MISSOULA, Mont. — The regular-season game between Montana and Eastern Washington had plenty of craziness — a special-teams score, a late comeback and a final play that was fingertips away from swinging the outcome.
That was over two months ago and, as it turned out, it was only the entry-level floor model of this matchup. Friday night’s rematch, under the sharp lights of Washington-Grizzly Stadium and with the added stakes of the FCS playoffs, upgraded on the original in just about every way — bigger, better, crazier.
Nearly four hours after Malik Flowers’ 75-yard jet sweep touchdown gave Montana an early 7-0 lead — a huge play that nevertheless ended up buried in the avalanche of momentum changes to come — the Grizzlies walked off the Wa-Griz turf with a stunning 57-41 victory. The win sent them to the national quarterfinals for the second time in as many seasons and ended the decorated career of Eastern Washington quarterback Eric Barriere, one of the greatest players in Big Sky Conference history.
“Obviously, it was a dominating win, it wasn’t close, it was fun to go out and get it,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said. “We didn’t play very well on defense in the first quarter, the first quarter and two minutes. And then it was back to business as usual for our defense. I thought it was a great team effort, offense, defense, kicking, just terrific.”
The paper needed to print the postgame stat books probably decimated a couple forests by itself. The two teams combined for 13 touchdowns, three field goals and nearly 1,000 total yards. In the final game of his incredible career, Barriere set a new Big Sky record with 80 pass attempts, completing 47 of them for 530 yards, five touchdowns and one interception — and still losing by double digits.
The most revealing stat of all was Montana’s 57 points on just 13 first downs. The Grizzlies were outgained 608 to 368, but those numbers haven’t defined the Grizzlies all year. Friday was a perfect example of why, as the Griz seized control of the game on special teams, controlled it on defense and sealed it with a defensive touchdown.
For most of the first half, it didn’t look like Montana would be in position to seal anything. Eastern Washington answered Flowers’ opening touchdown just over a minute later, with Barriere finding Talolo Limu-Jones for a 58-yard gain and hitting Andrew Boston for a 19-yard score on the next play.
The Eagles then added a 54-yard touchdown pass from Barriere to Jakobie James late in the first quarter and a 57-yard scoring run by Dennis Merritt early in the second to take a 21-10 lead — the exact same advantage Montana had in the first matchup before EWU scored 24 unanswered points and eventually sealed a 34-28 win.
Friday’s game saw a similar response, with a bit of an unorthodox swing in momentum driving Montana’s counterpunch.
With Eastern Washington driving early in the second quarter, the refs stopped the game on back-to-back plays to review potential targeting calls on Montana’s Gavin Robertson and Robby Hauck. Neither play resulted in a penalty, but the reviews forced the Eagles’ offense to stand around for about 10 minutes of real time — and when play resumed, to face a louder-than-ever Montana crowd of 24,065 that was incensed the plays even went under review.
That happened with about 10 minutes left in the second quarter. Eastern Washington finished that drive with a punt. The Eagles didn’t score again until there were under seven minutes left in the third quarter, and Montana immediately took advantage.
On the EWU punt after the targeting reviews, Missoula Loyola grad Ryan Tirrell broke through the line to block the kick, and Missoula Big Sky grad Levi Janacaro chased the loose ball down at the Eagles’ 17-yard line.
Four plays later, Junior Bergen took a pitch from Cam Humphrey and stumbled over the goal line for a 5-yard score, and the Grizzlies, as no other team in the country does, had once again manufactured momentum from the thin air of a special teams breakthrough.
“We’ve been doing it all year, we’ve won the kicking game in a big way,” Hauck said. “And that continued tonight. It was a dominant effort in special teams, we controlled field position in a big way.”
Bergen’s score cut Eastern Washington’s lead to 21-20 at halftime. Just two-and-a-half minutes into the third quarter, the Griz were up 30-21 after Kevin Macias’s second field goal of the game and an 8-yard touchdown run by Xavier Harris that was set up by Bergen’s long punt return.
On their 20-0 run that spanned the end of the second and the beginning of the third quarter, the Grizzlies’ four scoring drives totaled a combined 85 yards.
Eastern Washington had one last response. A roughing the kicker penalty on a punt kept the Eagles’ drive alive, and Barriere fired a 4-yard touchdown to Limu-Jones to cut Montana’s lead to 30-28 midway through the third quarter.
Limu-Jones, who had 11 catches for 231 yards in the first meeting and taunted the Griz after EWU’s first-round win over Northern Iowa last week, finished with 14 catches for 215 yards and two touchdowns.
“I don’t take back nothing I said previous to this,” said Limu-Jones, who said that Montana didn’t deserve a seed earlier in the week. “I’m a man of my word and I let my game do the talking today.”
After that score, it was Montana’s turn for a quick-strike answer, with Humphrey hitting Sammy Akem on a crossing route and Akem outracing the Eagles’ defense to the pylon for a 44-yard score to make it 37-28.
Montana added another third-quarter touchdown on a 5-yard throw from Humphrey to Cole Grossman. Eastern Washington, which had 366 yards at halftime, had just 34 in the third quarter as Montana’s physical defense and pressure started to overwhelm an Eagles’ offensive line that lost starting center Connor Crist in the second half and had to move all-conference tackle Tristen Taylor inside. Outside of Merritt’s long touchdown run, EWU had just 21 yards on its other 27 rushing attempts.
Akem’s second touchdown of the day, a 30-yarder on a great throw from Humphrey up the left sideline, came with just over eight minutes to go and capped Montana’s second 20-0 run in the game.
It was the 29th touchdown of Akem’s Montana career, tying him with Marc Mariani for the school record.
“I’m just kind of speechless right now,” Akem said. “Because it’s just like I tell you guys all the time, I had no idea that I was going to do things like this. When I came to Montana, I just came to play football. And it’s awesome to look up and see my name next to somebody so great.”
After a 35-yard touchdown from Barriere to Limu-Jones gave Eastern Washington a chance at a desperate comeback, Montana cornerback Justin Ford put the game away with just over two minutes left, undercutting a blind Barriere heave up the sideline, returning it 55 yards for a touchdown and flipping the ball into the delirious north end zone stands.
It was Ford’s ninth interception and third defensive touchdown of the season, and it propelled the Griz into their second straight appearance in the FCS quarterfinals.
Montana will play the winner of Saturday’s Southeastern Louisiana-James Madison game next week. If No. 3 James Madison wins, as is expected, that game will be in Harrisonburg, Virginia. If Southeastern Louisiana pulls the upset, the Griz will host the Lions, who they smoked 73-28 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in the second round in 2019.
