MISSOULA – Shortly after the most shocking loss of his career at Montana, Bobby Hauck sat at a table in the upper reaches of the Adams Center and explained, in a soft voice, exactly what had gone wrong.
Hauck was not particularly talkative, but he answered every question when it came to the specifics of his team’s wild 55-48 overtime loss to Weber State on Saturday.
The Wildcats’ 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the second quarter, which was the first given up by Montana since Hauck returned in 2018?
“We missed two tackles at the point of attack,” Hauck said.
Weber State quarterback Richie Munoz’s 71-yard touchdown pass to Jacob Sharp, a short slant that turned into a crucial score, giving the Wildcats a 45-41 lead with under five minutes to play?
“We should be inside leverage there, and we’re calling that (coverage) for that. We just, we didn’t get to where we needed to be.”
Just what coverage the Griz were in as Munoz shredded them for 364 yards and six touchdowns, hitting big play after big play?
“Yeah, it was mostly man.”
For Griz fans, it must have been sobering listening. Then again, maybe nothing could have been as sobering as what they had just seen inside Washington-Grizzly.
For years under Hauck, the Griz, regardless of ups and downs, have been secure in their identity. A deep, physical defense. Gamebreaking special teams. Nearly unbeatable at home, with 91 wins in 102 games under Hauck in Missoula to show for it.
On Saturday, they got the complete opposite – a team that struggled to make tackles, couldn’t cover and gave up the game’s biggest special teams play.
And unlike last week, when Logan Fife and the offense did just enough to escape with a 52-49 win over Eastern Washington, this time more than 500 yards of total offense weren’t enough to salvage those shortcomings.
Munoz’s sixth touchdown of the day, a 7-yard wheel route to Damon Bankston that was upheld after a long replay review to determine whether the Weber State running back stepped out of bounds before making the catch, put the Wildcats ahead 55-48 in the first overtime.
After the teams had combined for 42 points in a wild fourth quarter, smart money might have been on the game continuing in that vein for a while.
But on the first play of Montana’s overtime possession, with the Grizzlies needing seven points to keep the game going, Weber State linebacker Garrett Beck broke through the line to sack Fife, who fumbled.
Beck scooped up the fumble himself, single-handedly ending the game that saw the second-most total points ever scored in Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
“We came in and we knew we could play with these guys,” Munoz said. “Our last two losses, there were mistakes in those games. We came in to fix it, and we knew that we going to play our game.”
The loss snapped a 15-game home winning streak for Montana, and the Grizzlies have now given up 104 points in their first two Big Sky Conference games, after surrendering just 116 all last conference season.
The sheer numbers themselves told the story of a game in which both offenses dominated.
Weber State finished with 541 total yards, with Munoz throwing for 364 yards and six scores on just 28 attempts as Weber won in Missoula for the third time since Washington-Grizzly Stadium was built and the first time since 2015. Weber has also won five of the last six against Montana, the lone loss coming in 2019 when the Griz blitzed Weber to oblivion in a 35-16 victory in Missoula.
Montana had 527 total yards, with Fife throwing for 344 yards and two touchdowns and running back Eli Gillman accounting for 148 yards from scrimmage and four touchdowns on just 14 touches.
The Griz trailed 28-10 late in the first half after Munoz’s third touchdown throw of the day, a 50-yarder to Jacob Sharp. The sophomore QB from Southern California also had early touchdown tosses of 35 yards to Jayleen Record and 6 yards to Noah Bennee to complement Noah Kjar’s 95-yard kickoff return touchdown early in the second quarter.
It was the first kickoff return touchdown given up by the Griz since 2017 against Portland State, before Hauck returned for his second stint as head coach.
Just like they did two weeks ago when facing a 17-point home deficit against Western Carolina, the Griz struck back.
Fife’s short touchdown run brought Montana to within 28-17 at halftime.
Gillman, who had already run for a 37-yard touchdown on the fourth play of the game for the Griz, got open up the left sideline, delivered a righteous stiffarm to the trailing defender and sprinted 68 yards for a touchdown midway through the third quarter.
The Griz fumbled on their next drive to give Weber State the ball at the UM 26, but when the defense held the Wildcats to just a field goal, it felt like – just like two weeks ago – the momentum was shifting inexorably over to Montana.
Gillman punched in a 3-yard touchdown on the second play of the fourth quarter, and when Ty Morrison made a clutch, career-long 48-yard field goal with exactly 10 minutes left, the Griz had the lead at 33-31.
“We were buried a little bit in the first half and fought our way back and took the lead in the game a couple times,” Hauck said. “I thought that was really well done by our guys making adjustments at halftime and going out and playing really well in the second half.”
It wouldn’t last. In fact, Morrison’s field goal just kicked off a wild final act that saw each team take the lead twice more in the last 10 minutes.
Munoz struck back with a 53-yard touchdown pass to Jayleen Record before the Griz took the lead again on Gillman’s 4-yard touchdown rush, his fourth total touchdown of the game.
It took the Wildcats less than a minute to score again. On third and 6, Munoz fired a slant left to Jacob Sharp in single coverage. Sharp broke out of a tackle attempt by Trevin Gradney and, with no help behind the Griz corner, sprinted 71 yards for a score. That made it 45-41, Weber State, but Fife and Montana had one last counterpunch.
Starting from their own 27, the Fresno State transfer – who started for the first time in his Grizzly career only last week – engineered an 11-play drive. Aside from one crucial third-down scramble by Fife, running back Nick Ostmo and receiver Keelan White got every touch on the drive, which finished with a laser 13-yard touchdown pass to White over the middle.
“These last couple games, Logan’s been playing his ass off,” White, who finished with a career-high 11 catches and 163 yards, said simply about the quarterback.
Their final connection appeared to seal the game, giving the Griz a 48-45 lead with 59 seconds left.
As it turned out, that was too much time.
Munoz drove the Wildcats down the field against the Grizzlies’ soft coverage, and Kyle Thompson, who had made 6 of 11 attempts entering the game, booted a 43-yard field goal as time expired to force overtime.
“Obviously, 59 seconds and two timeouts in college football is an eternity, especially with the clock stopping on first downs,” Weber State head coach Mickey Mental said. “Richie did a tremendous job of taking what was given, did not force anything. … And then obviously the senior Kyle Thompson, not the greatest start to his senior year, but what he did today was special.”
In overtime, Munoz first connected with Bankston on a diving catch up the left sideline for 20 yards. Two plays later, he went back to him again. Griz linebacker Vai Kaho attempted to shove the running back out of bounds on his route, but Bankston – narrowly, it appeared – re-established himself back in bounds and made the catch in front of the Montana student section.
The play was upheld on review, causing boos to rain down from every corner of Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
That wasn’t the end of the unhappiness, as Beck swiftly made sure that the Griz defense wouldn’t have a shot at redemption.
“I just think they were able to get their one-on-one matchups they wanted, and they just came up over top and were able to get it done,” Montana linebacker Riley Wilson said. “(Munoz) was definitely mobile, and he made plays when they needed to be made. … And right now, we have to figure out what we have to do to eliminate that happening.”
Wilson’s face in the postgame press conference, smeared with sweat and eye-black, was proof positive that the defense’s struggles weren’t due to effort. They played hard, for 60 minutes and then a touch beyond.
But that will be cold comfort to a team, a staff and a fanbase that suddenly finds itself without its identity.
“Coming into the game, we knew it was going to be a fight,” White said. “We knew they were going to punch us in the mouth. And I think we responded well. They just made one more play than we did in the end.”
