Every week, we’ll cover every game from around the Big Sky, going beyond the box score with analysis and thoughts on every team. This week, defense was the story as the Montana Grizzlies kept rolling on that side of the ball and two Big Sky teams rode their defenses to upset wins.
MONTANA
It’s an impossible task to choose the best player on Montana’s defense, but the most unique, for my money, is easily defensive tackle Alex Gubner. Gubner is easy to stereotype because of his size (6-3, 285 pounds) and position (defensive tackle in an odd front) but his role is a complete 180 from what that combo of attributes usually entails.
Most teams use their defensive tackles to take up space, to occupy blockers, to generally be big, sit right in the middle of everything the offense is doing and free up other players on the defense. Montana does the exact opposite – much of what the Grizzlies do with their defensive line is designed not for Gubner to create space for others, but to get Gubner in as much space as possible. Take the very first play of their game against South Dakota on the weekend. Gubner lines up, as usual, at defensive tackle, in between ends Jacob McGourin and De’Ari Todd.
But at the snap, it’s Todd who crashes down into the middle of the line and eventually ends up occupying multiple blockers, while Gubner stunts to the outside and eventually ends up going one-on-one with the left tackle and trying to loop back to the quarterback, looking very much like a traditional pass rushing defensive end.
This is not an anomalous look for the Griz – they do it all the time, like, say on the very next play, when Gubner again switches places with Todd and drags down the running back trying to get to the sideline.
Two plays after that, he flips the routine, stunting around to the right as McGourin crashes to the middle. Gubner, of course, can play as a straight-up defensive tackle, but I’d bet he plays fewer snaps as a straight-up defensive tackle than almost any player listed at that position in the country (as does backup Eli Alford, who rotates nearly evenly with Gubner and runs the same wrinkles). Aside from stunting him to the outside, the Griz also love dropping him into coverage while bringing pressure from different angles on zone blitzes, which, again, gets Gubner into space and helps explain why he led the Griz with four interceptions as a redshirt freshman in 2019.
PICKED-OFF!
— Montana Griz Football (@MontanaGrizFB) November 3, 2019
Alex Gubner with his THIRD interception of the season! THIRD! He's a D-Lineman!#GoGriz // #UMvsPSU // #UpWithMotnana pic.twitter.com/s9Vt39hry5
Anyway, what’s the point of all this? Why do the Griz devote so much motion and scheming on defense to getting their starting defensive tackle opportunities and freedom to make plays? Well, because Gubner can do things like this.
That’s a rare athlete, and Gubner’s unique traits have a lot to do with why the Grizzlies’ dominant defense looks the way it does.
NORTHERN ARIZONA
With two sophomore superstars in the backfield – reigning conference Freshman of the Year quarterback R.J. Martinez and running back Kevin Daniels – Northern Arizona was supposed to break out on offense this year. Instead, it was the defense that got the Lumberjacks a statement win at Sam Houston by a score of 10-3. Perhaps no surprise given head coach Chris Ball’s defensive prowess.
That’s a good win – the ‘Kats were an FCS quarterfinalist a year ago, the 2021 spring national champions and are moving up to the FBS – and a very good performance by the defense. Sam Houston wanted to run its quarterback, Jordan Yates, and get to the edge, but NAU’s defensive line – they showed four-, three- and even some two-down looks – kept the linebackers free and they looked good chasing sideline to sideline. Yates had three big runs – a 21-yarder, a 31-yarder and a 14-yarder – on the first two drives, but those represented 66 of his 74 total rushing yards for the game. Linebacker Heston Lameta led the ‘Jacks with eight tackles and a sack and made one of the low-key biggest plays of the game on SHSU’s first drive when he was slow to get off running back Dezmon Jackson after making a tackle and Jackson responded by going straight WWE.
NAU started in an up-tempo offense but settled into the defensive battle and started to ugly the game up, converting four of five fourth downs. The Lumberjacks had three drives of 10 plays or longer in the second half. Martinez looked a little quick to break the pocket – as young, athletic quarterbacks sometimes do – but just missed a couple deep shots early in the game that would have made his line (27-41, 214 yards, one interception) look much better. The bigger concern is Daniels, who might have been the most dynamic back in the league a year ago but had 47 yards on 17 carries and was stood up on carries of second and goal from the 2, fourth and goal from the 1, and third and 1 from the 35 – all in the first half. He did come up big at the end of the game, rushing for 29 yards on NAU’s final drive, a five-minute, 30-second march that ended the game.
