As the calendar flips on Friday, the Montana Grizzlies hit the road for a second-straight week with the business end of the regular season in sight, and as the saying goes, “the games they remember are played in November.”
With an eye toward the same continuous improvement so evident in last year’s championship run, the Griz head to Cal Poly as a team on the rise this week, riding a two-game win streak and coming off a shut-out win on the road at Northern Colorado.
Montana heads to California with everything still to play for this season, sitting at 6-2 overall and 3-1 in league play to slot in third on the conference table, and the two teams ahead of them still out there on the schedule.
The Mustangs enter the contest with fresh legs after a bye week, sitting at 2-5 on the year and 1-3 in conference play but are two losses by five points or less from a winning record. In their last time out, they nearly took down then No. 13 Idaho in Moscow in a 29-34 loss, and also lost a nailbiter to Idaho State, 38-41.
Add to that the fact their lone conference win was a comprehensive one at Northern Colorado and they only trailed Stanford by a touchdown at halftime, and the Mustangs have proven they have muscle. Cal Poly defensive end Elijah Ponder is a preseason All-American who was named to the Senior Bowl Watch List earlier this season, and their three-QB rotation has a variety of weapons available to them, including three of the top 50 receivers in the league.
But two weeks after their own bye, the Griz are emerging out of hibernation looking to eat as they bring the No. 5 scoring offense in the FCS that averages nearly 40 points a game and a defense coming off a two-game stretch that has only allowed one offensive touchdown to San Louis Obispo.
With thoughts of a title coming into view, it’s one game at a time for UM as the Griz and Mustangs kick off from California at 3 p.m. Mountain Time on Saturday.
GRIZ TAILGATE: Griz fans making the trip to SLO Town have the chance to pregame with fellow Montanans this week at the official UM tailgate party, hosted by alumni Carl and Anette Rummel. The tailgate will take place on the lawn outside Chase Hall, located to the Southeast of Mustang Memorial Field across College Avenue. Look for the Griz tent.
WATCH: This week’s game at Cal Poly will be available on local CBS stations around the state, with the Scripps Sports broadcast available on KPAX in Missoula/Kalispell, KTVQ in Billings, KRTV in Great Falls, and KXLH in Helena. The game will also be shown locally in California’s central coast on KSBY, a Scripps-owned NBC affiliate. A nationwide stream of the game is also available without blackout on ESPN+.
Grizzly Sports Hall of Famer and former NFL head coach Marty Mornhinweg serves as the analyst on the broadcast, while longtime Montana newsman Jay Kohn will provide the play-by-play. Kyle Hansen will report from the sidelines.
LISTEN: “Voice of the Griz” Riley Corcoran is in his ninth season behind the mic at Montana and will bring you all the Grizzly action over the airwaves on the Grizzly Sports Radio Network and its fourteen affiliate stations around the state.
“Grizzly Gameday” starts two hours before kickoff each Saturday with the official pregame radio show with Ace Sauerwein and Denny Bedard before Corcoran and longtime color commentator Greg Sundberg take over 30 minutes to kickoff.
Griz fans outside the radio footprint can stream all of Montana’s broadcasts on their mobile device LIVE and FREE of charge on the Varsity Network App.
THE SERIES: Montana heads to Cal Poly leading the all-time series comfortably at 18-5 since the first meeting in 1969. Of those 23 meetings, Saturday marks just the ninth game between the two programs in San Louis Obispo, where UM holds a slimmer 5-3 advantage in the series. Since Alex G. Spanos Stadium (now called Mustang Stadium) expanded in 2006 to its current capacity of 11,075, the Griz are less fortunate, however, at 2-3.
Bobby Hauck returns to Cal Poly with an 8-1 record over the Mustangs in his career, sitting at 3-0 since his return to UM in 2018. In those last three meetings the Griz have dominated, outscoring the Mustangs 144-35 (more on that later), and in the nine meetings overall under Hauck have outscored them 293-171.
Montana and Cal Poly played several closed contests during Hauck’s first tenure, however, with the Mustang’s only win over a Hauck-led Grizzly team occurring in the 2005 FCS playoffs when coach Rich Ellerson led Poly to a 35-21 win for the program’s first-ever playoff victory.
