Montana Grizzlies Sports, Football and Basketball : Grizzoulian

More than 30 percent of this year's preseason All-Big Sky Conference football team will come from the University of Montana. Here's the complete team, with the Montana kids in bold:

Offense

• QB-Cole Bergquist, Montana
• RB-Lex Hillard, Montana
• FB-Bobby McClintock, Portland State
• TE-Shaun Fitzpatrick, Northern Arizona
• OL-Cody Balogh, Montana
• OL-David Hale, Weber State
• OL-George Yarno, Idaho State
• OL-Matt Alfred, Eastern Washington
• OL-Brennan Carvalho, Portland State
• WR-Alex Watson, Northern Arizona
• WR-Eric Allen, Montana
• WR-Eddie Thompson, Idaho State
• K-Dan Carpenter, Montana
• KR-Bryant Eteuati, Weber State

Defense

• DE-Kroy Biermann, Montana
• DE-Cole Smith, Portland State
• DT-Aaron Papich, Montana State
• DT-Dallas Mauga, Sacramento State
• LB-Cyrus Mulitalo, Sacramento State
• LB-Epikopo King, Montana State
• LB-Tyler Joyce, Montana
• LB-Bobby Daly, Montana State
• LB-Jordan Senn, Portland State
• CB-KJ Gerard, Northern Arizona
• CB-Ricky Wilson, Northern Arizona
• S-Torrey Thomas, Montana
• S-Colt Anderson, Montana
• P-Dan Zeidman, Idaho State
• ST-Kenneth Mackins, Portland State

The most debatable UM selection has to be Cole Bergquist at quarterback. Odd that a guy who's never really been #1 on the depth chart and still hasn't been tabbed as the Griz starter would be voted the best signal-caller in the conference.

With almost half their starters on the all-conference team, it's not much surprise they were unanimously voted as the favorite to win the conference.

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It's really hard for me to give you any good impressions from Friday's Griz football scrimmage because I really didn't walk away feeling very impressed. It wasn't that we played bad, it's just that nothing really stood out.

I went into the scrimmage not expecting much with the two guys I would most like to see, Craig Chambers and JD Quinn, were out with shoulder and "undisclosed" injuries respectively. Even so, I was interested to see the quarterback race and how our running backs were doing.

Here are some pretty basic observations:

• The quarterback race seems pretty hope but I believe the job will be Bergquists almost by default as none of them really stood out. I think I may have developed some bias against Bergquist after seeing him next to Swogger. He just seems so small and weak-armed after watching Swogger play. It's like watching Brett Favre and being afraid of when Aaron Rodgers time eventually comes. However, Bergquist has the mobility inside the pocket that Swogger just didn't have.
  
  • They really did not pass the ball much during the scrimmage, at least not with the first team. It was really kind of discouraging. With there being something of a quarterback controversy, I figured they would want to air it out more.
  • The only real good pass of the day was about a 35 yarder from Bergquist to Allen. Seemed like it may have been due to strong pass protection as Cole had a lot of time to go through his progressions before coming back to hit a wide open Eric Allen.
• The backs played well, just about all of them making strong moves in the open field. It was good to see Lex out there. Not sure if he played much or at all in the 11 on 11 scrimmage. This is one of our deepest positions with TBF, Lex, and Coleman all being great players.
  • We ran the swing play a ton. The type of thing Baylark of UMass killed us with. However, the play was rarely run smoothly. Quarterbacks were consistently tossing bad passes out in the flats that were either incomplete, too high or behind the receiver.
  • The offensive line was not opening up holes and often letting guys into the backfield. Our backs were forced to make a move or break a tackle before they even got to the line of scrimmage.
• I almost felt robbed. The whole thing lasted about 90 minutes, maybe a bit less. They spent probably 70 minutes running a normal practice and 20 minutes scrimmaging. I mean watching practice is worthwhile but I wasn't interested in watching the QBs hit wide open receivers and having no idea where they were actually trying to throw it.
  

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As most Montanans already know, the Griz were victorious in this year's Brawl. The AP article on the game leads with Josh Swogger's statistics but everyone who watched the game, including the Cat-Griz Insider, knows he wasn't the reason our Griz won this game.

It's pretty easy to see the QB wasn't the deciding factor; just look at Swogger's complete stat-line or the final score. They are 17/41 241 yds 1 TD 2 INT and 13-7 respectively. Swogger did have his one moment with the spectacular TD pass to Eric Allen right in front of the student section. This made me (sitting in the front row) react during the play the same way someone would act if Ken Griffey Jr (10 years ago) were jumping up and robbing a homerun that would've otherwise nicked off their knee. I was really in awe and kind of stood back as it happened but once EA dove past the pylon I erupted along with everyone else around me. After this grab, all the momentum shifted and defense decided the Cats were not going to win this game.

From this point on, the Griz defense stepped up every time they needed to. Whether it was stopping them about a Pabst can short of the first down with 5 minutes left or sacking the Cats on the crucial 4th down to [pretty much] end the game, the Cats' resiliency just wasn't working out.

I really could not have enjoyed my first Griz-Cat game any more than I did.

I will try to put more photos up in another entry and also toss up anymore reaction pieces I come across

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Yeah, I forgot the camera. Here are pregame pictures taken via the phone; more after the jump.
The team trotting out.

Swogger, before he went 14-18 for 221 yards and 3 TDs.

Craig Chambers

Eric Allen warming up.

Chambers making a pregame grab.

Who we all really came to see.

Postgame prayer.

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