So, you’re saying there’s ‘not’ a chance?
Montana head coach Bobby Hauck wasn’t sharing the optimism of Lloyd Christmas (Dumb and Dumber; 1994) during his weekly press conference leading up to this week’s Cat-Griz showdown.
“I don’t know that anyone gives us a great chance to go down there and win,” Hauck said. “We’re excited for the game and we’ll go down there and try our best to get our 75th win in this series.”
He didn’t indicate if that chance was one in a million or otherwise.
Had Jim Carrey’s character in that classic comedy been talking about the University of Montana’s chances to shutdown Montana State’s run game, his heartthrob’s line would be a bit of an exaggeration. The Grizzlies have much better odds than “more like, one in a million” as Mary Swanson gave him of hooking up with her right before he uttered his famous line, “so you’re saying there’s a chance.”
The Grizzlies (5-2 Big Sky, 8-3 overall) will definitely hook up – for a football game – with the Bobcats (7-0, 11-0) this Saturday and if they can stop or just slow down MSU’s potent rushing offense, it will greatly increase UM’s chances of getting a win.
“We have to handle (MSU quarterback Tommy Mellott) as well, which is always difficult when you have to tackle 11 guys, cover 11 guys instead of 10,” UM defensive back Trevin Gradney said. “They have a plethora of backs back there and (Julius Davis) is back now and they run the ball hard. They do it often and they do it well so we are going to have to stop it.”
MSU enters the game with the second-best rushing yards per game average in the nation at 324.3 and the Bobcats yards per carry are the best at 7.0. While impressive, MSU had similar numbers when it went to Missoula a year ago and was held well below its averages, gaining 213 yards at 6.1 per carry with those numbers being skewed by three long runs that accounted for nearly half of that output.
“We popped some runs last year, but we weren’t consistently getting the four, five, six,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said in explaining one facet of his team’s 37-7 loss to UM in 2023. “I think that we had more lost yards plays last year than in any game that I can recall. So, we gotta limit those type of plays. Ideally, just get the normal play. And if we can pop some, we can pop some.”
The Grizzlies, statistically, had a better run defense in 2023 as they were allowing just 108.6 yards per game compared to 137.9 this season. Their yards per carry allowed was similar as it sits at 3.7 this season just slightly behind last year’s 3.5 clip.
Another promising note for UM is that MSU struggled, relatively, to run the ball in holding off UC Davis 30-28 last week. The Bobcats managed 159 yards on 34 rushes and they had just 52 yards on 14 carries in the first half.
MSU ended up having more pass attempts than rushes in the first half as Mellott made the Aggies pay for crowding the line of scrimmage by connecting on 13 of 17 attempts, including a stretch of 12 straight completions, for 122 yards and two touchdowns.
“We have to be able to throw the ball against (Montana) as well,” Vigen said. “Anytime a team, whether it’s them or anyone else, is going to pile guys in there, we gotta be able to go throw the football. And that was something through that first stretch of last year that we didn’t do.”
Julius Davis ignited MSU’s run game midway through the first possession of the second half when he took three straight handoffs for the final 35 yards and put the Bobcats up 30-8. Davis continued to run well as he finished with 13 carries for 91 yards and touchdown all in the second half. He’d missed most of the season to that point.
MSU tried to burn down the clock after that by running the ball 15 times to just five pass plays. That ploy didn’t pan out well as the Bobcats managed just 82 yards the rest of the game with 70 yards on 15 carries and they completed just two of five passes for 12 yards, while the Aggies mounted a furious comeback that fell just short.
The Grizzlies have had plenty of practice stopping good rushing teams in 2024. They’ve played five teams in the top 26 nationally in rushing yards per game. They struggled against the first two – at #23 North Dakota and at #5 Eastern Washington – allowing well over both teams’ season averages.
UM made a change on defense to limit over-pursuing and held #17 Weber State and #22 Northern Arizona around 20 yards below their average, before allowing #26 Portland State 25 yards over its average last week. All three of those games were in Missoula.
(All rankings are national rushing rankings.)
“It’s an option-based system so they make you account for the quarterback run game,” Hauck said. “They do that in a variety of ways. It’s fairly generic up front but they have a lot of movement around it and they mess with your eyes. The best player is the quarterback, and you have to account for him on every play.”
Montana linebacker Ryan Tirrell, one of the few returning starters from last year’s Griz defense that was a catalyst to UM’s Big Sky title run and surge to the FCS national title game, leads UM with 89 tackles. Ryder Meyer, a senior captain from Fairfield, is back to full strength as is Jaxon Lee, a senior second-year starter from Phillipsburg who graduated from Sentinel. Meyer and Lee anchor the back end of the Griz defense from their safety positions.
Up front is where Montana must find its footing. Alex Gubner, last year’s Big Sky Player of the Year, is now on the UM coaching staff. Montana State’s offensive line is buoyed by soon to be two-time All-American guard Marcus Wehr and bolstered by soon to be All-American sophomore offensive tackle Conner Moore.
Montana senior Hayden Harris has had a strong final campaign and is tied for the league lead with 15 tackles for loss.
Mellott has limited himself in the run game all season at the behest of his coaches due to a career riddled with injuries. He’s still very effective, but this season he’s only carried the ball 62 times so far compared to 85 times last season. He had 689 yards in 2023 and has 590 this season.
A year ago, he played in just nine games and split time with Sean Chambers, so his frequency dropped even further than the raw numbers indicate. He’s more productive, however, as he’s averaging 9.5 yards per carry this season, which is up from 8.1 a year ago, and has ran for 10 touchdowns versus just five a year ago.
Running backs Scottre Humphrey and freshman Adam Jones have spearheaded the rush attack all season and have seen Davis work his way back into the fold over the past two games. Humphrey leads the team with 165 carries for 1,221 yards and 13 touchdowns. Jones checks in at 100-731-7, while Davis is at 33-188-3 in just three games as he gradually works himself up to game speed.
Davis, MSU’s leading rusher in 2023, ran for 21 yards on five carries in his first game back against Eastern Washington, then had 76 yards with two touchdowns on 15 carries against Sacramento State before his 13-91-1 showing against UC Davis.
The Bobcats and Grizzlies will face off in the regular season finale for both squads Saturday at noon.