LAST MEETING: In a winter wonderland under the lights at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, Montana dominated the visitors from sunny California 57-0 almost two years ago to the day on Nov. 5, 2022.
Montana’s offense finished with 695 total yards, now the third most in a single game in program history. They trailed only the 717-yard performance against Weber State in 1999 and the 701 yards put up this year at EWU. It was the first time Montana went over 600 yards in a game since the victory against SE Louisiana in the 2019 playoffs.
The chains were moved a program record 37 times as the Griz proved difficult to get off the field. They converted 14 of 19 third down attempts, along with a fourth down conversion, and didn’t punt the entire game. The score could have been more lopsided had Montana not turned it over on downs and threw an interception in the end zone.
Nick Ostmo ran wild on the Mustangs to become Montana’s first 200-yard runner since Dalton Sneed in 2018. He put together his first career 100-yard game, and just went ahead and doubled it up for good measure. He became just the eighth Grizzly to run for 200 yards and the first running back to do it since Chase Reynolds in 2009. He ended with the sixth most yards in a game in program history with 221 and brought his total yardage to 260 with a couple of catches.
While the offense nearly broke several school records, the performance of Montana’s defense shouldn’t go unnoticed. The Grizzlies shut out a Cal Poly passing attack that entered the night third in the country in yards per game, holding them under 200 yards and to just 150 yards through the air.
Braxton Hill led Montana in place of the injured Patrick O’Connell. The Anaconda native had seven tackles and broke up multiple passes. Robby Hauck, Marcus Welnel and Levi Janacaro all had five tackles. Welnel got to the quarterback once and intercepted a pass in a complete performance.
Cal Poly was held under 75 yards in all four quarters, converting just a quarter of their third down attempts. Montana’s defense stifled them to the bitter end, giving up just three yards of offense in the final quarter when mostly backups were on the field for the Griz. A total of 23 different Montana players registered a tackle in the game.
LAST TIME IN SAN LOUIS OBISPO: Montana turned two first-quarter turnovers into an early 17-0 lead and never trailed in a 48-28 victory over Cal Poly in late September, 2018.
The Grizzlies improved to 4-1 and won at Alex G. Spanos Stadium for the first time since 2008, snapping a three-game losing streak on the Mustangs’ home field.
Against veteran coach Tim Walsh and his Cal Poly triple-option attack, the Griz elected to receive the opening kickoff. The Grizzlies then grabbed a 3-0 lead on a Tim Semenza field goal in the early going and got the ball back on the next drive when Dante Olson stopped Joe Protheroe for no gain on 4th-and-1 to halt Cal Poly’s first possession. It was the first of Olson’s 24 tackles, to this day the second-most in program history.
Montana’s defense forced a second fumble in the first quarter which was returned 80 yards for a touchdown by linebacker Josh Buss that put the Griz up 17-0, and the Griz didn’t look back. Quarterback Dalton Sneed threw for 285 yards and three TDs with the Griz adding 183 more yards on the ground.
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GRIZ IN THE POLLS: Montana jumped up a spot in both the FCS media and coaches polls this week to No. 8. The Griz enter the tail end of the season as the third of four Big Sky teams in the top 10 of the media poll.
A sweep of November’s final four regular season games could 1) bring a 20th Big Sky championship to Missoula, and 2) provide home field advantage through the playoffs, with the top eight seeds getting a first-round bye.
GRIZ IN THE RATINGS: When the computers take over it’s a different story for UM. This week’s Massey Ratings, a tool available in playoff seeding, Montana ranks No. 6 in the FCS with the No. 30-rated strength of schedule this season.
The Griz have two wins over ranked teams at the time of competition (No. 24 Western Carolina and No. 24 NAU), and Missouri State now sits at No. 17 in the FCS coaches’ poll, with the Bears’ only FCS loss being at UM.
Montana also slots in as the No. 2 Big Sky team, the No. 5 FCS team, and the No. 106 overall D-I team in the Sagarin Ratings, another common computer model that accounts for strength of schedule.
NICE, ROUND NUMBERS: 0, as in, zero. That’s about as round as a number gets. It’s also the number of points Northern Colorado has scored against Montana since 2021.
