The majority of fans weren't wearing EWU red, either. At the end, after Shane MacIntyre's award-winning block of a field goal preserved Montana's 31-28 victory over the Eagles, that sign that used to pop up at Spokane's Joe Albi Stadium was unfurled again at Woodward: Welcome to Washington's Grizzly Stadium.
There were enough momentum switches to make a landlocked Griz fan seasick. Eastern came out and outgained Montana 147-18 in the first quarter. From there until UM's Dan Carpenter kicked a field goal to put the Griz up 31-21 with 5:45 left in the game, Montana outgained the Eagles 364-189.
"We had an opportunity for great field position," said Eastern coach Paul Wulff of the accidental onside kick. "But they did a good job defensively of mixing things up. I give them a lot of credit. They kept us off balance enough.
"And we couldn't get our running game going quite good enough. We had spurts, but it wasn't quite good enough."
Eastern ran 40 times for 126 yards against the Grizzlies, for 3.15 yards a tote. Montana also did a decent job on Eagles quarterback Erik Meyer, who came in with a superhuman passing efficiency rating of 187.1, but rated a more mortal 126.6 Saturday.
Of course, on Eastern's last two drives he was lights out, going 10 for 13 for 117 yards (QB rating: 177.9).
"We'd done a pretty good job of containing him all game, and finally he just broke out on us," MacIntyre said. "He has the potential to do that at any time. You have to be ready for it. The last two drives, he picked us apart, essentially."
With their backs up against their own 6-yard line, the Grizzlies brought pressure on three straight plays, forcing the field goal that MacIntyre blocked. That was the only real difference from the closing 5:45, when the Eagles threatened to grab a huge Big Sky Conference win, and the last 5:25 of the first half, when Montana rang up two quick touchdowns.
The drive that put Montana up 14-10 covered 85 yards in all of 56 seconds.
"That was huge," MacIntyre said. "To come back and go into halftime with the lead.
"This game was absolutely huge. We knew they were a great team, so we knew it was a huge game. Biggest game we've played this year."
Carpenter provided the eventual game-winning points with his fourth-quarter field goal, in less than perfect conditions. It wasn't an easy day for the true freshman from Helena. His first kick - a 23-yard field goal attempt at 6:51 of the second quarter - began with a high snap, followed by a block by Eastern's Brandon Myers. Carpenter recovered the kick at the 14, and ran it nine yards before he was hit and fumbled. Eastern took over at the 5-yard line, which was where Montana had it first-and-goal.
Carpenter recovered to hit four PAT kicks and the game-winner.
"He did a good job (Saturday) because our snaps and holds weren't perfect," Montana coach Bobby Hauck said. "He had to fight through a couple of those, and really, he did a really good job, hanging in there. He showed some poise handling all that stuff."
Another true freshman made his debut for the Grizzlies Saturday - cornerback Tim Parks. The 5-foot-10, 170-pounder came in late in the first quarter and stopped EWU scat-back Reggie Witherspoon for a 1-yard loss.
"What is that now? Nine?" asked Hauck. "Nine freshmen (playing). That's where we are."
It's 10 counting Carpenter. Eight of them are on defense.
Quick kicks: Levander Segars had one punt return Saturday, for one yard. With that he finally became the I-AA leader in career punt returns, with 124. He has 1,325 punt return yards, and needs 123 to match the I-AA record of 1,448, set by James Madison's Delvin Joyce (1997-2000) Š Montana's recent red-zone success has moved the Griz up to fourth in the Big Sky in that category, but only Weber State and Sacramento State, with 21 each, have given up more touchdowns than Montana (20). Opponents have scored 26 out of 35 times in the red zone against the Grizzlies (74.3 percent). Leading the conference is Montana State, which has allowed opponents to score eight of 13 times (61.5 percent) from inside its 20-yard line.
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