MISSOULA – Jason Eck bounded into the press conference room. Idaho’s head coach couldn’t wait to start talking, skipping the introduction and forcing a gaggle of reporters to bring their phone cameras up and into focus.
“No one thought we could win,” Eck crowed. “I saw everybody’s predictions. Nobody predicted us to win this game, but the guys in our building believed, and we found a way to do it.”
It was a little different for his counterpart. Bobby Hauck, after a few false starts, a congratulations to Eck’s Vandals and a dig at the NFL’s recent less-than-riveting Thursday night games, finally let the emotion show in his post-game presser after a 30-23 loss in front of 26,314 punch-drunk Griz fans at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
“Not to take anything away from the Vandals, they came in here and won the game, but I’m plenty pissed, starting with the guy in the mirror,” Hauck said.
It was a perfectly appropriate phrase. The Griz coach, who lost to Idaho for the first time in his career, was talking about himself, but he just as well could have been referring to the Vandals, who snapped a seven-game losing streak to Montana and took the Little Brown Stein back to Moscow for the first time since 1999.
It wasn’t an upset, an inferior team visiting the No. 3 squad in the country and taking advantage of some good fortune. Instead, Idaho was the dominant reflection of the Montana team that shot out to a 5-0 start: The same swarming defense. The same efficient quarterback play. The same ruthless margin-chasing on special teams.
“I knew it was going to happen,” said Idaho receiver Hayden Hatten, who finished with nine catches for 149 yards and two touchdowns. “It sounds insane saying it like that, but we have this belief in our team now. … There’s no game that’s too big for us right now. We’re rolling.”
Eck’s most high-stakes gamble of the game came on the opening second-half kickoff, when Vandals kicker Logan Prescott drag-bunted an onside kick straight up the middle of the field. It didn’t go the required 10 yards, but a Grizzly player touched the ball before Idaho fell on it.
The Vandals turned the extra possession into a 40-yard field goal by Ricardo Chavez, and never trailed again.
“I knew we’d have to steal some possessions as a team, so we saw that some of those front guys left a little early on the kickoff return team,” Eck said. “Everyone told me that we wanted to have the ball to start the second half, so that was the only way to get after they won the toss.”
With Idaho running for just 52 yards on 44 carries, redshirt freshman quarterback Gevani McCoy carried the Vandals offense, completing 21 of 27 passes for 286 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
All motion and momentum and inertia, his arms swinging back and forth before the snap as though to power up his full-body throwing motion, McCoy is an endearing example of a classic college football archetype: the tiny quarterback who looks out of place on the field but is actually just a straight killer.
“He’s about as big around as my wrist,” Idaho SID Jerek Wolcott joked in the press box. A year ago, McCoy was 8 of 18 for 123 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions in a 34-14 loss to the Grizzlies in Moscow.
On Saturday, the skinny quarterback from Lawndale High School near Compton was almost perfect, ghosting out of sacks and keeping his eyes downfield to find receivers, like he did to spot Hatten all alone up the left sideline late in the first half. The 24-yard score with 28 seconds left on the second-quarter clock – who else have we seen dominate the final minutes of the first half this season? – brought Idaho to within 13-12 at halftime.
Montana took that lead thanks to an incredible one-handed 19-yard catch by Junior Bergen, who made the play as he was falling to the ground in the back of the end zone, and perhaps McCoy’s biggest mistake of the game, when he failed to see linebacker Patrick O’Connell dropping into his throwing lane on a zone blitz. O’Connell, who also had two tackles for loss as he continues his Buck Buchanan Award campaign, returned the interception to the Idaho 15, setting up a 1-yard touchdown sneak by Lucas Johnson.
Other than that, Montana’s offense struggled. Idaho held Montana to 220 total yards – just 145 before a late 75-yard touchdown drive that provided the final margin – blocked the extra point after Bergen’s touchdown, and forced a first-half safety when a snap went through Montana punter Patrick Rohrbach’s hands.
It was a bit surreal, after five games of watching the Griz defense, to see the guys in the yellow helmets swarm to the ball and pile on ball-carriers, like looking at a photo negative of a scene you’d grown used to.
And as Idaho continued to follow the Grizzlies’ own game plan, Montana sunk into the opposite role, looking more and more like the shell-shocked teams that visited Washington-Grizzly Stadium through the first weeks of the season. Mistakes piled up, drops and penalties, including a crucial late hit call on Trevin Gradney after a punt return that set Idaho up at the Montana 43. Idaho, grabbing onto the momentum, needed just one play to score, with McCoy throwing it up and Hatten out-jumping Corbin Walker on the goal line for the touchdown to make it 22-13.
“Before that drive, (receivers) coach (Matt) Linehan actually came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, how do you feel about this play,’” Hatten said. “I’m like, ‘They’re playing man-to-man, I love it. We’ve gotta throw this thing, right?’ I feel confident in (McCoy’s) ability to throw it, my ability to get open and win jump balls.”
Montana struck back with a Nico Ramos field goal on the final play of the third quarter, but the Hatten touchdown – Montana loves to try for one-play kill shot touchdowns after big defensive or special teams plays – completed the reversal.
The Grizzlies, sucked into the mirror, emerged a different team on the other side – even quarterback Lucas Johnson, so steady and near-perfect to start the season, who threw interceptions on back-to-back passes late in the fourth quarter.
The first, picked off by Idaho linebacker Paul Moala as Johnson stared down a slant, ended a drive in Vandals territory. The second, thrown a couple beats late on a deep in, allowing Idaho safety Tommy McCormick to drive on the ball and cut in front of the receiver, was even more costly. McCormick returned the interception to the Montana 2-yard line. Four plays later, after Justin Ford jumped off sides on third down (another uncharacteristic mistake in a day full of them), Roshaun Johnson bulled over the goal line to make it 30-16 with 2:14 to go.
“Where’s that Stein? Where’s that Stein?” Eck hollered on the sidelines. “It’s coming back!”
He was right, despite Johnson’s late touchdown throw to Mitch Roberts. Hatten high-pointed the Grizzlies’ desperate onside kick, and two kneel downs later the Vandals were triumphantly carrying the Little Brown Stein to their small contingent of fans in the northwest corner of the stadium.
Visiting teams aren’t supposed to be doing the celebrating at Washington-Grizzly. But after watching Idaho out-Montana Montana for three-and-a-half hours, it didn’t feel so strange at all.
Montana had won seven in a row and 11 of the last 13 in the rivalry.
The Griz fall to 5-1 and travel to Sacramento State next week. Idaho is 3-0 in league play, 4-2 overall and play Portland State in Moscow next week.