WEBER STATE
You don’t need me to tell you this after Weber State held Utah State to 283 yards and picked off two Aggies quarterbacks, Logan Bonner and Cooper Legas, a total of four times, but Weber’s secondary is so good. The Wildcats put their defensive backs in man and just let them cover straight up with minimal help. It doesn’t matter who they put out there – Eddie Heckard, Desmond Williams, Kamden Garrett, Jalon Rock – all Weber’s DBs do is stay on the receiver’s hip and lock down. On Saturday, Bonner missed a couple deep shots and his receivers had a couple drops early – including on a tipped ball that led to Weber’s first interception – and it soon became clear that USU’s starter didn’t have the accuracy to punish Weber’s DBs in tight man coverage. This let Weber pack the box, so Utah State’s running game couldn’t get going either, and everything snowballed on the Aggies from there. Williams, Heckard, Rock and Maxwell Anderson had the interceptions, including a pick-six from Williams.
HOW ABOUT ANOTHER INT?!
— Weber State Football 🏈 (@weberstatefb) September 11, 2022
Heckard gets Weber State's fourth interception of the night!
It's 35-7! #WeAreWeber pic.twitter.com/2PcW3jqknP
Bronson Barron struggled with accuracy for Weber State – his mechanics can wander a little bit and he had a bad interception and missed a slant to Ty McPherson that should have been a touchdown early. He still finished with 202 yards on just 11 completions.
22 bringing the energy early with an interception⚡️🔥
— USU Football (@USUFootball) September 10, 2022
⚡️ @michaelanyanwu8 #AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/tMczoeEB7h
I did love Weber dialing up the deep ball to McPherson the play after Utah State took a 7-3 lead with a kickoff return touchdown. That’s Barron’s best throw right now and he dropped a perfect ball in for a 62-yard gain, setting up a Josh Davis touchdown one play later.
Here are some thoughts from the rest of the weekend’s games:
The scene in Bozeman veered into farce as Montana State hosted Morehead State, which lost 63-13 to Mercer in Week 1, and beat the Eagles by an identical score. The Bobcats led 28-0 after a first quarter capped by a punt-return touchdown by freshman Taco Dowler, who featured heavily in this space last week. The punt return for a TD was the first PR score by a Bobcat since Shawn Johnson took a punt to the house against the Grizzlies in the 2013 rivalry game at Bobcat Stadium.
TACO TIME 🌮
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) September 10, 2022
Taco Dowler's 67-yard punt return for a touchdown makes it 28-0, us!#GoCatsGo x #BobcatBuilt pic.twitter.com/kCBfDzMspA
The Bobcats tried to keep the score down, but down to their fifth-string running back – starter Isaiah Ifanse and San Diego State transfer Kaegun Williams were already out, Lane Sumner got hurt in practice this week, and Jared White got hurt early in Saturday’s game – they couldn’t really run a traditional grind-it-out, clock-killing offense. Backup quarterback Sean Chambers led MSU with seven carries, taking them for 127 yards and two touchdowns, and also threw touchdowns on two of his three completions. Aside from a slow start against McNeese State last weekend, the Bobcats have looked exactly as advertised against two over-matched teams.

UC Davis damn near shook up the top of the FCS, scoring two touchdowns in the final four minutes at No. 2 South Dakota State but falling 24-22 thanks to a blocked extra point that forced the Aggies into an unsuccessful 2-point conversion attempt at the end of the game. Dan Hawkins’ team is 0-2 but lurking with a defense that gave up 415 yards to Cal – respectable – and then held the Jackrabbits and reigning MVFC Freshman of the Year quarterback Mark Gronowski to 250. An early interception by Miles Hastings, who’s thrown three picks in two games, and a missed field goal didn’t help the Aggies’ offense, but the real issue was preseason Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year Ulonzo Gilliam running for just 33 yards on 11 carries. That feels like an aberration, and the Aggies feel dangerous despite a winless start.
