies. Two years ago the Cats and Aggies staged a 49-45 shootout won by MSU. This game will feature two of the top 3 kick returners in the Big Sky as MSU Gunner Brekke leads the league and the Aggies Shanwan Wright is third. Under Rob Ash in the last 7 plus seasons MSU has won 61 games equaling the program’s total wins from 1985 to 1999.
In just 6 games Washington State quarterback Connor Halliday has passed for over 3,000 yards– more than 900 yards ahead of the second ranked, Brandon Meyers from Western Kentucky. On the other hand the FCS rushing race is close as 4 rushers are separated by just 5 yards at the top of the list.
Former Grizzly offensive assistant Steve Axmen is now the interim head coach at Nichols State of Louisiana having taken over the Colonels program 3 weeks ago. In 1996 Nichols State faced Montana in the opening of the FCS play-offs that same season Axmen had the Walter Payton Award winner at Northern Arizona in Archie Amerson.
When the Kansas City Royals joined the American League in 1969 the Baltimore Orioles were the best team in baseball and showed it off by beating the Expansion Royals 24 of the teams’ first 26 meetings. Now they meet for a trip to the World Series.
In the National League it could be the third time in 13 seasons that the Cardinals and Giants have met in the NLCS, with the Giants winning both of those play-off series. As a matter of fact the Cards and Giants have won 7 of the last 12 National League titles.
Current UM Police Chief Marty Ludeman has spent much of the last 35 years helping catch people that try to steal things in Missoula. However 40 years ago this week it was Ludemann who was the clutch thief. 40 years ago this week Ludeman intercepted a pass against the Flathead Braves and returned it 65 yards for the game-clinching score as the Sentinel Spartans downed Flathead 28-18.
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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.