Montana Grizzlies Sports, Football and Basketball : Grizzoulian

After a complete trouncing of supposed Big Sky contender Northern Arizona, the Montana Grizzlies moved up one place to fifth in the latest rankings. This small step comes after Appalachian State reamed Wofford, 70-24.

I'm starting to think something's up. I don't know if voters are think about past playoff performances or what. Freakin' Cal Poly got a first-place vote and sits three spots ahead of Montana. Ummm, we beat them. On the road. And with the exception of the Weber game (hey, we all got one FCS loss), Montana has taken a giant step forward each game. Whoever thinks Poly is better than Montana--and it's obviously a lot of people--is dead wrong

Here are the complete rankings, courtesy of The Sports Network:

Team (First-place votes)	Record	Points	Previous Rank
1. James Madison Dukes (91)	8-1	2,707	1
2. Appalachian State Mountaineers (17)	7-2	2,617	2
3. Cal Poly Mustangs (1)	6-1	2,373	4
4. Northern Iowa Panthers	7-2	2,296	5
5. Montana Grizzlies	8-1	2,233	6
6. Villanova Wildcats	6-2	2,110	7
7. Richmond Spiders	6-3	1,984	8
8. New Hampshire Wildcats	7-1	1,874	9
9. Weber State Wildcats	8-2	1,767	13
10. Wofford Terriers	6-2	1,747	3
11. Elon Phoenix	7-2	1,690	10
12. Southern Illinois Salukis	6-2	1,650	14
13. Massachusetts Minutemen	6-3	1,262	15
14. William & Mary Tribe	6-2	1,202	16
15. Furman Paladins	7-3	1,081	18
16. Central Arkansas Bears	7-2	887	11
17. Western Illinois Leathernecks	5-3	824	12
18. McNeese State Cowboys	5-3	789	20
19. South Carolina State Bulldogs	7-2	750	22
20. Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks	7-2	527	24
21. Harvard Crimson	6-1	463	23
22. Tennessee State Tigers	7-2	425	25
23. Northern Arizona Lumberjacks	6-3	395	19
24. Colgate Raiders	7-2	207	NR
25. Liberty Flames	7-2	195	17

Others receiving votes: Maine 181, South Dakota State 136, Northwestern State 114, North Dakota State 97, Jacksonville State 95, Lafayette 89, Georgia Southern 81, Prairie View 78, Eastern Kentucky 63, Grambling 54, Holy Cross 41, Morgan State 34, UC Davis 26, Albany 25, Brown 14, Hampton 13, Sacred Heart 12, Dayton 10, Texas State 9, Florida A&M 7, San Diego 6, Nicholls State 5, Montana State 4, Monmouth 2, Penn 2, Jacksonville 1.

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The Montana Grizzlies enter this season as the eighth best team in the Football Championship Subdivision according to the Sports Network's most recent top 25 rankings.

This is one spot behind conference rival Eastern Washington and six spots ahead of #14 Cal Poly, UM's first opponent of 2008. Those two are the only Grizzly opponents in this preseason poll. Here are the complete rankings:
 

Team (First-place votes)	Record	Points	Previous Rank
1. Appalachian State Mountaineers (97)	13-2	2,546	1
2. North Dakota State Bison (1)	10-1	2,275	9
3. Northern Iowa Panthers	12-1	2,204	4
4. Richmond Spiders	11-3	2,162	5
5. Massachusetts Minutemen	10-3	2,148	7
6. James Madison Dukes (3)	8-4	2,078	12
7. Eastern Washington Eagles	9-4	1,951	8
8. Montana Grizzlies	11-1	1,848	10
9. Delaware Blue Hens	11-4	1,747	2
10. McNeese State Cowboys	11-1	1,687	11
11. Southern Illinois Salukis	12-2	1,286	3
12. Youngstown State Penguins	7-4	1,228	16
13. Wofford Terriers	9-4	1,158	6
14. Cal Poly Mustangs	7-4	1,081	24
15. Elon Phoenix	7-4	1,028	23
16. New Hampshire Wildcats	7-5	760	14
17. Georgia Southern Eagles	7-4	656	17
18. Eastern Illinois Panthers	8-4	622	18
19. South Dakota State Jackrabbits	7-4	547	19
20. Eastern Kentucky Colonels	9-3	487	13
21. Villanova Wildcats	7-4	396	NR
22. Central Arkansas Bears	6-5	374	NR
23. The Citadel Bulldogs	7-4	317	NR
24. Harvard Crimson	8-2	316	21
25. Western Illinois Leathernecks	6-5	299	NR

