By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
Mick Delaney’s run as Grizzly head football coach ended Saturday in Cheney with a loss to Eastern Washington. Like his 5 immediate predecessors Delaney’s last game at UM was in the post-season.
This was the 13th. Season in the last 21 that the Griz have won a game in the FCS play-offs. Over those same 21 seasons the Griz have posted 224 wins for an average of nearly 10.7 wins a season.
Of the 8 schools remaining in the FCS field include the last three programs to claim an FCS national title, Villanova, Eastern Washington and North Dakota State combing for five titles combined. None of the other five programs left in the play-offs have ever won an FCS title and only Sam Houston State has ever reached the FCS title game.
New Florida Gators coach Jim McElwain will get a first look at his new team in a bowl game when the Gators meet East Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl January 3rd. This is the third time in the last 45 seasons that Florida has reached a Bowl Game with a new head coach for the following season already signed up. In 1969 Doug Dickey had been hired as the new Florida and he coached in Florida’s bowl game that year; problem was Dickey was the head coach of Tennessee the team facing Florida in the Gator Bowl.
Wednesday night the Grizzly basketball team finally gets a rerun visit from “Bracketbuster” of 2013 as Davidson College comes calling. The Wildcats have a rich basketball history having made three appearances in the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament, as recently as 2008.
Davidson has coaching veteran Bob McKillop–in his 26th season with the Cats. While Davidson has had one coach over the last 26 years, Montana’s program has been headed by 7 different head coaches.
Davidson is now part of the A-10 Conference along with the likes of St. Louis, George Washington and Dayton.
Two freshman have been keys in the Davidson success this season Peyton Aldridge from Ohio, and Nathan Ewku a Nigerian native.
The Griz will have little time to rest as they make their first trip to Milwaukee since November of 2003. The Panthers are coached by long-time Panthers head man, Rob Jeter (whose father was a Super Bowl star for the Green Bay Packers.) Intriguing fact, as the Panthers are led in scoring and rebounding by 6-2 guard Steve McWhorter, the Panthers face No. 2 ranked Wisconsin in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
A significant stat that may play a factor in the Montana vs. UW-Milwaukee game is that that Montana is ranked 50th in the nation in steals while the Panthers are 317th in that category.
On Sunday the Montana Lady Griz face the Pilots of Portland in the Rose City. Last season Montana picked up the 800 win of Robin Selvig’s career at Montana with a November win over Portland in Missoula. Prior to that 2013 win by the Lady Griz, Portland had taken the previous 3 games of the series. Montana’s Last win in Portland was in January of 2006.
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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.