After a pair of instant classics, it seemed criminal Jason Eck and Bobby Hauck didn’t get a rubber match last fall.
Instead, Montana held on to the Little Brown Stein without having to play the Idaho Vandals. And make no mistake — both sides are ready to revive a historic rivalry that dates back to 1903.
“Honestly, even since I’ve been here, it’s such a fierce rivalry,” Idaho senior captain Jake Cox said earlier this week. “When we went to their place in 2022 and beat them, it was so electric. Their place is awesome and I’m excited to get back there this weekend.
“When they came to the Kibbie Dome and took back the Brown Stein, it stung bad. As the seniors that were there, we are rallying up the guys to make them realize how big of a game this is going to be.
“This is why the Stein was made. Period. So we could have thrown-down games like this every year.”
In 2022, Idaho came into Missoula and shocked Montana. Eck, UI’s former swashbuckling, smack-talking head coach, called an on-side kick out of the halftime locker room, then played Bobby ball against Bobby Hauck, controlling the clock on the way to a 30-23 win that was one of the building blocks for a run that saw Idaho make the playoffs three seasons in a row.
“It accelerated the trajectory of our program because it showed we could go into one of the most hostile environments in FCS and get a win,” said Thomas Ford Jr., Idaho’s first-year head coach who was the running backs coach and recruiting coordinator for UI in 2022 and 2023. “I think it really helped the confidence of the program moving forward from that day.”
In 2023, the Griz went to the Kibbie Dome and got their revenge. After a week filled with unbelievable hype about the rivalry almost like the lead up to a heavyweight championship fight was descending upon Moscow, UM threw the first punch, then withstood a Vandals’ flurry. The visiting Grizzlies bolted out to a 10-0 lead thanks in part to a deep bomb from Clifton McDowell to Junior Bergen that helped set the pace.
Following Montana securing an on-sides kick in the waning seconds and the Grizzlies snatching the Little Brown Stein back from Idaho, Hauck ran to the middle of the Kibbie Dome and danced on the Vandal logo to the dismay of the sellout crowd in attendance.
“After the 2023 game, I remember thinking that not having the opportunity the next year was probably the thing I remember the most about that game,” Ford said. “They took the Little Brown Stein from us, walked it out of our stadium and we didn’t get a chance to return he favor the following season.
“We are so excited to have this game back. Hopefully, we can have it on the schedule year in and year out.”
And Idaho did not get its shot at redemption last season as the two teams didn’t play for the first time since UI returned to the league ahead of the 2018 season.
“That’s how our league is set up and my preference is that if you are in a conference, it’s to play everybody but that’s not our situation,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said. “That is what it is.
“In terms of carry-over from those last two games, I’m not sure there’s a ton of carry over from year to year anymore. But we are excited to have this game back.”
In Idaho’s final season in the Big Sky Conference its first go-around — UI and Montana were founding members of the league in 1963 — the Vandals earned a signature 55-43 win over UM during the 1995 season. That was the last game the Grizzlies would lose as Montana raced all the way to its first national championship following that set-back.
Between 1996 and 1998, the rivalry was not played as Idaho tried to find its place in the FBS. In 1999, Idaho pulled out a 33-30 win in Moscow to earn consecutive Stein wins for the first time since the 1990.
But in 2000, the Griz beat Idaho 45-38 in Pullman in the first neutral site game played in the rivalry in 30 years. That FCS over FBS win was the first of four straight for Montana, culminating in an unforgettable 41-28 Griz win in Missoula in which UM ran the triple option with a walk-on fourth-string quarterback named Kyle Samson because all of its scholarship gunslingers were on the shelf with injuries.
(Samson is now the head coach at Montana Tech.)
Since Idaho returned to the league, it’s been all Griz in the rivalry. Montana blasted Idaho 46-27 in Moscow in 2018 to welcome UI back to the Big Sky. The following season, the sixth-ranked Grizzlies blasted Idaho 42-17 in Missoula. And in 2021 after a year off due to the pandemic, the Griz gave Paul Petrino his final Stein loss by winning 34-14 in Moscow.
“Idaho has always been good,” Hauck said. “They’ve had a long, successful football tradition there. I like having them back in the league. I was disappointed when they left, to be honest. I think it’s great. They’ve always been a team that’s hard to beat and that will be the case this weekend.”
Eck took the Vandals to heights unseen at least since Dennis Erickson, Keith Gilbertson and John L. Smith stalked the sidelines at the Kibbie Dome. Those three coaches led Idaho to 10 playoff appearances between 1982 and 1994, employing variations of single-back and spread offenses that allowed all three head coaches rise to the top level of college football.
Erickson, a Montana State alum, used an Aloha Bowl win in 1988 as the head coach at Washington State to land the head coaching job at Miami the following season. He led the Hurricanes to the 1989 and 1991 national titles, guiding one of the most infamous and iconic programs in college football history during the height of their powers.
Gilbertson took the reins from Erickson in Moscow and led UI to three straight playoff appearances, including arguably the greatest I-AA season in school history in 1988. The Vandals went 11-2 that season and went to the semifinals of the FCS playoffs. Last season, Idaho won 10 games, marking just the second double-digit season ever at UI. Gilbertson parlayed that success into becoming the offensive coordinator at Washington and then the head coach at Cal.
John L. Smith led the Vandals to the Big Sky title in 1989 and 1992, making the playoffs four times between 1989 and 1994, including a run to the semis in 1993. Smith left UI in 1995 to become the head coach at Utah State. By 1998, he was the head coach at Louisville and by 2003, he was the head coach at Michigan State.
“Gilby, Keith Gilbertson always had great teams and he was just a great football coach,” said Hauck, who was an assistant at Montana in the late 1980s on Don Read’s staff. “They were always great. He was a great recruiter. They were dynamic on offense. And then when John L. took over, it was more of the same.
“They were good. They had speed. They spread you. I think it was either 1988 or 1989, we beat them out here and we got to 4-0. I remember that one.”
While Idaho was churning out coaches, Montana was racking up Big Sky titles. The Griz won its fourth BSC championship in program history in 1993. UM won 14 of the next 17 league championships, a run spurred on by the elite home field advantage created by Washington-Grizzly Stadium, success breeding success, Don Read’s spread offense along with perennially competitive Big Sky teams like Idaho, Boise State and Nevada leaving the conference.
Montana enters Saturday night’s showdown having won 13 of the last 19 Battles for the Little Brown Steins since 1988, including eight of nine during the 21st century. But Idaho has a sizeable advantage in the history of the rivalry. UI leads 56-31-2 all-time, including winning 21 of 27 times between 1965 and 1990.
Will the Stein remain in Missoula? Or will it head back to the Kibbie Dome to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the unique venue in Moscow?
“We are really fired up to start up conference play and we start it up with a huge test with the Idaho Vandals coming to town,” Hauck said.
“These are two talented roster, so the matchups on paper look really good and whenever you get two teams that are talented, both teams have physical mentalities, that’s how you get those type of slug fest bouts,” Ford said.
