Coaches tend to look at things from a more practical standpoint and then become extremely careful about what they say publicly for fear of providing any additional incentive for the opponent.
There was a lot of vanilla flowing at Tuesday’s University of Montana football press conference, much of it from the mouth of head coach Bobby Hauck.
“They’ve got good players, no doubt about it. You don’t win six in a row without that.”
With so much film of the Bobcats available for breakdown Hauck said it’s more important to look for things that are applicable to what your own team does. The biggest change later in the season for MSU has come on defense where they’re using a version of the Northern Arizona-Cal Poly flex.
“It’s almost all the double flex right now,” Hauck divulged.
Hauck also believes his own team is playing good football late in the season.
“You don’t win nine in a row without playing extremely well,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of football in front of us so we (needed) to get back and continue to improve this week which is our goal throughout the season.”
Hauck also is pleased with the depth his team has had available to it this season, especially on defense where Grizzly coaches have used lots of players throughout the year.
“Playing into our depth has been good for us the last four years,” he said.
While the Grizzlies have been able to use at least four players at safety, the corners, linebacker and defensive tackle the rotation at defensive end has focused on three - Dustin Dlouhy, Mike Murphy and Kroy Biermann. Dlouhy said defensive coordinator Kraig Paulson actually has let the players determine when substitution is needed and that formula has kept them fresh and healthy.
Hauck really likes the way his defensive ends have been playing and had a logical explanation about why quarterback sacks have picked up of late.
“People weren’t drop-back passing against us (earlier in the season),” Hauck noted. “In recent weeks we’ve played teams who do drop-back pass and we’ve been able to get there. All three of those guys have played well and they’re very productive.”
While the Bobcats have a number of gifted players the one who has garnered the most attention and consistently put up the biggest numbers has been Arizona transfer Michael Jefferson at wide receiver. His worst performance came in a narrow win over Weber State, but Hauck said he hadn’t watched a lot of that video to see what the Wildcats did to shut Jefferson down, adding that he’s simply a good player.
MSU coach Mike Kramer has expressed displeasure with the fact that this game is played on the final weekend just before the I-AA playoffs. Hauck doesn’t agree.
“This is rivalry weekend in college football,” the Montana coach said, “and I think that’s when it ought to be played. It’s tradition. I don’t know why we’d break with that.”
The excitement level definitely is there, especially for Murphy, Dlouhy and cornerback-returner Tuff Harris, all UM seniors.
“It’s awesome to play in the Griz-Cat game here and it’s even better playing it your senior year,” Murphy said Tuesday. “Hopefully we can go out with a win and make it even more special.”
Harris concurs.
“Being a senior you want to go out in regular season with a win no matter who it is,” Harris said. “It just makes it that much better being the Cats, having them for the last game.”
Dlouhy isn’t a Montana native but he’s been around the rivalry long enough to have strong feelings about it.
“That’s one of the great things about college football,” Dlouhy said. “We’re not the only ones playing a rivalry game this Saturday. There’s plenty of big games going on. It’s special for the state of Montana and (I’m) just lucky to be part of it.”
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