CHENEY, Wash., — Days before Montana’s showdown at No. 3 Eastern Washington, Bob Stitt lamented his team’s lack of focus in a loss at Northern Arizona. He said if the Griz were going to win in Cheney for the first time 2008, they were going to have a correct that issue.
Montana did just that taking a 7-0 first quarter lead. It just didn’t last.
“When it came down to it we just didn’t make plays,” Stitt said after Montana fell to 5-3 overall and 2-3 in the Big Sky Conference. “We had some opportunities to make some plays and catch some balls. They did it and we didn’t.
“We just found a way to shoot ourselves in the foot and not get the ball in the end zone.”
In a 35-16 loss that put it at the bottom of a steep slope with three weeks remaining before the FCS playoffs begin, 16th-ranked Montana saw a would-be-touchdown trick play get swatted into the turf, three passes fall through receivers’ hands inside Eastern’s 5-yard line and watched as the Eagles turned a 7-0 Montana lead into a 21-7 advantage in another road loss.
In wet conditions at a sold out Roos Field, Montana ran 92 plays, racked up 540 yards but managed just 16 points and couldn’t prevent the Eagles’ big-play offense from tossing the ball downfield to its stable of receivers.
“Just big plays. They had a good game plan and they came out and executed on us,” said Montana defensive end Caleb Kidder before adding, “We thought we could play man against them and they just showed us that we couldn’t.”
Montana’s aggressive defense forced three consecutive Eastern Washington punts before the Eagles found their stride. Reigning national player of the week Gage Gubrud shook off an early 3-for-12 start by hitting 14 of his next 16 passes on the way to a 35-10 lead with 4:41 remaining in the third quarter. He threw passes up to Cooper Kupp and Kendrick Bourne, and even caught one that went for big yardage.
“They were playing better than us. Montana was playing better than us early in terms of our offense versus their defense,” Eastern Washington head coach Beau Baldwin said as the Eagles improved to 7-1 and remained in a first-place tie with North Dakota atop the Big Sky Conference standings. “We had to find a way to make some plays. Cooper was able to kind of get that going and get that spark.”
Montana moved the ball early, racking up 30 plays in the first quarter — and 56 by halftime — but had little to show for it. Three times in their first four drives the Griz moved deep into Eastern Washington territory. However, they scored just seven points.
An 11-play march ended in a punt and a 14-play drive resulted in a missed 48-yard field goal. Only a three-play possession created by a 16-yard John Nguyen punt return ended in the end zone. Gustafson completed that short drive with a perfectly placed 16-yard touchdown to freshman Colin Bingham.
“Initially our game plan was to target the middle of the field, they left that pretty open,” said Bingham, who caught a touchdown for the third time in four weeks and was a big part of Montana’s efforts to get the ball to its H-backs. “As the game went on I think they defended that a lot better.”
Montana had a chance to break a 7-7 second-quarter tie, driving to the Eagles’ 34-yard line. Brady Gustafson, who launched a season-high 63 passes, tossed a ball to Justin Calhoun, who dropped it inside the 5. Two more attempts were thrown toward the goal line, both of which were dropped by Keenan Curran, including one on fourth-and-7.
While Montana struggled to cash in long possessions, Eastern operated on chunk plays, gashing a Griz secondary that was burned several times in the opening minutes of a loss at Northern Arizona just a week earlier.
Trailing 7-0, Gubrud dropped back on second down and feathered a ball into Kupp, who sprinted between the two defenders tasked with covering the all-world pass catcher. Kupp turned that reception into a 69-yard score.
Not only was it Kupp’s 65th career receiving touchdown, it started Eastern’s perpetual march to the black colored end zones of its inferno red field. Eastern blew the game wide open, scoring on five of its next six possessions bridging the first and third quarters.
“Once we figured it out we know what we’re going to do as a team, we just need to go out and do it,” said Kupp, who finished his last regular season game against Montana with eight catches for 140 yards and three touchdowns.
On the Eagles’ first possession of the second quarter, Kupp took over the role of quarterback, finding Gubrud for 54 yards down to Montana 2-yard line on a trick play.
Eight minutes later he snuck behind the defense and Gubrud lobbed him a 5-yard score to put Eastern up 21-7 with 3:34 left in the first half.
Montana responded on a 20-yard Tim Semenza field goal to end the half, but Eastern found the end zone on their first two drives of the third, one on a 40-yard Cupp score and the other on a 13-yard pass from Gubrud to Shaq Hill.
By that time Eastern had picked up five plays of at least 30 yards and were averaging nearly nine yards per play.
For Montana, Saturday was its third loss in four road games. Now under .500 in conference, the Griz have three remaining games to push their way up the Big Sky standings and make a claim for a playoff berth.
“We’ve got three more games to win and you want to be playing the best football at the end of the season like always,” Stitt said. “We’ve been through tough times — you play college football you’re going to have some adversity and it’s going to feel awful, but you have to stick together and have everybody’s back. … We’ve just got to get through it.”