UNC remains the only Big Sky team to have never beaten a Hauck-led Griz team, with the four-time conference Coach of the Year now 8-0 over the Bears in his 13 years at UM. He’s guided the Griz to three-straight shutouts of UNC, having outscored them 99-0 in those contests, and in his eight overall wins, UM has outscored UNC by a whopping 310-74.
It was also the second shut-out of the season for the Grizzly defense, who blanked Morehead State 59-2 this season, with the two points coming on a missed PAT return. The Griz D has been on the rise over the last two games, having allowed just one offensive touchdown (and that was on a trick play) since the OT loss against Weber State.
- Here are some more nice round numbers following last week’s win at UNC that are coincidentally all mini milestones. UM’s win at UNC was the program’s 270th in Big Sky Conference play since joining the league as a founding member in 1963. That’s a conference record.
For Hauck, it was his 55th overall win and the 30th Big Sky win of his second tenure at Montana, dating back to 2018. It was also his 135th overall win at UM and the 150th in his career as a head coach.
STOPPING THE BEAR CHARGE: Not inconsequential in Montana’s three-straight shutouts of UNC has been the ability to stop the Bears run game. UM held UNC to just 65 yards on the ground on Saturday. Last time the two met in 2023 the Griz held them to just 18 yards rushing, and in 2021 they held UNC to 72. Meanwhile UM has been able to assert itself on the ground, outrushing the Bears by a total of 639-155 in that three-game span.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: While there’s no doubt it takes a complete team effort to shut out an opponent on their home turf, safety Jaxon Lee’s seven tackles and a highlight reel interception early in the second half went a long way toward making it happen.
Lee, a senior from Missoula by way of Philipsburg, helped lead a Grizzly defensive charge against Northern Colorado in Greeley, as Montana blanked the Bears 24-0 at Nottingham Field. He was named the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Week by the league on Monday. It’s the first weekly honor of his career and the first for the Grizzly defense so far this season.
Montana stymied the UNC rushing attack and held the Bears to just 65 yards on the ground, forcing the home team to turn to the air for yards. Jace Klucewich, Caleb Otlewski, and Lee made them pay for it, with UM hauling in a season-high three interceptions to keep Northern Colorado off the scoreboard for a third-straight game. The three turnovers were the most for the Griz against a single opponent since 2023 at Idaho where Lee recorded his first career interception. He followed that up a week later with a second-straight pick… against the same Northern Colorado Bears.
In his first years a full-time starter for the Griz, Lee has been productive once again this season as UM’s fifth-leading tackler. He’s now got 39 stops to his name and needs just 10 more to pass his junior season total. In addition to his third career pick, he’s also logged a fumble recovery, and two QB hurries this season.
SATURDAY’S OTHER STARS: Offense – Keali’i Ah Yat paced Montana’s offense at UNC, completing 14 of 22 passes for 149 yards and two touchdowns. He also netted five rushing yards of his own, and helped guide a Grizzly rushing attack that totaled just under 200 yards on the ground.
Like the rest of Montana’s offense (more on that later) he and Logan Fife have been balanced in their reps this season as the coaching staff looks to increase the quality of the depth at the crucial position. Fife has appeared in two more games than Ah Yat, but the two have similar numbers. Fife’s QB rating on the year is 152 with a 67 percent completion average, while Ah Yat has a 118 rating and a 62 percent completion average. The Grizzly QBs are also fifth in the nation in passes intercepted with just two this season.
Special teams- Ty Morrison was rock solid in the kicking game for the Griz, helping flip the field with 128 yards on three punts to average 42.7 per attempt with a long of 47 yards. He also slotted a 47-yard field goal in the third quarter and just missed a 55-yard attempt in the first quarter that had the leg but sailed wide-right.
THE FIGHTIN’ KNIGHTS OF THE CLARK FORK: Grizzly receiver and Missoula Hellgate alum Ian Finch scored his first career touchdown on his first career catch at Northern Colorado on Saturday. Despite the Hellgate and UM campuses sitting less than a mile apart, not a lot of Knights have gone on to become Griz in recent history.
The last player from Hellgate to score a touchdown for Montana? That was safety Jake Dennehy, who hauled in a pick-six at Wyoming back in 1997.
