A week ago, Dr. Luke Wood picked a fight with the Montana Grizzlies.
Friday night in California’s capital city, the Sacramento State Hornets learned the hard way that it’s not the best idea to poke the bear.
Michael Wortham continued to fortify his Big Sky Conference MVP candidacy and perhaps vaulted himself in the Walter Payton Award race as well as the virtuoso Griz switchblade helped UM turn a game that was deadlocked 21-21 with four minutes left in the first half into a runaway.
Wortham scored three touchdowns, Keali’i Ah Yat threw three touchdowns and the visiting Griz pushed their lead to 21 points three different times on the way to securing a mid-round 49-35 knockout of the brash yet scattered Hornets in front of 16,816 loosely engaged fans at Hornet Stadium Friday night.
Montana entered the game with a three of its four losses ever to Sac State in three of the last four matchups (2019, 2021, 2022) between the two teams. Last off-season, the Hornets declared they were leaving the Big Sky Conference after 29 years of residency. And that’s when Wood, Sac State’s oblivious and sophomoric smack-talking president, started writing checks his smart mouth cannot cash.
First, Wood and his administration proclaimed Sac State has $50 million in NIL (name, image and likeness) money. For perspective, Texas….yes that Texas…has $22.3 million in reported NIL money. Ohio State has $21 million and LSU has $20 million.
Then on an “ask me anything” Reddit Q&A, Wood called the Big Sky Conference and the FCS “the JV of Division I”, igniting controversy around the proud tier of Division I football.
Then last Saturday, Wood called the Grizzlies the “Montana Pandas”, going on to say that UM’s schedule up to Friday night’s showdown had been “trash”, that the Grizzlies hadn’t played anybody and that he “felt bad for the fans that were coming to Sacramento” to see the visitors lose.
“The JV was ready to go tonight,” Montana 15th-year head coach Bobby Hauck said with a satisfied chuckle on the Grizzly Radio Network after his Griz moved to 8-0 following UM’s first win in Sacramento since 2013.
“We whooped their tail tonight. It wasn’t close. And it was fun to do it here.”
With Sac State set to move out of the Big Sky Conference at the end of the season, Montana ends the series against the Hornets at 22-4 in all-time meetings and 9-3 in games played in Sacramento.
In an entertaining first half that included most of Ernest Campbell’s fireworks (the speedy freshman finished with nine catches for 206 yards), a 63-yard Campbell touchdown gave the hosts a 14-7 lead.
“Whatever you can do, I can do better”, Wortham said, ripping off a 64-yard touchdown on an inside slant play that showed off the former Eastern Washington transfer’s prodigious speed and continued to reemphasize the question of just what was EWU doing not featuring the most explosive player in the conference nearly as much as the Griz have this year.
On Wortham’s second score, the former JC quarterback took a snap out of the Wildcat, kept it and out-ran everyone on Sac State’s fast yet unexpectant defense for a 27-yard touchdown.
Rodney Hammond Jr.’s six-yard touchdown to with 4:16 left in the first half helped tie the game for the final time, 21-21. Over the next 32 minutes, Montana pulled away by scoring 28 points and allowing seven in extending UM’s longest winning streak since 2009.
“They were up 7-0, then 14-7, then we got it to 14-14, got the takeaway and went up 21-14 and I thought we were then in control,” Hauck said. “We had a lot of chances to really dagger them and we didn’t seize those drives and get points on the board. But we were rolling pretty good and they couldn’t handle it.”
Wortham finished with seven rushes for 89 yards and two touchdowns, five catches for 80 yards and the long score plus 69 yards returning kicks to total 238 yards of total offense, adding to his Big Sky and FCS-leading totals.
“Mike was outstanding tonight,” Hauck said. “He was all over the place. He did everything, like he does. I was proud of him. He made plays.
Defensively, Montana got after Hornet QB Cardell Williams all night, totaling six sacks, 10 TFLs, four QB hurries and an interception late in the game that sealed the win in a highly charged conference game that Hauck made sure to emphasize “wasn’t as close as the score would indicate” multiple times in his post-game interview.
Linebacker Peyton Wing and safety Diezel Wilkinson combined for 14 tackles and five sacks with Wing earning a season-high three in the sack count, while Elijawah Tolbert once again led the team in tackles with nine. The unit combined held the potent Sac State run game to just 141 yards rushing, its second-lowest rushing total of the season.
“It was a combination of things. The yardage that they got in the first half, we were trying to do too much and I mentioned it at halftime,” Hauck said. “We were not quite assignment-sound. But once we fixed that, the only rushing yards they really got in the second half was the quarterback scrambling. He made a couple of our guys look slow and when he gets out in the open, he’s hart to handle.
“We were getting them covered up, so that helped us get there. He doesn’t get rid of it quick and I don’t think he sees things quickly. I think he has to process it and that allowed us to get there.”
As has been a trademark throughout Hauck’s career, Montana’s special teams gave the Griz a huge edge. Thanks to nearly 70 yards of returns Montana enjoyed good field position on most of its drives, with eight of UM’s 13 possessions starting at the 30-yard line or better.
The Griz also jumped on a muffed punt return that led directly to the go-ahead touchdown right before the end of the first half and stole all the Hornets’ momentum.
UM also dialed up a key trick play in the kicking game when Ty Morrison faked a punt and found Ian Finch open for a 28-yard pass on fourth and long that led directly to another Grizzly touchdown.
“We didn’t get the punt block we thought we were going to get but he was one step, get it out, rolling it down there 30 yards but Mike had the big kick return, we had big plays on special teams all night and we had the fake punt, which was just terrific by those guys tonight,” Hauck said with another chuckle.
Montana started the second half with the ball and wasted little time getting back on the board. Wortham again put the Griz in the red zone with a 30-yard burst around the right end to the Hornet five. Ah Yat worked some more of his magic soon after, escaping the pocket and finding Evan Shafer for a score while simultaneously getting leveled by Xavier Williams. The hit was so big, Ah Yat’s helmet came off and flew through the air. The tough sophomore Griz signal caller walked off the field on his own accord, then led a nine-play, 75-yard drive to push the lead to 35-21. The Griz never looked back
“He’s a football player. They’re supposed to get back up after they get tackled and go play, and he’s a football player. He’s a tough guy, and that’s kind of what we expect of everybody that puts maroon and silver on is they’re tough guys and they can play physical, and Keali’i can,” said Hauck.
By the time the Griz onslaught cooled and the attention shifted to Wood’s gimmick of hosting hip-hop concerts following football games, the Montana faithful in attendance had gave one last jab. Anyone watching on national TV could hear the Griz fans changing “YOU GOT PANDA’D (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap).”
Montana has been the comeback kids more often than not this football season. But Friday night, affirmed themselves as front-running national championship contenders instead. And it was a stark reminder to the rest of the Big Sky Conference to not poke the Pandas.
“We beat on them pretty good tonight, made them quit and it’s nice to be down here and get a win,” Hauck said.