Others receiving votes: Northern Arizona 249, Fordham 212, Delaware State 198, Jacksonville State 195, Yale 170, Sam Houston State 166, Montana State 146, Furman 120, Liberty 115, Jackson State 79, South Carolina State 76, Holy Cross 74, Hofstra 61, Colgate 56, Grambling 55, Norfolk State 48, Coastal Carolina 44, Hampton 41, Southern 32, Northwestern State 30, Tennessee-Martin 30, UC Davis 22, Weber State 17, Lafayette 16, Alabama A&M 10, Texas Southern 9, Brown 9, Nicholls State 9, Dayton 6, Tennessee State 5, San Diego 4, Albany 4, Maine 1, Prairie View 1.

 

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For the first time in years, the Montana Grizzlies football team will go on the road and play a formidable FCS opponent as part of their non-conference schedule. That'd be Cal Poly on September, 6th. So now the fans can stop asking "will a weak schedule come back to haunt us?" (the answer is yes) and start asking more concrete football questions like, you know, "will we win?" The Griz haven't lost a regular season game since the first game of the '06 campaign, that's 21 in a row. Cal Poly looks very worthy of ending that streak.

Saturday Sound Offs has a brief preview on the Mustangs (scroll down). Here's their take on what could be one of the FCS' best offenses:

If you're not an FCS fan, you should be a fan of Mustang QB Jonathan Dally. His legs do more damage than his arm, if you can believe that. Cal Poly was fifth last year in rushing, gaining over 270 yards a game. Dally was the leading rusher statistically. That, however, doesn't mean he can't chuck it as well. Dally was second in the FCS in passing efficiency which is the holy grail of QB stats. Cal Poly relies on FB Jon Hall more than most teams utilize that position and James Noble did a good job at RB last year with over five yards a touch. Tredale Tolver and Ramses Barden team up to make a pretty impressive combo at WR and the line did its job finishing 27th in sacks allowed. In the FCS, there's just about no offense as feared as Cal Poly's.

Dave Coulson of the The Sports Network has more on Dally in his FCS quarterback rankings:

Dally made an immediate impact last year as a JC transfer, beating out the now-departed Matt Brennan and finishing second to San Diego's Josh Johnson in NCAA passing efficiency. Dally is one of the new breed of QBs who can beat you with both his arm (2,238 yards) and legs (763 yards), and leads an offense that ranked second in total offense a year ago.

My take: they leave our young defense more torched than a Montana forest in August. In the playoffs last year, Wofford's option offense blew up a much more formidable Griz D for 333 rushing yards. Not only do the Mustangs bring a similar offensive ground game, but also a much more skilled quarterback.

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The 2008 football schedule is out. As reported on here first, the Griz will open their season down San Luis Obispo against the Cal Poly Mustangs.

Here's the complete schedule:

Date ..... Opponent ..... Time
9.6 ..... at Cal Poly ..... TBA
9.13 ..... Southern Utah ..... 1:05 p.m.
9.20 ..... UC-Davis (Homecoming) ..... 1:05 p.m.
9.27 ..... Central Washington ..... 1:05 p.m.
10.4 ..... at Weber State * ..... TBA
10.11 ..... at Eastern Washington * ..... TBA
10.18 ..... Sacramento State * ..... 1:05 p.m.
10.25 ..... at Northern Colorado * ..... TBA
11.1 ..... Northern Arizona * ..... 12:05 p.m.
11.8 ..... at Portland State * ..... TBA
11.15 ..... Idaho State * ..... 12:05 p.m.
11.22 ..... Montana State * (108th meeting) ..... 12:05 p.m.

