The trip to Ronan on Saturday reminded me of any other trip I’ve made up 93 to watch a Montana Grizzlies’ football scrimmage. Cold. Windy. Little offense. I mentioned in my story notes that two other trips north netted some pretty dismal passing numbers. The exception was 2008 in Polson: Cole Bergquist, Andrew Selle, Jeff [...]

Saturday’s scrimmage, coming as it did on the fourth practice of spring drills, ended with the Montana Grizzlies’ defense ahead of their offense. That’s normal. But there is a chance that this defense, with 10 starters back from a group that got better as the season went on – and I’m including the record-setting North [...]

It was a pretty jocular press conference Tuesday at UM, where Coach Mick Delaney spoke of the 35-27 defeat at Appalachian State and the Grizzlies’ Saturday home game against Liberty (kickoff at 1:30 p.m.). The hottest topic of conversation was Dan Moore’s 87-yard catch and run against Appalachian State. “I thought Dan was going to [...]

As I write this it is less than 5 hours to kickoff for No. 12 Montana at No. 11 Appalachian State, an FCS showdown that will play out to a national audience. Wait. Scratch that. It will play out to an audience willing to pay at least $25 for the game (One alert reader tells [...]

The music’s blaring, fans are filing into Washington-Grizzly Stadium and South Dakota and Montana are warming up for the game between the Coyotes and Grizzlies. Looking forward to watching the Griz linebackers, including Jordan Tripp and John Kanongata’a, deal with the Coyotes, and wondering which QB is going to look better today. Having Joe Glenn as [...]

Here’s my first “Who Next?” story of 2012 – these are among my favorite stories to write. I had former Griz football coach Joe Glenn on the phone on Tuesday, and a page and a half of quotes later, I’m trying to figure out how to get a half of them in the paper. Or [...]

No surprise here: Trumaine Johnson went in the NFL draft Friday night as planned, as the 65th pick overall and second pick of the third round to the St. Louis Rams. Johnson and Kalispell product Brock Osweiler (second round, Denver) gave, and continue to give, us scribes plenty to write about. Both have obvious Montana [...]

You know what happens when you spend a good part of the game trying to come up with witty tweets and Facebook posts? You miss this. Will Cherry’s three-point play included a takedown of the ESPN camera man; I’m pretty if I’d asked Cherry about it, he would’ve had a pretty decent quote. Also, take [...]

I’m as happy as anybody – with the obvious exception of Ty Gregorak – that Gregorak was named defensive coordinator for the Griz, replacing Mike Breske. Gregorak didn’t have the easiest 2010, a year that included a divorce; a strange arrest on charges of theft for which he was later exonerated; the ensuing loss of [...]

Wow, we left a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor Friday night. Night games like Montana’s 48-10 FCS playoff romp over Northern Iowa mean 5-6 less hours to distill the action – and there was plenty, including: a) The degree of difficulty on Sam Gratton’s two TD catches. The junior caught TDs covering [...]