Following an historic win over Sacramento State, Montana head coach Bob Stitt could have spoken about any number of his team’s feats. He could have highlighted the 68 points his team scored. Or the defense’s five sacks. Or the 655 yards the Grizzlies produced. Or the 12 tackles for loss the defense finished Saturday’s 61-point victory with.
With his opening words, Stitt chose not to address any of those. Instead, he kept it a little more basic.
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“It was what we talked about. It was what we strived for every single week is going into these weeks preparing the exact same,” Stitt said before diving a little further into the details and finishing with, “ … Really proud overall of just how we go out and play regardless of where we’re at, regardless of who we’re playing. We play with the same intensity and execution every week.”
Across the nation at any competitive level or sport is a player or coach telling a reporter he is not worried about the opponent, just what he can control. Cliche yes, but that very mindset has been central to the 10th-ranked Grizzlies’ 5-1 start.
Allow Stitt to explain further: “I think our kids are so in tune to the gameplan and our coaches give them such a great gameplan that they don’t really focus on who they’re playing, but just getting the offense and the defense down and preparing to go out and execute very well.”
Coming out of a three-game home stand that produced 178 points, a nearly eight-quarter shutout streak and vaulted Montana up nearly every major statistical offensive and defensive category in both the Big Sky Conference and FCS rankings, the focus in the football offices hasn’t been on stats. More so, it’s about maintaining the inevitable confidence bread from such success. The concentration has been wiping the slate clean after each win.
“Every week the coaches have a new game plan so you come in Tuesday for meetings and they draw up a whole new scheme,” said senior defensive end Caleb Kidder. “It’s like forget about what we did last week and let’s relearn everything we’re doing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so we’re ready to play Saturday.”
As far as Montana is concerned, it’s not playing Northern Arizona this week. The Grizzlies are playing Team X. They won’t be facing Emmanuel Butler or Elijah Marks or Kendyl Taylor. And next week at Eastern Washington, Montana isn’t playing the third-ranked team in the nation. The Griz are playin just another team they have to stop on the way to their ultimate goal.
“We want to play the playoffs here,” said UM sophomore receiver Keenan Curran.
And that’s really what the focus is. Stitt and his coaches believe that this approach helps reduce the stress that can build in the days leading up to a game like the one Montana has 10 days from now. And if UM makes the playoffs, Montana’s preparation methods will have the Griz ready for that, too.
“You have to prepare to the maximum every week,” said first-year defensive coordinator Jason Semore, “because that’s the only way that you’re going to grow as a team so that you’re producing at your highest level at the end of the season. That’s the main focus for us is playing our best football at the end of the year.”
It’s been an ongoing process for Stitt and his coaches to get the team to buy in. Montana was a fractured team last season, split among the offense and defense. But as senior defensive tackle Zach Peevey tweeted Monday night, this year’s team is different. The fissures are gone, and a portion of that cohesiveness can be attributed to the preparation process.
“We’ve asked our kids to do a lot of things for us and this program and they bought into that,” Stitt said Wednesday morning. “As you’ve had success you’re seeing the things the coaches are asking us to do we are having success because of those things. It continues to grow. We get closer and our kids are more confident in the assistant coaches because what they’re asking them to do, they’re having some success on the field.”
[/restrict]Photos by Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