* Conference game

The OOC is alright. We probably shouldn't be playing a DII school but whatever. Here's O'Day's rationale on playing schools from a lower division. It's his response to playing Ft. Lewis last year but fits around the fact that we're playing Central Washington:

Last year, we played Fort Lewis (Don Read loved the Division II schools to let young kids get experience) and UM Athletics netted about $300,000 - not counting what the Adams Center received for ticket fees ($1 per ticket), or what dining services produced in sales, or the bookstore... not counting what the Missoula economy saw by another home game (estimated at between $5-$7 million per home weekend).  We admit that was a "money game," as do most teams at our level.   Still, it is no different than Oregon hosting Montana for $450,000 or Iowa hosting Montana for $650,000.  Their fans expected big wins at our expense, and they, too, need to produce funds to pay their bills.

After the non-conference slate, what should be two of our toughest BSC games are on the road: we have to go to Portland to play the Vikings and to the Cheney to play the Eagles. Those should be two very challenging games. Then we cap off the season with the Brawl in Missoula and hopefully another Big Sky Championship.

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For the 2007 campaign, the Griz's non-conference slate consisted only of cupcakes. That will not be the case over the next five years. According to UM Athletic Director Jim O'Day, two games down at Cal Poly will bookend three straight years of the Mustangs coming up to play at Washington-Grizzly Stadium. The first game is September 6th, down in San Luis Obispo.

Here are O'Day's comments on the series:

If history prevails, each game will be very well contended. Cal Poly is a very well respected academic institution with an excellent athletic program. Like Montana, they have a lot of trouble attracting people to play in their venue because of their home winning successes and travel costs to get into their areas.

The 2010 game was scheduled two years ago, while we just finished the details on the new two home-and-home series. This is, and always has been, a good series for the two schools. We have very high respect for them, as do they for us. The Mustangs will be very tough next year... but they seem to be every year.

While the Mustangs did not make the playoffs, they did finish at #24 in the final Sports Network FCS rankings.

These are exactly the type of games the Griz and the entire FCS needs. It's a long series between perennially rank teams. Would you be surprised to see this grow into a legit inter-conference rivalry? I wouldn't. In 2005, Cal Poly knocked us out of the playoffs in the first round. That's worth some hostility. It can be our own West Coast, FCS version of Notre Dame/Michigan. Yes, I know that ended. Still, very well done by O'Day. I look forward to these games and hope the rest of the conference and division can step up and establish more sets of games like this.

The news and comments come via a great email with O'Day. I will have further comments, on a variety of subjects related to the schedule, up in future posts.

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Portland State saves their season with a 35-24 win over Sac State. The Vikings probably went into this game the same way Michigan will go into their conference schedule. PSU will not get great playoff seeding but they can still win the conference and make the playoffs. Unlike the Wolverines, the Viks can still win a National Championship. It's not likely, but as a Cubs fan, I like to think anyone can win once they get in the playoffs.

Montana State kills Dixie State, 61-7. Nice job guys, nice job. Some people mark this as some sort of sign that MSU is fine and will be something of a contender. The win is what it is. If you're proud of a D-II shilacking, that's not good. I'm not saying the Cats will or will not be a factor in the 'Sky but the only message this sends is that they can blow out a team from a lower division. Good to know.

NAU falls to Appalachian State, 34-21. It would've been nice to see a Big Sky team get mentioned on SC for beating the giant-killers from Boone, but it didn't happen as the Mountaineers won their 17th straight game. It could've been worse. If NAU can keep it within two possessions, maybe the Griz can pull off a win.

Weber State blown out by Cal Poly, 47-19. The Weber State secondary allowed Mustangs quarterback Jonathan Dally to rack up Colt Brennan-esque numbers in the loss. The kid tossed 6 TDs on 328 yards.

Northern Colorado loses to San Diego, 49-13. This type of score was expected with the Bears coming off a huge loss to D-II Chadron State. On a positive note, they did find a running back. David Woods finished with 180 all-purpose yards.

Eastern beats UC Davis, 41-31. It wasn't Bengals-Browns but the Eagles and Aggies combined for almost 1,000 total yards. The Aggies had more yards and the Eagles had more points.

Idaho State trounced by Oregon State, 61-10. You know the deal. Big Sky team plays FBS opponent, Big Sky team loses by 30+ while the FBS team puts up huge numbers. Whatever pays the bills.

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