Cal Poly went down 17-0 in the first half and 27-14 early in the fourth quarter to San Diego, which made five playoff appearances in six years from 2014 to 2019 in the non-scholarship Pioneer League, but redshirt freshman quarterback Jaden Jones threw touchdowns to Ryan Rivera and Chris Coleman in the final 7:30 to eke out a 28-27 win. Jones finished with 385 yards, putting the offense on his back with the running game averaging just two yards per carry, and leads all Big Sky quarterbacks with 596 passing yards through two games. Jones, from Oxnard, California, appears to be the current winner of a multi-year quarterback competition that’s also included Cal transfer Spencer Brasch, Jackson Pavitt and Kahliq Paulette. The Mustangs’ defense helped him out with interceptions on San Diego’s final three drives Saturday.
A week after giving up 512 yards and 46 points to Houston Baptist, Northern Colorado held Wyoming to 297 and 33, but the Bears scored just 10 points in a 33-10 loss. After giving up five yards a carry last week against one of the worst teams in the FCS – a team Northern Colorado smoked last year – the Bears held an FBS team known for its running attack to 3.2. Northern Colorado once again split snaps between Dylan McCaffrey (3-8, 35 yards, interception) and Jacob Sirmon (12-27, 91 yards, interception) at quarterback. Sirmon did catch the Bears’ only touchdown on a Philly Special from Trevis Graham, capping a nine-yard touchdown drive that started when Wyoming’s punter fumbled a snap. That brought the Bears back to within 16-10 in the first minute of the fourth quarter. They went on to gain a total of three yards on their final four drives of the game.
Portland State couldn’t carry its momentum over from a very good Week 1 performance at San Jose State – or record the conference’s second straight win against Washington – going down 31-3 at halftime to the Huskies and falling 52-6. A week after big season-opening performances, Dante Chachere was 6 of 17 for 50 yards and Beau Kelly had two catches. The Vikings were out gained 617 to 131 and are rolling into their bye week before traveling to Montana on Sept. 24.
Idaho is 2 for 2 in intriguing efforts against Power 5 teams but 0 for 2 in actual wins after leading Indiana 10-0 at halftime and then giving up 23 points in the third quarter in a 35-22 loss. That was a week after the Vandals led 10-0 against Washington State in a 24-17 loss. I have no idea how that start – for good or ill – will translate into Big Sky results for Idaho. The defense looks salty, but on the other hand, they gave up 436 yards on 6.7 yards per play against Indiana, and the reason the Hoosiers didn’t score any first-half points is because, on six drives, they missed a field goal, turned the ball over on downs at the Idaho 2, threw an interception in Idaho territory and lost a fumble in Idaho territory. They then scored touchdowns on five straight drives in the second half to put Idaho away. The Vandals should have a win coming up against Drake in their home opener before going into conference play.
Charlie Ragle was animated after Idaho State’s 38-7 loss at San Diego State dropped the Bengals to 0-2 against two FBS opponents. “This is a game the people thought we’d come in and get rolled over by 60,” Ragle said. “We played our tails off. … If we can continue to play like we’re playing, we’re going to win a bunch of games in the Big Sky, and I just told them that.”
After tonight’s game, ISU coach Charlie Ragle was as impassioned as I’ve seen him. Here’s a sample. pic.twitter.com/zbmseNiybl
— Greg Woods (@GregWWoods) September 11, 2022
Ragle is basing that assessment on ISU’s injuries – the Bengals lost starting quarterback Tyler Vander Waal to what appears to be the same shoulder injury that sidelined him last year – and the way they fought after going down 21-7 at halftime. ISU did have two drives that ended on downs inside the SDSU 10-yard line, so there are some encouraging signs for the offense, even with backup quarterback Hunter Hays in. It’s unlikely to matter as long as the Bengals’ defense is giving up 380 rushing yards, as they did against SDSU, on 8.8 yards per carry. In two games, they’re given up four touchdowns of 40 yards or more.
Gunner Talkington couldn’t repeat his Week 1 heroics for Eastern Washington against a rightfully pissed-off Oregon as the Ducks destroyed the Eagles 70-14 and out gained them 604 to 187. That was the first game of maybe the toughest five-game stretch in the FCS this year – after a bye week, the Eagles host Montana State, travel to Florida and Weber State and host Sac State. They’ll probably need to win two of four and get into the easier part of their conference schedule at 3-3 to have a chance at the playoffs.