MISSOULA, Montana — With nine returning starters and a glut of veterans back for another year for a defensive unit that gave up just about two touchdowns per contest last season, most expected the Montana Griz defense to be a formidable unit.
But just how good have the Griz been this season?
Well, Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said following his team’s 24-7 win over South Dakota, a playoff team from a year ago, that he was “never uncomfortable” throughout the game. And he also lead his post-game comments by rattling off statistical accomplishments, a complete rarity for Montana’s demanding, hard-charging leader.
And consecutive visiting head coaches — Brad Laird for Northwestern State, Bob Nielson for USD — have looked shell-shocked after trying to mitigate the almost relentless pressure and pursuit executed by the Griz defense.
“We played really poorly, offensively. Really disappointed with that performance and that’s a full credit to their defense,” Nielson said. “Defensively, they come after you and they keep coming after you. We didn’t have any answers today.”
Perhaps the best indication for how confident Montana is in their defensive prowess is on display by how the offense has operated — and how passive or aggressive offensive coordinator Timm Rosenbach’s play-calling has been — particularly when the Griz take a lead.
Montana senior quarterback Lucas Johnson, who spent the last two seasons at San Diego State including winning eight games in nine starts last fall, said the Montana defense gives him a boosted confidence, inspiring him to lead the UM to scoring drives early because he knows no matter what happens after that, “those guys are going to play their butts off and those guys are always going to get the ball back for us. No matter what.”
That’s perhaps why 13-0 leads each of the last two weeks seemed insurmountable for the visitors to Washington-Grizzly Stadium…because they simply were.
“They are not the kind of team you want to play from behind against for sure,” Nielson said.
Montana scored on two of its first three possessions in each of the last two games with wide-open, creative and downright modern offensive scheme. The second and third quarters can be categorized as conservative. Yet it felt as if the Grizzlies were utterly dominating their competition because first downs, long offensive gains, and, for most of each game, even trips into UM territory, were few and far between for the pair of visitors to Missoula.
“They controlled the field position the whole game,” Northwestern State head coach Brad Laird after his team’s 47-0 loss in which the Demons did not cross midfield. “What they do and what they have done is they put relentless pressure on the quarterback and they put a lot of different pressure from a lot of different looks.”
Hauck is hard to pry a sound bite out of on most days. So when he leads a press conference with historic statistical accomplishments, your ears perk up.
“That’s the longest streak without a point (113 minutes, 33 seconds) in Grizzly history. And it’s the largest point differential in two games in 75 years (71-7, +64) so a good start for our team,” Hauck said in his matter of fact fashion.
It’s not as if Montana has the best defense in the history of college football (did you watch the Georgia Bulldogs last year?!).
But the start to the season has been impressive nonetheless. And it’s been on par with the start for last year’s Griz defense, which shocked the college football world by giving up a touchdown to No. 20 Washington on the first drive of the game for the Huskies only to settle in and pitch a shut out the rest of the way. Montana also did not give up an offensive touchdown the following week in a rout of Western Illinois.
Washington rushed for 65 yards, averaging 2.4 yards per carry. The Huskies had 21 first downs and 291 yards of total offense. Montana also had three interceptions, rolled up three sacks and eight tackles for loss including two sacks and three TFLs from edge rusher Patrick O’Connell and forced the Huskies to punt seven times.
Western Illinois managed just nine first downs. The Leathernecks rushed for 40 yards on 25 carries (1.6 yards per rush) and gained just 151 yards of total offense. UM forced nine punts and snared three interceptions while also forcing three fumbles, recovering two in the 42-7 shellacking.
The Griz have been arguably better through two games this season. Montana has an absurd 23 tackles for loss through two games, rolling up five sacks in each of its first two wins. Northwestern State managed 36 rushing yards on 33 rushes and 229 yards of total offense, earning 16 first downs but none into Montana territory. South Dakota mustered just 12 first downs and 209 yards of total offense, rushing for 90 yards on 36 carries, although two Travis Theis bursts accounted for exactly half of those yards. Montana has already forced 18 punts this season.
“I think it’s a testament to the coaching staff for getting us prepared and knowing what’s going to happen,” said O’Connell, a fifth-year senior from Kalispell who was the Big Sky Conference’s preseason Defensive Player of the Year.
“It comes from the film, comes from knowing what the opponent is going to be in. And then it comes from us just dialing it up and knowing what we’re doing. That’s the most important thing, get everyone lined up and get communicated and run in the right stuff that (defensive coordinator Kent) Baer calls.”
The dialogue behind the defense has been well-chronicled. Our Andrew Houghton wrote earlier this season a summation that is perfect of the high-octane, attacking scheme and its execution.
If there’s a defining characteristic of Montana’s frantic 3-3-5 defense the last few years under Kent Baer, other than the torture it inflicts on opposing quarterbacks, it’s the system’s insatiable hunger for depth at every position.
Baer, who’s entering his 45th year coaching college football in 2022, looks like a high-school history teacher slash baseball coach. He doesn’t glower like Bobby Hauck or gesticulate like cornerbacks coach Ronnie Bradford or do everything, all the time, constantly, like defensive line coach Barry Sacks.
If Baer had an avatar, though, it would be the war boy strapped to the front of a truck with a flaming guitar in Mad Max. He’s the overseer of chaos, the inciter of madness, his vision of delirium writ large on the field before him.
The Griz get most of their pass rush from their linebackers. Defensive linemen always have to be ready to drop into coverage, safeties to scream downhill into the box. What the picture looks like in the second before the snap has no correlation to what it will be a second after (hence the torture). In Montana’s heavy-metal scheme, effort and energy are required, because a player not getting to the place he’s supposed to be, when he’s supposed to be there, means gaps. It means openings. It means big plays.
The scheme is one thing. A veteran defensive coordinator who has coached at Cal, Arizona State, Stanford, Notre Dame, Washington, Colorado and UNLV (among, amazingly, other places, too) is another factor. But it also takes an elite level of athlete, plus a bunch of them, to play at as high of a level as UM has been the last two years.
“Their scheme is very attacking and the guys they have doing it are tough, they are physical and they play extremely hard,” said Curt Mallory, the fifth-year head coach for Indiana State, the team that hosts No. 2 Montana on Saturday. “What they do and who they do it with is the recipe to be great.”
“And it’s the hard coaching, definitely No. 1,” O’Connell said. “Guys buying into it, and accepting their role and doing what were coached and taught. And I think everyone on the defense has accepted it and there’s a reason why.”
Montana’s average score right now is 36 to 3.5, an almost laughable spread when put on paper. The Griz are out-gaining their opponents 404 yards per game to 210 yards per game. UM has allowed seven third-down conversions in 31 tries.
Of Montana’s 23 tackles for loss, O’Connell has four while fellow linebackers Marcus Welnel and Braxton Hill each have 2.5 as does defensive end Hank Nuce. Fourteen other Griz have combined for half of the stops behind the line of scrimmage. O’Connell’s 2.5 sacks are tied for the most among Big Sky players.
O’Connell and safety Garrett Graves each have interceptions while Graves, linebacker Levi Janacaro, Nuce and fellow defensive end Kale Edwards all have forced fumbles.
But that’s the thing about the Griz: it’s not about the individual. It’s about a unit that comes at you in waves and never stops coming until the game is finished.
“We have good speed and quickness. The aggressiveness of the unit, and then they have the understanding of support, aiming points and we’re good tacklers,” Bobby Hauck said following the South Dakota win. So if someone breaks, we get it down, knocked down pretty good, go play the next one.
“It is hard to deal with.”
