MISSOULA, Montana — The Griz got to 10-0 how?
The last few weeks, the Montana Grizzlies looked like a team that was gaining steam and reaching new levels as the wins kept piling up.
And while Saturday’s 29-24 victory against Eastern Washington moves UM to 10-0 for the first time since 2009 and moves UM one step closer to a Big Sky Conference championship, the hosts appeared to be banged up and lacking energy, particularly after building a 22-0 lead against an upstart freshman quarterback making his first career college start.
Montana entered Saturday’s contest as a 33.5-point favorite according to the Vegas books. And as silly as it is to rest upon betting odds for the haphazard Big Sky, UM looked like it would easily cover that spread after Keali’i Ah Yat’s fifth rushing touchdown of the season put the Griz up 22 less than 17 minutes into the game.
But once Jake Schakel settled in, the Eagles battled and nearly pulled the upset of the season in the league.
Schakel, a former 3-star recruit who chose Montana over FBS offers from schools like Colorado State, Florida Atlantic, Fresno State and Nevada, made his first college start as EWU had to pivot to its third starting quarterback this season because of a collection of injuries. The Puyallup, Washington production kept getting better as the game went along.
And when he threw a dime to Cole Pruett for an 8-yard touchdown with just over a minute to go, he and the Eagles had cut the once-three score lead to 29-24.
Eastern then perfectly executed an onside kick to take over near mid field with 60 seconds remaining and no timeouts. Schakel kept dealing, completing four straight passes to get EWU inside the Montana 10-yard line with a chance at a game-winning touchdown.
But EWU’s attempt to stop the clock with a spike failed as Schakel bobbled the snap. The Griz jumped on the ball and a collective sigh of relief for the seventh straight sellout crowd this season at Washington-Grizzly Stadium breathed as Montana remained undefeated.
“Coach (Aaron) Best had his team ready to go. They consider this their rivalry game and they played like it,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said. “They should be proud of their effort coming in here and fighting like that.
“It was an odd game in terms of how it played out. We need to be better on both sides of the ball on third down and I think that was probably the main reason we couldn’t get away from them in the second half. And we had a hard time covering them.
“They abandoned the run game, which is unusual for them, and that’s something they don’t do against other people but that’s something they’ve done against us three of the last four times we’ve played them and we’ve had to adjust.
“That kid (Schakel) did a great job of staying upright. We sacked him eight times and got to him 100 and he is impressive in terms of toughness.”
Eastern Washington suffered its worst conference loss in program history in September when EWU fell 57-3 in Bozeman to No. 3 Montana State. The Eagles looked dead in the water and completely out of sorts that afternoon.
But EWU forged three wins in a row thereafter, feasting on the bottom teams in the Big Sky. Eastern beat Portland State 35-27, outlasted Idaho 21-14 in a game the Vandals were without dynamic quarterback Joshua Wood and held on for a 23-20 win over Weber State.
Last week, the winning streak ended when Sac State came to Cheney and rushed for 375 yards, throwing the ball just six times on the way to a 35-13 victory.
Dual-threat quarterback Nate Bell led EWU on its winning streak but was knocked out early by Sac State. Enter Schakel, who’s throw first, throw-always presence should instantly remind long-time Big Sky Conference followers of the Eastern quarterbacks of yesteryear.
And on Saturday, that’s exactly the response the 6-foot-2 freshman elicited. He stood in the pocket and took a beating, yet still threw for 450 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He completed 43-of-63 passes and helped EWU convert 11-of-21 third downs and 2-of-3 on fourth down.
“There’s nine other games of film and I think Montana is about 280 (yards) a game. Their determination is to stop the run and there’s a lot of air out there,” Best said. “We had our best day in the air in 10 games.
“I think our guys stood up to the challenge. And a lot of it is Jake’s uncanny ability to play ball and not worry about who’s open, who’s not open. He was not playing scared.”
Eastern hardly tried to run the ball with both their dual-threat QBs on the shelf. EWU averaged 3.7 yards per carry on its 18 run plays that weren’t Schakel scrambles or sacks. But Montana still managed to get home for a season-high eight sacks. UM also recorded 12 tackles for loss and hurried or hit Schakel on a significant portion of his drop-backs.
“Pass defense? I’ll have to watch the film, but we got eight sacks, it’s not because guys were running wide open,” Hauck said. “But there were times that we didn’t. cover them well enough, they won on the ball. Again, we are down a few secondary guys, like quite a few. I don’t know, there were times we didn’t make the play on the ball and we did and there were times that (Kellen Detrick) got three sacks and they got five more with his buddies.”
Montana’s offense has been a revelation this season, and it was again, at least for spurts, on Saturday. Ah Yat completed 22-of-30 passes for 250 yards and two touchdowns to continue foritifying his All-American candidacy.
Michael Worthma, an All-American kick returner last season at EWU who was a captain for Montana before Saturday’s contest, caught five passes for 81 yards, including the first touchdown of the game during UM’s early onslaught.
And Eli Gillman went over 1,000 yards for his junior season thanks to an 83-yard day on 13 carries that included his 14th rushing touchdown this season.
Yet this season for the Griz has rapidly evolved to being about one thing: the season finale against Montana State on November 22 in Missoula. MSU dropped its first two to begin the season after losing in last year’s national title game. Since then, MSU has won eight in a row, including a 66-14 win over Weber State in Bozeman on Saturday.
Montana travels to Portland State next week for its final obstacle before hosting the surging ‘Cats while MSU hosts No. 10 UC Davis, a 28-14 winner at Idaho on Saturday.
UM certaintly has some things to analyze over the next few weeks leading up to the Brawl. But Hauck chose to focus on the winning streak following his 148th win at Montana.
“We are excited to be 10-0,” Hauck said. “I’m not going to act like we aren’t. I’m proud of our team.”
