Flowers kick return sparks Montana comeback as Griz advance with win over SEMO

MISSOULA – Malik Flowers felt the ball bounce off his helmet. He spun around, desperately trying to find it, nearly losing his balance. Then he picked it up, exploded through a crease and accelerated down the left sideline for an 80-yard kickoff return touchdown, igniting Washington-Grizzly Stadium and starting a run of 31 unanswered points that took Montana from a three-touchdown deficit to a 34-24 win over Southeast Missouri State in the first round of the FCS Playoffs on Saturday night.

“I kind of took my eyes off it, that’s where you saw it bounce off my helmet, so I’m scrambling, looking for the ball,” Flowers said. “But the guys kept up the assignment, stayed on blocks, I was able to get the ball, found a seam and then just let my team do the rest.”

The touchdown was Flowers’ second scoring return of his senior year and FCS-record-tying seventh of his career. The timely house call set off a wild and record-setting final quarter-and-a-half that kept Montana’s season alive.

The win sets the Griz up with a second-round date next week in Fargo, North Dakota, against the defending national champion North Dakota State Bison.

To get there, they had to go to, unquestionably, the lowest point of an up-and-down season. At the moment the ball clanked off Flowers’ helmet, Montana was down 24-3 at home to a double-digit underdog. The Griz had gained just nine rushing yards on 13 carries in the first half and then watched SEMO grind out a six-minute touchdown drive on the first possession of the second half.

All of the flaws that were apparent in Montana’s disappointing 7-4 regular season were fully on display: A listless, uninspired and ineffective offense. A defense that wasn’t quite dominant enough to make up for that. And, as Flowers demonstrated by taking his eye off the ball, a troubling lack of execution all around the field.

The Griz were less than two quarters away from elimination and not looking all that interested in avoiding it. It would have been a staggering fall from grace for a team that was ranked in the top five in the nation for the first half of the season. As the first half ended, the home fans were petulantly throwing snowballs and boos down from the stands.

But then the ball bounced perfectly back into Flowers’ hands. No SEMO player laid a hand on him as he sprinted to the end zone, and less than five minutes of game time later, Montana fans were jubilantly throwing post-touchdown Twinkies after the Griz turned a 24-3 deficit to a 24-24 tie with an incredible flurry of three scores in 4:25.

SEMO had a chance to respond after Flowers’ touchdown when Ryan Flournoy returned the kickoff into Griz territory, but Montana’s defense – which had just given up back-to-back long touchdown drives on either side of halftime – toughened up to force a missed 48-yard field goal.

Quarterback Lucas Johnson, who played so poorly in the first half – 10 for 21, 127 yards as Montana went 1 for 7 on third downs and managed just a solitary field goal – that the conversation about whether to pull him for backup Daniel Britt reached a fever pitch, opened the ensuing drive with a 25-yard scramble, and capped it with a 17-yard touchdown to a wide-open Keelan White.

“It probably couldn’t have started any worse, for me,” said Johnson, who was also the beneficiary of several dropped interceptions, “but not one guy on our team let me hold my head. They all said I was going to get it back, just keep going, just keep grinding away. At halftime, this whole team was holding me up.”

Three plays later, Montana’s defense forced a punt. Junior Bergen caught it – no drama this time – at the UM 42 and took off untouched down the right sideline for a 58-yard touchdown return.

Nico Ramos’ 32-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter gave the Griz their first lead. SEMO, the Ohio Valley Conference co-champion, tried to counterpunch and drove into Montana territory, but on fourth down and 5, Robby Hauck flew up to make a crucial stop on an uncovered Pervis Frazier for the turnover. It was Hauck’s 473rd career tackle, tying former Eastern Washington linebacker Ronnie Hamlin for the most in Big Sky Conference history (Hauck would go on to break the record one drive later with his 15th, and final, tackle of the game).

Two plays after the fourth-down stop, Montana was in the end zone after Johnson found Xavier Harris for 52 yards up the right sideline and then Cole Grossman for a 19-yard touchdown. Garrett Graves sealed the win by picking off SEMO quarterback Paxton DeLaurent on the next drive.

Flowers finished with seven catches for 108 yards – the most by a Montana player this season – in addition to his crucial touchdown. Johnson threw for 306 yards. Braxton Hill added 14 tackles to Hauck’s 15.

For just over 20 minutes, it was Montana’s finest performance of the season, exactly what Bobby Hauck demands. 

“They (SEMO) wanted to lean on their run game up that much, as they should,” Bobby Hauck said. “They couldn’t knock us off the ball. We’re a good-tackling team, we tackled well. … We produced two scores in the kicking game and then we were moving the ball on offense as well. We were playing well in all three phases at that point when we probably didn’t in the first half.”

For the first time all season, the Griz looked comprehensively commanding against a good team. They just had to be down 24-3, with questions and doubt swirling thick in the cold late-November air, to get to that point. Can they have one without the other?

On the one hand, it’s a good question. On the other, there have been questions about this Montana team all season long, about how good the Griz really are. Saturday might not have answered any of them. But give credit to Montana anyway. They won. They advanced. They’re one of the final 16 teams in the country, with a chance to knock off the defending national champion. When all that’s true, the questions don’t really matter anymore.

“Congratulations to our team on a really fine comeback effort,” Bobby Hauck said. “Lot of fight, heck of a job. … Heck of a night to be the Montana Grizzlies.”

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