MISSOULA, Montana – A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….
It’s been so long since Montana traveled to Davis, California, it almost seems like a George Lucas line is applicable. And while it’s been since 2019 that UM visited one of the most beautiful campuses in the Big Sky Conference about an hour south of San Francisco and just up the way from Sacramento, what the Grizzlies look like now compared to what the Griz looked like then also appears to be light years apart.
Montana was ranked No. 18 in the FCS the last time the Griz traveled to Aggie Stadium and the last time UM played the Aggies, period. And UC Davis, who had shared the Big Sky title for the only time in program history the previous season, was the No. 4 ranked team in the FCS despite its 2-2 non-conference mark.
“I remember two things distinctly about that game,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said earlier this week. “I thought we had a good team that was getting better and they were ranked No. 3 in the country (in the FCS Coaches’ Poll) I believe and they had just lost a close one in Fargo the week before. They were really highly regarded. That’s what I remember.”
Davis had been competitive at North Dakota State the previous week before falling 27-16 at the FargoDome. Montana, which missed the playoffs in 2018 in Hauck’s first season back at his alma mater after a near-decade long hiatus coaching in the Mountain West, was 3-1 with a few offensively impressive wins over North Alabama (61-17) and Monmouth (47-27) under their belts entering the conference opener for both teams on September 28 of 2019.
The previous season, Davis had out-scored Montana 46-0 in the second half to overcome a an 18-point halftime deficit to win 49-21 in Missoula and push UM’s playoff hopes to the brink.
The 2019 Griz used their trip to the Golden State to make a statement. Dalton Sneed looked like the pro he would eventually become. The wide receiver duo of Samuel Akem and Samori Toure looked utterly unstoppable. And the overwhelming style Hauck hoped would trademark his teams started to truly emerge.
The 2019, 2021 and 2022 Griz all employed a swarming, ferocious defense that put a high priority on creating negative plays, hitting and sacking the quarterback and erasing the opposing team’s rushing attack. The 2019 version of the Griz offense, though, was a high-scoring spectacle, an aspect of the program that has been largely dormant since.
Against UC Davis, Sneed threw five touchdowns and the Griz ripped the hosts 45-20, making as statement to the rest of the country and posting a win that vaulted the Griz into the Top 10 of the rankings, where Montana would stay for more of the next several seasons.
“We were underdogs going in and I felt good about the game and we went in there and won convincingly,” Hauck said. “That was the game, at that point in time, Sneed was playing like the best in the country and that’s where he hurt his ankle and was hobbled for the next six weeks. That was a shame but we played really well that day.”
That Griz team scored 59 the next week in a win over Idaho State. Toure, who’s now a Green Bay Packer, caught three of Cam Humphrey’s four touchdown passes in a 38-point offensive effort in a win at Portland State. The Griz scored 42 at Idaho, 35 in a lambasting of a salty Weber State squad in the midst of a third out of four straight conference title runs.
The 2019 Griz also bounced back from a disheartening rivalry game loss at Montana State (48-13) to score 73 in the second round of the FCS playoffs against Southeastern Louisiana.
Montana averaged nearly 37 points and 445 yards of offense per game in 2019, throwing for 302 per contest as Sneed earned All-Big Sky honors. Marcus Knight earned All-American honors after setting the school records for rushing touchdowns (23) and total touchdowns (25). Sneed threw for 3,436 yards and 24 TDs while Humphrey chipped in six more TD tosses.
Toure had an all-time great receiving season in Griz annals, snaring 87 catches for 1,495 yards and 13 scores. Despite battling injuries, Akem roled up 59 catches for 848 yards and five scores to earn All-Big Sky honors like Toure.
Montana scored more than 40 points seven times in 2019. The Griz have scored more than 40 points seven times since the 2019 season ended with a 17-10 loss to Weber State in the quarterfinals of the playoffs.
In 2021, the Griz offense produced a full touchdown less per game and the passing offense threw for nearly 100 yards less per game. Last year, the Griz threw for just 225 yards per game but did average 36.1 points per contest, although the scoring average was inflated by scoring 47 points against a hapless Northwestern State team; rolling up 49 points on an Indiana State team that won two games in 2022; 57 points against a completely over-matched Cal Poly team that gave up 72 the next week to Montana State and the 63 points the Griz scored against an Eastern Washington team in the midst of one of its worst seasons of the 21st century.
This year’s Montana team has had a hard time offensively pretty much all season long despite UM’s 4-1 record. The Griz averaged just 1.3 yards per rush and gave up eight sacks in a 28-14 loss at NAU. Montana is averaging 27 points and 176 passing yards per game, although Junior Bergen did become the first Griz receiver to have more than 100 yards receiving in a regular-season game since 2019 when Bergen surpassed the century mark last week in a 28-20 win over Idaho State.
In the season leading up to the cancelled 2020 campaign, Montana looked like its formula for winning included explosiveness on both sides of the football. That still could be true about the Griz defense and certainly is still true about the Montana special teams. But the offense looks objectively much different than in 2019. Part of it is quarterback play, part of it is play-calling. Yet no matter how different UM might look compared to four years ago, the Aggies are still approaching the matchup with the Griz with great seriousness and intent.
“Montana is a great opponent every year, no matter what they are doing,” UC Davis quarterback Miles Hastings said. “They’ve been at the top of the conference forever. For us, it’s about how do we be the best we can be and let the results figure themselves out.”
Hauck overhauled his coaching staff last off-season, moving most of the assistants to different positions. A month into the season, the changes, particularly the offense under coordinator Brent Pease and the offensive line under the direction of co-line coaches Chad Germer and Rob Phenicie, have not shown improvement. Compare this year’s Griz offense to 2019 it’s hard to argue progress has been made.
Plenty changes when teams don’t play for four seasons in a row. UC Davis looks plenty different as well, though the presence of a stud quarterback (Jake Maier then, Miles Hastings now) is the same, as is a stable of productive skill players and a strong offensive line. Although the Aggies have gone from Tim Plough to Cody Hawkins to Mike Cody as their offensive coordinators in recent years, an up-tempo offense filled with multiple formations remains a trademark.
“It’s got like a non-conference feel to it,” Hauck said of playing the Aggies. “It’s like a team you haven’t played before.”
Montana’s defense isn’t getting nearly the pressure it has over the last handful of seasons either; the Griz don’t have a single sack in the last two weeks, marking the first time in 15 full seasons Montana has gone two straight games without a quarterback take down.
The difference in style, the difference in production and the rarity of the opponent are all secondary factors entering Saturday evening’s contest, however. Montana has already stacked up four wins but a daunting conference slate that includes next week’s trip to No. 3 Idaho plus November home games against No. 4 Sacramento State and No. 2 Montana State looms large when it comes to the impact Saturday’s result will have on both the Griz and the Aggies.
In other words, Saturday’s game yet again has a playoff feel, something that Hauck’s teams expect at this point as the veteran head coach enters the middle of his 12th season at the helm leading UM.
“Davis is a very good, talented football team,” Hauck said. “They play good defense, they have good players at every level and they make a lot of plays. Offensively, they are very diverse and multiple. We expect them to be up-tempo. It’s going to be 90 degrees so that’s an issue. They are always good in the kicking game and as usual this year, they are good.
“They are a complete football team and it will be a tall task for us to go down there and get a win.”
