MISSOULA — In a matchup between polarizing styles, a freshman kicker proved to be the difference as the Mustangs derailed Montana’s storybook start to the Bob Stitt era.
Griz helmet
Cal Poly assumed control of the ball trailing 19-17 with one minute, 17 seconds and no timeouts here on Saturday night. The drive began on the Mustangs’ 31-yard line and it appeared Cal Poly’s triple-option would have little chance to move the ball into scoring position. But 10 plays, including four pitches to Kori Garcia to keep the clock stopped and the Mustangs found themselves on the Montana 32 with nine seconds to play. Junior Stephen Pyle had hit a 48-yard field goal earlier. But Cal Poly head coach Tim Walsh elected to go with freshman Alex Vega instead.
The rookie from Gilroy, California stepped up and drilled the 49-yard field goal in a driving rain to lift Cal Poly to a 20-19 victory in a non-conference showdown between two Big Sky Conference powers here on Saturday night.
“Alex has the strongest leg on our team,” Walsh said following his team’s second straight win over Montana. “If it was inside of 40, we would’ve let Stephen kick it. But Alex has the strongest leg and he had the best opportunity to take it. I was concerned that it would be his first college field goal but what a first college field goal.”
Alex Vega
Vega had never attempted a field goal in college. His career long in high school was from 37 yards. As rain poured down and 26,065 reigned down boos, Vega drilled a kick that would’ve been good from 10 yards farther.
“The G-rated version of what I was thinking was don’t screw up,” Vega said with a laugh. “I was confident I could make the kick and I’m happy Coach Walsh gave me the opportunity to take it.”
In the first college football game of the 2015 season, Montana shocked a great many by knocking off four-time defending FCS champion North Dakota State, 38-35. Stitt, Montana’s first-year head coach, won his opener against the No. 1 team in the country by letting his up-tempo offense all hang out with big plays the trademark from start to finish.
A week later, the Grizzlies looked to be in control again. With 3:43 to play, Montana pinned Cal Poly at its 2-yard line with a punt. On the next play, senior captain Derek Crittenden sacked Chris Brown in the end zone for a safety to give UM a 19-17 lead. On the ensuing drive following a Cal Poly free kick, UM got all the way down to the CP 32. But Cal Poly came up with a fourth-down stop to assume control with 77 seconds to play. Eleven plays later, the Mustangs had their second straight win over Montana.
“(When the kick went through), it didn’t feel real,” said Crittenden, a Whitefish product who had 12 tackles in the loss. “It was just a stab in the chest. And then they start celebrating on our field. It just hurt.”
Cal Poly downed UM 41-21 in San Luis Obispo last season.
Griz offense celebrates touchdown
Each up-tempo, no-huddle offense ran plays in bunches on Saturday with neither side establishing any dominant flow. Cal Poly’s vaunted triple-option offense ran 89 plays and churned out 330 yards on 76 attempts, including 140 yards on 24 carries by senior quarterback Chris Brown. Brown’s 60-yard touchdown with 15 seconds left in the first quarter put Cal Poly on the board and his 36-yard touchdown pass to Roland Jackson gave the Mustangs a 14-7 lead with less than five minutes to play in the first half.
“This is unexplainable,” Brown said following his eighth career 100-yard game. “This is something that means so much not just to me but to the alumni and I talked to five or six alumni who called me expressing how important this was to them and this program and how much we deserved it. I couldn’t be more proud of the guys for trusting each other.”
Burton De Koning
A week ago, Montana had NDSU in disarray with an offense that ran 92 plays in less than 24 minutes. On Saturday, again the Grizzlies ran 92 plays, including 56 in the first half, but the big plays that aided in the upset of the Bison were largely non-existent against the Mustangs. Junior quarterback Brady Gustafson completed 40-of-64 passes for 353 yards, including a seven-yard touchdown to junior Ellis Henderson to tie the score at 14-14 with 20 seconds to play in the first half. But in the second half, he couldn’t find a rhythm, throwing three interceptions, all to Cal Poly junior safety B.J. Nard.
“We play against a lot of those same plays and the pace, we are no huddle,” Walsh said. “We ran 89 plays tonight and they ran 92. It’s who we are. We practice against no huddle all the time. It’s a different no huddle. It’s kind of the anti. But we are used to playing at a very fast pace on both sides of the ball so I don’t think the pace affected us at all. We played 56 plays in the first half and I said, ‘ You guys got to play 56 football plays, let’s play 56 more.’ We don’t care. We love it.”
Cal Poly made a concerted effort to eliminate any plays over the top for the Mustangs. Against NDSU, Gustafson hit five passes of more than 32 yards, including touchdowns of 38 and 62 yards. On Saturday, he completed just two passes for more than 25 yards, including a 44-yarder to Josh Horner to set up Daniel Sullivan’s 24-yard field goal that knotted the game 17-17 with 8:53 left to play.
Brady Gustafson
“They did a good job of eliminating the deep stuff,” Gustafson said. “They watched film from last week and they saw all our wide receivers going deep. They did a good job of trying to limit us to underneath throws.
“Summed up in two words: it sucks. It’s tough to go from such a high last week to this week, a lot of disappointment.”
Montana was without junior defensive tackle Caleb Kidder after the 6-foot-5, 285-pounder took a helmet to the leg against NDSU, an injury that required surgery to relieve the pressure caused by internal bleeding. On Saturday, junior defensive tackle Zach Peevey injured his ankle in the first half. Jamal Wilson also suffered an undisclosed injury.
Montana now has a week off to rest and get healthy before making the cross-country trip to Lynchburg, Virginia to take on No. 15 Liberty in the Grizzlies’ final non-confernece game this fall.
“Unfortunate as hard as our team played that we couldn’t come out with a win,” Stitt said after his first loss at Montana. “You really have to hand it to Cal Poly coming into a hostile environment and hanging in there when things are bleak and they drive it down and their kicker wins the thing for him. I’m so proud of our kids the way that they played for the entire game. We asked them for three hours of effort and they gave it to us until the very last play. It just wasn’t enough.”
Editors note: Brooks lost all of his main camera game photos. Sorry for the gap in coverage.
Photos by Brooks Nuanez.. All Rights Reserved.
