Montana’s first game against Eastern Washington this season came with plenty of hype, given that both teams were in the top six in the country and the game was televised on ESPN2.
The rematch, which will be Friday night at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in the second round of the FCS Playoffs, brings real stakes as well.
By the end of the night, one team will be in the national quarterfinals and the other’s season will be over. It’s a harsh first playoff matchup for the Grizzlies, who lost 34-28 to EWU in Cheney on Oct. 2. Montana led early in that game, but Eastern Washington scored 24 straight points in the fourth quarter to take the lead, and Kris Brown’s potential winning pass to Cole Grossman just barely deflected off the Montana tight end’s fingers as time expired.
UM senior quarterback Cam Humphrey also got knocked out in the final minutes of that game and missed most of the next month.
The Eagles took over Montana’s spot in the top five after that game and kept it until losing back-to-back games to Weber State and Montana State in late October and early November.
EWU still finished the regular season with a 9-2 record, including an FBS win over UNLV. That wasn’t good enough for a top-eight seed and a first-round bye, but Aaron Best’s team handled Northern Iowa 19-9 a week ago to get the rematch with the Griz.
Montana, who pounded rivalry and third-ranked Montana State 29-10 in its season-finale in Missoula two weeks ago, earned the No. 6 seed and the first-round bye that came with it.
“It was nice to have Thanksgiving week off and to have the opportunity to go back and review what was a dominating performance in our Week 11 game and we had some time to watch our 73rd win over our rivals,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said. “We have had a couple of days prep on Eastern. It’s always interesting playing the same team twice. It’s interest, unique in college football. It doesn’t happen very often.
“The first time we played them, it was a good game. They got us. (EWU senior quarterback Eric) Barriere is still a great player and will be hard to stop…should be a great game Friday night. Need our crowd there and riled up. Should be a lot of fun.”
That was the Eagles’ first playoff win since 2018, when they went all the way to the national championship game in Best’s second year leading his alma mater.
They missed the postseason in 2019 and lost to North Dakota State in the first round in the 2021 spring season.
Montana tasted playoff success for the first time in Bobby Hauck’s second tenure in 2019, when the Griz earned a bye and smoked Southeastern Louisiana in the second round before losing 17-10 to Weber State in the quarterfinals.
After playing only exhibition games in the spring season, the Griz have waited two years to have another postseason chance. After their earlier loss to the Eagles, it’ll come with some potential revenge as well.
“It’s do or die at this point so we just have to go out and get that W,” Montana senior cornerback Omar Hicks-Onu said.
QUICK HITS
Location: Cheney, Washington
Nickname: Eagles
Founded: 1882. Eastern Washington is a public university which is academically divided into four colleges: Arts and Letters; Business and Public Administration; Science, Health and Engineering; and Social & Behavioral Sciences and Social Work.
Enrollment: The school has 12,350 total students and a $25.3 million endowment.
Stadium: Roos Field holds 8,700 fans. Complete with its trademark red turf, the stadium is named after Michael Roos, an All-Big Sky offensive lineman who then went on to be a Pro Bowl offensive lineman for the Tennessee Titans. He donated half a million dollars for the one-of-a-kind “Inferno” turf. EWU averaged 5,725 fans per game in six home games this season.
THE COACH
AARON BEST, FIFTH SEASON AT EASTERN WASHINGTON (39-16, 4-2 in playoffs)
Best has been coaching at Eastern Washington, his alma mater, for all but one year since he exhausted his playing eligibility in 1999. That one year was 2007, when he went north of the border to work as the offensive line coach for the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL.
Other than that, Best has been in Cheney, first as a graduate assistant, then as offensive line coach, then as offensive coordinator.
He was promoted to interim co-head coach shortly after Beau Baldwin left to take the offensive coordinator job at Cal in early 2017, and officially named the head coach on Jan. 21, 2017.
The Eagles have won at least seven games in each of his four full seasons, which included a 12-3 year with a share of the Big Sky title and a 38-24 national title game loss to North Dakota State in 2018.
This is EWU’s third playoff appearance under Best. They also lost to NDSU in the first round of the playoffs in the 2021 spring season.
Best was a first-team all-Big Sky selection as a center during his four-year playing career at Eastern Washington.
THE OFFENSE — PLAYERS TO WATCH
ERIC BARRIERE, QUARTERBACK, 6-1, 210, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Barriere is certainly the best quarterback, probably the best offensive player, and quite possibly the best overall player in the Big Sky.
After finishing fifth in voting for the Walter Payton Award in 2019 and second in the 2021 spring season, he’s the current front-runner for the award. He was recently named the unanimous Big Sky offensive player of the year.
The redshirt senior from Inglewood replaced injured All-American Gage Gubrud midway through the season in 2018 and ended up leading the Eagles to the national title game.
Barriere can run and throw, and EWU’s wide-open offense gives him plenty of room to do both. He set a new FCS record with 487 passing yards (and six touchdowns) in the first half against Western Illinois early in the season, and added games of 600 yards against Idaho and 518 yards against Southern Utah in Big Sky Conference play.
Weber State (245) and Montana State (214) are the only teams to hold Barriere under 250 yards passing this season. Not coincidentally, those are the only two games the Eagles have lost.
