Eleven months after losing to South Dakota State in the national championship game in Frisco, Texas, the Montana Grizzlies’ season came to an end at the hands of the Jackrabbits once again.
Nearly 900 miles straight north from Frisco, the story was pretty much the same in Brookings on Saturday as the No. 3 Jackrabbits, clad in all blue just as they were in Texas in January, shut down the Griz and controlled the game for a 35-18 win.
Sophomore receiver Griffin Wilde caught two first-half touchdowns for SDSU, quarterback Mark Gronowski ran for two short touchdowns and All-American linebacker Adam Bock returned a deflected Keali’i Ah Yat pass 40 yards for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter to put the final flourish on the game for the Jackrabbits, who have now won 44 of their last 48 games, including just two losses in the last 46 to FCS teams.
“They just had too much for us,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said, per Frank Gogola of the Missoulian. “There was a couple plays that got away, and we didn’t get off the field on third down in the first half. Anyway, I thought our guys played hard. We just didn’t quite get there today, which is kind of the story of our season.”
Bock’s touchdown gave the hosts two TDs in the first 90 seconds of the fourth quarter, extended the Jacks’ lead to 35-3 and officially marked the final word on an up-and-down season for the Griz, who fell on the road in the second round of the FCS Playoffs for the second time in the last three seasons.
With redshirt freshman quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat playing the whole way, the Griz gained just 306 yards on offense and didn’t find the end zone until there were fewer than 10 minutes left, when Ah Yat found Sawyer Racanelli for a 44-yard score down the left sideline. Fourteen of Montana’s 17 points came when SDSU had already called off the dogs.
Montana’s second garbage-time touchdown, a 9-yard strike from Ah Yat to Keelan White as time expired, caused some money to change hands – the final line for the game was SDSU -22.5 – but could do nothing to change the result as the two-time defending national champions took another step towards a repeat engagement in Frisco and the Griz now head back towards Missoula and another offseason.
The Griz got on the board first after Henry Nuce forced and Ronald Jackson Jr. recovered a Jackrabbits fumble on the Montana 48-yard line on the third drive of the game.
After getting down to the SDSU 17, the Griz stalled and Ty Morrison booted a 34-yard field goal to open the scoring.
After that, the remainder of the first half was all Jackrabbits. They converted two third downs on the ensuing drive before Gronowski scored from the 1-yard line for a 7-3 lead. After a Griz punt, Gronowski hit Wilde for back-to-back gains of 38 and 34 yards, with the latter going to the end zone for SDSU’s second score.
The Jackrabbits added a backbreaking touchdown in the final minute of the half, with Gronowski finding a wide-open Wilde for 24 yards on third and 18 for a 21-3 lead with 57 seconds left to go until halftime.
SDSU converted six of seven third-down attempts in the first half and finished the game 7 for 12.
Aside from Wilde’s 24-yard touchdown, the Jacks also had gains of 38, 34 and 44 yards on third down in the first half.
“Every time we tried to seize some momentum – especially in the first half, we were up 3-0 – we didn’t get off the field,” Hauck lamented. “That was a good job by them. We just didn’t win on third down.”
Montana’s offense didn’t have many answers either. Relieving Logan Fife after the junior’s two costly fumbles last week against Tennessee State, Ah Yat threw for 231 yards and two touchdowns, but was also sacked three times and tossed interceptions to Tucker Large in the first half and Bock in the second.
More glaringly, the redshirt freshman from Hawaii was also the Grizzlies’ leading rusher with 25 yards on nine carries as the Jackrabbits dominated the line of scrimmage.
All-Big Sky running back Eli Gillman was bottled up with 12 yards on 10 carries, and the Griz ran for just 75 yards as a team, averaging 2.6 yards per carry.
The Jackrabbits ran for 5.3 yards per carry and nearly finished with two 100-yard rushers as Amar Johnson went for 103 yards and Angel Johnson – no relation – had 91 yards on 13 carries.
The two backs split the load on SDSU’ clinching drive, a 12-play, 73-yard march that took over seven minutes across the end of the third quarter and the very beginning of the fourth. After Amar Johnson was ruled just short of the goal line on third and goal, Gronowski powered in on fourth down to give the Jacks a 28-3 lead.
Three plays into Montana’s ensuing drive, Bock picked off Ah Yat on a tip drill and stumbled 40 yards to the house to put the final nail in the Grizzlies’ coffin.
It was an expected ending for a Montana team that struggled to recapture the magic that took them to Frisco in January. Neither Fife nor Ah Yat took hold of the quarterback job as the coaching staff flip-flopped between the two all the way to the end of the season. The defense, although improved from its midseason shambles, never came close to resembling last year’s fearsome unit.
The Griz let non-playoff North Dakota come back from a 24-7 halftime deficit in the non-conference, gave up 55 points in a home loss to Weber State and were soundly handled by both of the Big Sky’s top contenders, UC Davis at home and Montana State in the rivalry game on the road.
Saturday’s game only confirmed what had been evident for most of the season – there was no party in Frisco awaiting this year’s flawed edition of the Griz. And the gap between Montana and the top of the subdivision – a lesson that wasn’t delivered until January last season – remains as wide as ever.
