TIWIW for Liberty

This will be a short one — my DVR outsmarted me again, or something, while I was recording the Montana Grizzlies’ 34-14 win over Liberty Saturday. About the only play that made it was Peter Nguyen’s 90-yard punt return; upon further review he easily took four Flames off their cleats with that first cut, and with his final stop [...]

Fast start, sudden setback

The ink had barely dried on Bill Speltz’s story about Griz in the NFL preseason when one of those who’d had an impressive start – Caleb McSurdy – went down with a torn Achilles injury Wednesday. He’s going to have surgery Friday. It used to be Achilles injuries were rare and limited to “weekend warriors” [...]

Homecoming served with a side of Ciche

The coolest new thing at the University of Montana’s football games is the raising of tghe No. 37 flag above the North end zone at Washington-Grizzly Stadium. Tim Hauck, who wore No. 37 from 1987-89 for the Griz, raised the banner two weeks ago; Saturday, ahead of the homecoming game against Northern Colorado, Ciche Pitcher [...]

Game day, I mean evening, in Sacramento

Can you believe Charles Burton played running back in high school? Me either, but the 315-pound right tackle for the Griz originally tried out at running back as a freshman at Long Beach Milliken. I can’t get over that, or the fact that he’s 20 — that’s TWENTY — and a senior for the Montana Grizzlies, [...]

Things I wish I’d written, Cal Poly edition

There was a lot to like about the Montana Grizzlies’ 37-23 victory over Cal Poly Saturday, from Jabin Sambrano’s 96-yard return of the opening kickoff to Dan Moore’s win-clinching touchdown, his second of the game. Bill Speltz mused that sophomore quarterback Jordan Johnson quite possibly “arrived” with his play in the second half Saturday. We [...]

Home opener time

How early do you have to set your alarm to read all the Griz copy before kickoff? I’m thinking 8-ish… Here is Bill Speltz’s feature on Griz great and artist Karl Stein, and my preview and Griz Tracks for today’s game with Cal Poly. Thought it was interesting that UM coach Robin Pflugrad said about [...]

A long playoff run ends

It is official. As of about 8:15 a.m. local time Sunday the Montana Grizzlies’ 17-year FCS playoff run is over. The FCS playoff pairings are below. The Griz fell to Montana State 21-16 in an excellent Brawl of the Wild Saturday, and that helped doom their playoff hopes. Montana finished 7-4 — as did at-large [...]

Things I wish I’d written, NAU version

Here’s the game story, notebook and Bill Speltz’s column that covered just about every aspect of Montana’s 24-21 nail-biter over Northern Arizona Saturday. Just about, but not quite. Here are some examples: 1) After the strange safety call against Montana, Grizzly running back Dan Moore went down with what looked like a non-contact injury on [...]