If there’s ever been a negative thing written about Washington-Grizzly Stadium, the investigators who discovered the prose searched long and hard to find it.
The stadium has been revered for its home-field advantage by opponents who had either played in larger stadiums, or went on to. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, the loser of a 2000 first round playoff game in Missoula as quarterback of Eastern Illinois, said it was louder than Seattle’s CentryLink Field. Mike Tomczak announced on air during a Montana playoff game he was calling for ESPN that the atmosphere he was witnessing was more intense than any he played in front of in the Big 10 as an Ohio State quarterback.
Montana has won 87 percent of the games it has played there in front of capacity crowds. The stadium is cherished by Griz coaches and players and used dazzle recruits. And it has every in-game amenity a fan could want at the FCS level.
But if there is something wrong with the Washington-Grizzly, it’s leaving it.
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“I think it’s unique to our place a little bit just because you don’t have to worry about it at home,” said Montana coach Bob Stitt, who is 9-2 at home in his two years, of the energy level inside WSG. “All of a sudden you get to someplace else and there is 6,000 people there rather than 26,000. They’re excited to play us and they’re at home and our guys — it’s hard to get up for 6,000.”
Heading into a pivotal matchup at No. 3 Eastern Washington, where atmosphere shouldn’t be an issue — the Eagles announced 17 days before Saturday afternoon’s kickoff that the game had sold out — Montana is lamenting its lack of energy in a 45-34 loss to Northern Arizona.
One side of the Walkup Skydome was mostly empty and Montana opened with mistakes on both sides of the football. It failed to convert a pair of first-quarter fourth downs and its defense blew a coverage on NAU’s first play allowing a 74-yard score.
Two more long passes followed and Montana was in a 14-3 hole before the game was six minutes old.
“Like coach Stitt was saying we just came out flat,” junior linebacker James Banks said during Monday’s news conference. “Having that big first play set us further back and really put us with some adversity and it was really hard to overcome in a situation like that.”
Whether or not the situation Banks was referring to was the subdued feeling within the stadium, Stitt thinks it had something to do with the energy and focus his team played with and there is some statistical evidence to suggest the coach is onto something.
Since coming to Montana in December 2014, Stitt has coached in six conference road games. Thanks to the 20,507 who showed up to Bobcat Stadium for Montana’s 54-35 win last year, the average attendance of those games is 10,156. But if you take the outlier out of the equation, the average drops to 8,087, less than a third of what shows up to a typical game at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
Montana is 2-3 in those five games.
While Stitt is certainly appreciative of the silence his offense gets to operate under, he believes it has been a detriment to his team.
“Fortunately or unfortunately we have a great home-field advantage here at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, which it’s awesome to play here and be the home team here,” Stitt said on Wednesday’s Big Sky Conference coaches call. “But you have to manufacture some excitement and focus on the road.”
That’s where Stitt’s concerns with the atmosphere in opposing stadiums ends and his focus turns to what he and the players and staff can do to correct whatever is ailing Montana on the road. Stitt took the blame for not having the Griz focused to play at Northern Arizona — “It all runs downhill and starts with the head coach,” he said — but also recognized that he is not always around the team and some of that preparedness has to come from within the locker room.
“That’s where I think it’s got to come a little bit from the upperclassmen and the leaders,” Stitt said.
One of those leaders and upperclassmen, senior defensive end Ryan Johnson, agreed with his coach.
“It’s on us 100 percent,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We just gotta make sure we’re ready to go when the bullets start flying, when that first snap happens and do our and jobs and make plays.”
Stitt said this issue is one he and his staff have been trying to correct for two years; Montana is just 4-5 away from Missoula under the current coaching staff. Perhaps what is expected to be a rowdy environment in Cheney on Saturday will spark Montana. Or maybe the stakes under which they are playing will be a catalyst; Montana is trying to avoid falling to 2-3 in the Big Sky with just three games left.
Or maybe it will be a different remedy suggested by Stitt that will reverse Montana’s recent road woes.
“You have to get up for playing football,” the coach proposed. “That’s what I preached all my career because otherwise 10, 15, 20 years down the road you’re going to have regrets when you’re not playing anymore and you love the game and you’re saying, ‘I wish I would have given it more,’ and, ‘football was special.’ … If you don’t give it everything you’ve got you will regret it someday. Some guys get it and some guys don’t.”
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