Barriere’s whip-quick release is the fastest in the country, and he’s got a big, accurate arm.
In the first game against Montana, he struggled early but finished 26 of 46 for 422 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He also picked up a couple crucial late first downs on scrambles against the Griz.
“It’s pretty cool because when you watch them on film and you haven’t played them yet, it’s like, ‘OK, how am I going to play them? How fast are they actually on the field? How fast do they really play? How strong they are? Since we actually have a feel for them now, it’s actually going to be a whole lot easier but it’s going to go a lot smoother.”
TALOLO LIMU-JONES, WIDE RECEIVER, 6-4, 220, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Limu-Jones might be the most infamous person in Missoula this week after trash-talking the Griz in the postgame celebrations of EWU’s first-round win over Northern Iowa.
The big receiver certainly had justification after burning the Grizzlies for 231 yards on 11 catches in the first game between the two.
That’s the only 200-yard receiving performance in the Big Sky this season, and it came in simple fashion — Limu-Jones just ran past Montana’s defensive backs time and time again, catching bomb after bomb lofted by Barriere, often thrown while getting blasted by Griz defenders.
Combining that speed with a 6-foot-4 frame — Limu-Jones originally came to Eastern Washington as a tight end — makes the redshirt senior the toughest matchup in the conference. He led the Big Sky with 90.7 receiving yards per game and was a first-team all-conference selection.
“He goes up and gets the ball,” Hauck said. “That seems to be it. He seems to have pretty strong hands. That’s what he does.”
DENNIS MERRITT, RUNNING BACK, 5-10, 180, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Along with Limu-Jones, Eastern Washington has three other receivers — Freddie Roberson, Andrew Boston and Efton Chism III — in the top 12 in the conference in yards per game. They’re all dangerous, but Montana also struggled to contain Merritt, who’s been in Cheney since 2015 but didn’t make his first start until 2019 against Washington.
He suffered a season-ending injury the week after that, and couldn’t return until the 2021 spring season, when he started just one game but led the team with seven touchdowns.
Merritt gashed Montana for 103 rushing yards in the first game between the two, which was not just the only 100-yard rushing game the Griz have given up this season but also more rushing yards than they’ve given up to any team except Sacramento State.
The redshirt senior currently has 853 yards and 14 scores on the ground, and has added another 368 yards and three touchdowns receiving. He was named second-team all-Big Sky.
“Seems like we have played big guys lately and he’s not a big guy but he runs a little bigger than he is,” Hauck said. “He’s a downhill guy, he hits it hard and he plays really hard.”
TRISTEN TAYLOR, TACKLE, 6-6, 320, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Taylor, a hulking left tackle from Stockton, California, has played in a school-record 58 games, including all 12 in 2021.
He was named first-team all-conference last week, which marked his fifth all-conference selection after honorable mention selections in 2016 and 2017, a second-team spot in 2019, and a first-team berth in the 2021 spring season.
THE DEFENSE — PLAYERS TO WATCH
TY GRAHAM, LINEBACKER, 6-0, 210, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Graham had a roundabout route to Eastern Washington. He graduated from Cheney High School but originally went to Idaho, playing 27 games for the Vandals before transferring to EWU, where his father John was the defensive coordinator for eight years, in 2019.
In his final year of college football, the redshirt senior is leading the Eagles with 107 tackles, adding 8.5 tackles for loss, an interception and a fumble recovery. He was named honorable mention all-conference.
JACK SENDELBACH, LINEBACKER, 6-3, 235, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Sendelbach helped a surprisingly physical Eastern Washington defense set the tone against Montana in the first matchup, racking up a couple big hits early.
In just 10 games — he missed the Eagles’ early-season blowout of D-II Central Washington as well as their loss to Montana State — Sendelbach has recorded 88 tackles, including 10.5 for loss. Both numbers are second on the team. The absence of the third-team all-conference selection against MSU allowed, in part, for Montana State running back Isaiah Ifanse to rush for 217 yards.
CALIN CRINER, SAFETY, 5-10, 185, REDSHIRT SENIOR
Montana’s Robby Hauck is one of the most unique players in the league, a fearless undersized safety who fills run lanes and plays more in the box than he does outside it.
Criner is the closest player to that description outside of Missoula. At 5-10, 185, he’s the same listed height and weight as Hauck, but is third on EWU with 78 total tackles, including nine against the Griz in the first game.
He’s also intercepted two passes and broken up nine more. Criner, a third-team All-Big Sky selection, wears Eastern’s No. 4, a jersey with a fair amount of tradition that is passed down from Eastern safeties. The tradition was started by Matt Johnson, a member of Eastern’s 2010 national title team and a fourth round draft pick in the NFL.
JOSHUA JEROME, DEFENSIVE TACKLE, 6-1, 280, REDSHIRT SOPHOMORE
Jerome played in 10 games in 2019 but didn’t break out until the 2021 spring season, when he led the team with three sacks and was named honorable mention all-Big Sky.
Uncommonly for a defensive tackle, the redshirt sophomore from Monroe, Washington, racks up big numbers. He leads the Eagles with 14 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks.
Like Sendelbach and Criner, Jerome was a third-team all-conference selection.
