Montana 61 North Alabama 17 – Game Recap
Quite the tale of two halves of football.
The first half the Griz were leaving points off the board, giving up deep plays, and trailing at the half. To me in the first half the run blocking still seems pretty choppy, Sneed was making rushed decisions, and the lack of a pass-rush with the D-line was allowing UNA to find holes in the defense. UNA had what I believe was about 335 yards of offense. While the Griz had about 250 yards themselves of offense we saw them miss a 2 point conversion, not convert a fake field goal, and then fumble a late 2nd quarter drive.
Then comes the 2nd half. UNA is held to just about 70 total yards of offense in the game. Per the stat sheet they had just 4 first downs in the whole half, two of which was a on a late possession that they wound up losing a fumble on anyways. The Grizzly defense turned it up to 100 and shut down a lot of UNA’s options, forced 3 turnovers, and were relentless in getting to their QB and stopping the run. The Grizzly ground game gets churning, Sneed gets a little more comfortable, and JLM puts on a show.
This was another great sign of progression, in my eyes, about these Griz. It was an adverse first half yet the Griz adjusted and played to their potential in the 2nd half. The sample size is small and I’m sure next week it’ll change big time but as of the first two games this season Griz opponents have only scored 7 points in the 2nd half… total.
A few points:
– Marcus Knight is RB1 and Ostmo provided a great change of pace too as a more powerful guy but still with a good motor. The pass blocking wasn’t great, and Sneed paid the price for it a few times, but with what these guys brought to the run game you’ve got to go with it. The Griz were averaging nearly 5 yards per carry and had technically 8 different ball carriers (including 1 for Purdy and 1 for Wilson).
– The top trio of Akem / Toure / JLM once again was just too much to contain. UNA had a different defense than USD did, they played a few safeties deep and didn’t allow Sneed to really take a lot of deep shots. That wound up being an issue for a while, but once the run game got going and then the short passes and RPO’s got rolling, these guys took off. Some incredible catches especially by Sammy, I thought, where he was really taking some shots.
– Adam Wilson is a weapon in many ways. Good read on the fake punt (UNA left that edge wide open). Well positioned or incredibly powerful kickoffs (including a double-doink of the cross bar), and 3 great punts, averaging over 50 yards.
– I don’t think the Grizzly D-line has that one dangerous rusher that an offense has to account for, at least not yet. There were issues with them getting to the QB on their own far too often. What I will say though is that the speed and work to keep after the QB and the motor to continue on has really impressed me with a lot of these guys. It looked to me like Babros had a pretty good game overall, Rice had a few more pressures, Mamula some pressures as well, O’Connell sacked the QB once, Gubner a pick.
– Maybe the best game as a Griz for Gavin Robertson. Tremendous interception, a slew of tackles, in on a lot of plays, seemed to be at the right spot at the right time quite often.
– It’s damned impressive to see guys like Sandry, Olson, Lewis, and Hauck just come flying in and blow up a play. These guys each had key plays, many times on 3rd downs, where they ended a drive. Or on an earlier down when they’d set UNA in a hole. Yeah I think it was Robby that got turned around on that deep shot TD, so obviously there’s still work to be done. Sandry had quite the odd stat line for a safety, just 3 tackles, but 2 TFLs, 1 sack, and 1 forced fumble, he also punished that UNA QB a few times.
– I’m just sick for Gavin Crow. Heard it looked pretty bad, and based on the immediate response I’d guess so. This team is really built to rely on it’s depth at safety across the 2-deep. They’re going to need a young guy to fill that gap now. His presence will really be noticed right away on special teams.
– Super cool night for JLM. I had a feeling that he was going to take one in tonight, recorded one nice return earlier, got the TD as well
– Loved the amount of rotation and reps a lot of guys got. I noticed that the D-line was rotating a ton all night. The LBs were shifting around (a good night for Welnel) and the O-line was rotating quite a bit too and some of the other guys got some really good reps out there.
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The response in the 2nd half was incredible, the growth and improvement in this team as a whole is evident. Next week… well… lets just stay healthy. For this week though we can bask in being 2-0 and looking good. There’s a long ways to go in this season and many far tougher opponents ahead, but I think most of Griz nation has to like what they’ve seen so far.
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