The last offensive player to score for the Griz from Hellgate? Running back Kelly Stensrud who scored his last TD at UM at Eastern Washington in 1995. His daughter Anna Stensrud, also a Hellgate alum, is now on the women’s golf team at Montana.
Hellgate saw several players move on to play for the Griz during the program’s last heyday in the 90’s. Receiver Matt Clark went on to an illustrious career in the CFL after his time at UM and Paul Mocko was a standout center, but most were on the defensive side of the ball. Grizzly greats like Mike Bouchee, Randy Allik, Dennehy, and most recently Zach Peevey were all former Knights, as was kicker Kirk Duce.
FINDING BALANCE: Montana’s offense continues to be methodically balanced under coordinator Brent Pease after the win at UNC that saw UM put up 395 yards of total offense, split essentially down the middle with 198 rushing yards and 197 passing. If there was a way to squeeze out a half yard on the stat sheet Pease would have likely hit the mark dead on.
After eight games the offense at large remains incredibly balanced, keeping defenses on their toes play-in and play-out. Of Montana’s 3,775 total yards (the second-most in the Big Sky and sixth-most in the FCS), only 127 yards separate the run and pass games. The Griz have rushed for 1,951 yards to date while passing for 1,824.
The balance has also helped Montana win the time of possession battle by nearly two minutes this season, holding the ball an average of 31:32 to opponents 28:26. With plenty of weapons at the skill positions, the Griz have shown they have quick-strike ability. But the balanced attack has also helped UM put together scoring drives like the last one at UNC on Saturday that chewed up just under nine minutes of clock in the third quarter – the longest drive of the year.
As a whole, UM is ranked second in the Big Sky in time of possession with 11 scoring drives of four minutes or longer and an average of 2:59 on 51 total scoring drives and 40 touchdowns this season.
MORE BALANCE ON THE GROUND: Speaking of balanced attack, Montana’s two-headed monster of a ground game is also split evenly between Eli Gillman and Nick Ostmo, who rank fifth and sixth respectively in the Big Sky in rushing yards. Gillman, who leads the Big Sky and is sixth nationally in scoring with 13 TDs, has totaled 749 yards rushing this season. Ostmo, who posted his second 100-yard game of the season last week with 107, has rushed for 641 yards, a difference of 108 yards between them.
If you combined the two into one player, their 1,390 yards would be the most in both FCS and FBS football.
As a team, Montana enters the Cal Poly game with the No. 4 rushing offense in the FCS with the Griz averaging 243 yards on the ground per game.
Despite rushing for just 39 yards at UNC, Gillman remains one of the leaders in yards per carry in all of D-I football with an absurd 7.97 per touch, the best average in the Big Sky and now the fifth-best average in the FCS and FBS combined.
- Ostmo and Gillman are also neck-and-neck in the Grizzly record books again this week. Ostmo ranks fifth in program history with 2,497 career rush yards while Gillman ranks No. 14 with 1,782. He needs just three more yards to pass his position coach Justin Green’s career total of 1,784, with both racking up those totals in just two seasons.
With another one added to hist total at UNC, Gillman and Ostmo are also now tied in career rushing TDs at 24 each. Gillman added a receiving TD to his career total at UNC as well, putting him at 26 total TDs and Ostmo heading to Cal Poly with 28. Equate that into points on the board and Ostmo has 168 this week and Gillman has 156.
FAMILIAR FACES: Cal Poly will have some insight into the way Montana operates with former Grizzly offensive coordinator Timm Rosenbach now on the sidelines for the Mustangs, serving as the Co-OC under head coach Paul Wulff. The two played together at Washington State and formed a close relationship as center (Wulff) and quarterback (Rosenbach).
HOMECOMING IN THE 805: Some of Montana’s players will also see familiar faces across the sidelines from them this week as 11 Grizzlies return to their home state of California for the first and only time this season. Cal Poly, on the other hand, has only 10 players NOT from the state of California on its roster, with several players familiar with the others from the high school ranks.
Xavier Harris and Aaron Fontes, who hail from just a couple hours (depending on traffic) down the 101 freeway in Oxnard, are the closest to San Louis Obispo. The commonality between the two? Both cities lie within the 805 area code.