For two weeks, Montana head coach Bob Stitt has talked about avoiding a letdown similar to the one that beset his Grizzlies after a big win over a Missouri Valley opponent last season.
The Stitt era kicked off in resounding fashion as UM beat then-four-time defending national champion North Dakota State 38-35 in front of a national television audience. After a week off — the Griz started a week early because of the televised FCS Kickoff featuring the two FCS powers — Montana played Cal Poly in Missoula. The Mustangs downed the Grizzlies for a second straight season with a 20-19 win at Washington-Grizzly Stadium on a 49-yard field goal by Alex Vega with four seconds remaining.
Montana plays at Cal Poly on Saturday and the situation is similar to Stitt’s first season. UM is fresh off a bye. Montana posted a 20-14 win over No. 3 Northern Iowa on the road before taking a week off. Stitt said his Griz can’t afford a situation like 2015.
Cal Poly sets the line-of-scrimmage with a cut-blocking style opening way to the triple option
“If you think somebody is going to bow down to you because you had a great win, you are going to get punched right in the face, which is what happened to us last year,” Stitt said during his weekly press conference on Monday in Missoula. “We beat North Dakota State and I think a lot of people had their plane tickets to Frisco, Texas (FCS National Championship site) already bought. We showed up and laid an egg against these guys. They are a good football team. They are a better football team than they were last year.”
“It was a game we were coming off a big win last year and we came out flat,” added UM junior linebacker Connor Strahm said. “We weren’t expecting them to come in and play like they did. Every week we get every team’s best shot. Coming out prepared is big, especially this week.”
Cal Poly nearly broke into the national polls after a landmark win of its own last weekend. The Mustangs took FBS Nevada to overtime before falling 30-27 before winning two straight, including a 38-16 win over San Diego and a 38-31 win over No. 9 South Dakota State last week. When asked if his team should be on high alert to avoid deflating after the big win over their Missouri Valley foe, Cal Poly head coach Tim Walsh said he does not worry with the Griz coming to town.
“I’m pretty sure the name Montana takes care of that for us,” Walsh said. “Playing the University of Montana is always a game our players get excited for and I do really think the last three or four times we’ve played them, it’s been great football games. There’s an unwritten competitive thing going on between the two programs and I’m sure they want to get back on the winning track against us and we want to keep our winning streak going against them.”
Two years ago, Cal Poly posted a dominant 41-21 win over the Griz in San Luis Obispo. Since taking over at Cal Poly in 2009, Walsh has posted three wins in six matchups — the teams did not play in 2012 — and in a fourth game, in Missoula in 2013, the Mustangs took the Griz to overtime before falling 21-14. Cal Poly also beat Montana in SLO in 2010, 35-33.
UM quarterback Brady Gustafson (3) makes pre-snap adjustments vs. Cal Poly in 2015
“You have to deal with Montana and the tradition and an attitude that they are going to win,” Walsh said. “We get them here. I’m not too fired up about game time because it’s going to be 95 (degrees) in the middle of the afternoon. But it has the makings of a great football game.”
With senior Dano Graves at the helm, Cal Poly’s triple option offense is operating at an all-time efficiency, Walsh said. Chris Brown posted back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons as Cal Poly’s trigger man over the last two years, but Graves has been waiting his turn ever since earning Prep National Player of the Year honors at Folsom (California) High in 2011.
“We knew he was the guy who was going to run the offense at some point and be a very dynamic player at the position because he’s capable of doing so many things,” Cal Poly first-year offensive coordinator Justin Wood, an All-Big Sky quarterback for Walsh at Portland State in the early 2000s and an assistant at Cal Poly since Walsh was hired in 2009, said on Tuesday. “The biggest thing for Dano is his ability to stay healthy. He’s such a fearless guy with the ball in his hands, he borderline lives on the edge of reckless.
“He’s been ready.”
Graves, who nearly led the ‘Stangs to an upset of the Griz in Missoula in 2013, rushed for 140 yards and two touchdowns as Cal Poly piled up 383 rushing yards in a 30-27 overtime loss to Nevada. Graves scored the game-tying touchdown with 80 seconds left and CP elected to go for two, but a false start made Walsh reconsider. Casey Sublette kicked the extra point, the game went into overtime and Nevada scored a touchdown to offset a Sublette field goal to avoid the upset.
In their win over San Diego, Graves rushed for 98 yards and a touchdown and threw for 130 yards and two more touchdowns. The Mustangs rushed for 354 yards and piled up 484 yards of total offense.
Cal Poly safety BJ Nard and former UM wide receiver Ellis Henderson fight for a loose ball in 2015
In Brookings, the option churned at a high level as Cal Poly rushed for 440 yards and piled up 601 yards of total offense. Fullback Joe Protheroe rushed for 217 yards and two touchdowns, going over 100 yards for a third straight game. Graves completed 9-of-11 passes for 161 yards and a touchdown in the victory.
“That’s the difference between them last year and this year,” Stitt said. “When they got off schedule and didn’t have the good yards on first and second down, they were in trouble. With this new quarterback, now they can throw the ball.”
Last season, Cal Poly rushed for 330 yards on 76 carries (4.3 yards per rush) against Montana’s star-studded defense. Brown, who finished with 130 yards on the ground, ripped off a 60-yard touchdown run late in the first quarter and added a 28-yard burst to set up his 36-yard touchdown pass to Roland Jackson to give the Mustangs a 14-7 lead with 4:52 until halftime. Other than those two bursts, Cal Poly averaged just 3.2 yards per rush.
“We are expecting a lot of the same things. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t,” Walsh said when asked about Montana’s predicted adjustments under new defensive coordinator Jason Semore. “But they did a good job against us last year and we have our work cut out for us to not make it a must game. What I mean by that is those two or three-yard gains we can deal with but can we deal with those for an entire game against the University of Montana. We know we have to score more than 20 and we have to do it against a very, very physical defense.”
Montana’s defense has been stout during its 2-0 start. Outside one long play in a 41-31 win over Saint Francis, the Griz gave up 180 yards of total offense despite being given short fields due to three turnovers by the offense and poor special teams play throughout. Against Northern Iowa, the Griz stuffed dual-threat quarterback Aaron Bailey, holding him to eight yards on 20 rushes and 16-of-37 passing.
Former Cal Poly defensive end Logan Mayes sacks UM quarterback Brady Gustafson in 2015
The Grizzlies will face an entirely different monster on Saturday.
“If one person doesn’t do their job, they are going for 40 yards and a touchdown,” Strahm said. “Knowing your responsibility and executing on every play is the key.”
“Stopping the triple option, if you are not confident in what you are doing and what your read is, your read goes out the window because you are thinking,” Stitt added. “We have to be able to react and go.”
Kickoff in San Luis Obispo is scheduled for noon at Alex G. Spanos Stadium.
Skyline Sports correspondent Jason Bacaj contributed to the reporting for this story.
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
