Well, we’re here. Saturday’s game at Northern Arizona is the Montana Grizzlies’ last before they host Montana State on Nov. 20. To maintain the hype that’s crescendoing around what’s billed as one of the biggest Brawls of the Wild in decades, the Griz will first have to take care of business in Flagstaff.
The Lumberjacks have been probably the most average team in the Big Sky this year, which sounds like damning with faint praise and mostly is, but also represents a real achievement in this year of stratification in the conference.
In Chris Ball’s third season, NAU has mostly beaten bad teams (with the exception of a 17-10 overtime loss to Northern Colorado) and lost to good ones (with the exception of a potentially program-defining 21-19 win over Arizona, which, even with the Wildcats’ abysmal struggles this year, we’re counting as a good team).
The Lumberjacks have two talented freshmen on offense and an experienced defense. The Grizzlies are getting healthier and looked much less janky on offense last week with Cam Humphrey back at quarterback.
Northern Arizona also has plenty of connections to Montana. Former Griz head coach Robin Pflugrad is the tight ends coach at NAU. His son Aaron is the offensive coordinator. Head coaches Bobby Hauck and Chris Ball know each other dating back to Hauck’s time as a graduate assistant at Washington and Ball’s time as a GA at Washington in the last 1980s. Longtime Lumberjacks head coach Jerome Souers (1998-2018) was the defensive coordinator at Montana for over a decade. Montana safety Robby Hauck played at NAU before transferring to the Griz.
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