I-AA semifinal football game between No. 3 Massachusetts and No. 2 Montana on Dec. 8.
Massachusetts quarterback Liam Coen faded back to pass on third-and-9. On his left, Montana defensive end Mike Murphy pushed UMass left tackle Matt Austin deep into the backfield, collapsing the pocket.
Foreman, running behind a wall of blockers, scored on a 58-yard return and the Griz led 10-7. There was 11:54 left in the first half, and the 23,454 fans at Washington-Grizzly Stadium were going crazy.
With Montana having all the momentum and playing at home, it figured that Foreman, who played college baseball before enrolling at UM, would join the ranks of those other New England nemeses with vernacular middle names: Bucky Dent, Aaron Boone and Muckie Friggin' Foreman.
It wasn't to be.
“Any time you score a defensive touchdown, it's a huge play and momentum shift,” Bobby Hauck, the Grizzlies' fourth-year head coach, said this week. “The problem with playing a team like UMass, that has the ability to pound the ball like they do, is you have to get right back out there on defense.
“And it wears on you.”
Massachusetts wore out a game but overworked Grizzly defense, knocking UM off 19-17 in the semifinals. The Minutemen, who lost to Appalachian State 28-17 in the newly-renamed Division I Football Championship Friday, held possession for 39 minutes, 14 seconds against the Griz.
Montana, winner of 12 straight games in 2006, victor in five straight semifinal home games, was done. The Griz went 12-2. They blended an offense that relied heavily on transfers at the skill positions with a defense that had almost everybody back and made hay.
That's saying nothing of special teams, where Tuff Harris excelled on punt returns and Dan Carpenter was a first-team selection on the Associated Press' Division I-AA All-America team.
Lost in all of this is that the Grizzlies' best player, Lex Hilliard, didn't play a down because of an Achilles injury suffered in August.
The Griz didn't have much time to mourn for Hilliard. The season opener at Iowa on Sept. 2 was just over two weeks away. There was work to do.
“Our goal doesn't change based on the loss of one player,” Hauck said. “Injuries happen in football. That's part of the deal. You move on and play hard. ‘Let's go. We're going to win.'
“The goal doesn't change.”
At the time of the injury Hauck said the Griz would “have to find another way,” but the formula remained largely the same: Balance the run and pass, force the issue on special teams and defend like heck.
The offense did its part, getting points when needed, as in the final moments of the 10-9 win over Cal Poly. Josh Swogger drove the Griz 76 yards to Carpenter's field goal with five seconds left.
There was the 106th Griz-Cat game, when Swogger hit Eric Allen for 54 yards and what turned out to be the winning touchdown in the third quarter of a 13-7 Griz victory.
Defense and special teams did the rest. That was enough for the Griz in all but two games.
With the possible exception of Hauck, a candidate for the Stanford football job, the Grizzlies will return largely intact for 2007. The Griz lose just nine seniors off this team, and five of them started on defense: ends Mike Murphy and Dustin Dlouhy, tackle Kerry Mullan, Harris at cornerback and Matt Lebsock at safety.
Hauck takes stock and likes what he sees. Murphy, an AFCA first-team All-American, and Dlouhy will be hard to replace, but Kroy Biermann had a banner junior season at end, and Mike Stadnyk - who started at times as a freshman in 2004 - didn't play a down after shoulder surgery in August.
The linebacker crew, led by Tyler Joyce, Kyle Ryan and Loren Utterback, returns untouched. The cornerback position is stocked with Jimmy Wilson, Quinton Jackson, Qwenton Freeman, Tim Parks and Brandon Dwyer. At safety remains Colt Anderson, Van Cooper, Jr., Torrey Thomas, Shann Schillinger and Brandon Fisher.
“Every (linebacker) has been back for two years, almost,” said Hauck. “We'll remain as deep at corner as we ever have been.
“Defensive end is the biggest hole on our football team, but Stadnyk played as a true freshman in the ('04) national championship. You return a second-team All-America defensive end (Biermann), you've got to feel like that position is in pretty good hands.
“From a talent standpoint, it'll be a better team than we had this year.”
That's saying a lot, because the Griz put together arguably the best defense UM has seen, dating back to the Camellia Bowl days of 1969-70. They came up with 30 turnovers and scored three defensive touchdowns. They had goal-line stands and important takeaways.
Idaho State couldn't manage 100 yards of offense. In the playoffs neither McNeese State nor Southern Illinois managed a touchdown. Through 13 games only Weber State scored a touchdown on its opening drive against the Griz.
That changed when UMass star Steve Baylark broke a 35-yard run less than three minutes into the semifinal game.
A quarter later Foreman had the Griz back in front.
“That was a prime example of our defense working together,” said Murphy, who had six sacks. “I had good pressure on the quarterback, our coverage was good downfield. (Foreman) made a great play on it.
“I think that made a big difference. Without that touchdown we don't give ourselves an opportunity to win at the end. It was a big play. It gave us an opportunity and a chance.”
Several factors bode well for UM in 2007, Hauck's popularity with programs seeking new coaches aside. The Grizzlies lose a quarterback in Swogger, but the running back pool is incredibly deep, and everyone who caught a pass for UM returns.
Swogger, a senior who came over from Washington State in time for spring ball, was inconsistent at times and brilliant at others. Fans will rue his final throw as a Griz - it was intercepted, sealing the loss to UMass. He will too. Yet he threw for 2,685 yards. That's the 14th best single-season total in Grizzly history.
Hauck was happy with the job Swogger did in his short time in Missoula. The Grizzlies lost to a power-I team in UMass. Montana features a run-and-shoot-based passing game and multiple sets.
“We throw the ball, we're balanced, we're a one-back offense,” said Hauck. “Josh did a really nice job with it, I thought. Was he perfect every game? No, he wasn't. But he did a great job this year. I don't think we would've won the number of games we did without him.”
Meanwhile the running back corps did the job while showing its depth. Iowa State transfer Greg Coleman led the team in rushing at Iowa, then was hurt in UM's third game, against Sacramento State.
With Coleman shelved by a foot injury, Reggie Bradshaw ran for 115 yards against Eastern Washington, Brady Green ran for 108 against Idaho State and freshman Thomas Brooks-Fletcher broke the century mark against Northern Colorado (100 yards), McNeese State (113) and Southern Illinois (106).
Everyone is back, save Green. The list includes the 230-pound Hilliard, who ran for 1,322 yards in 2005. That leaves two questions: How many running backs are too many, and how well will Hilliard recover from an injury that generally ends careers - for 40-year-old weekend warriors?
“There aren't a whole bunch of examples of that, because Lex is 22 years old,” said Hauck. “But we expect him to recover 100 percent.”
As for the plethora of ball-carriers, Hauck can use 2006 as his guide.
“You can't have too many running backs, as evidenced by this year,” he said.
Cole Bergquist, pressed into the starting role a year ago as a redshirt freshman, played some solid minutes as Swogger's backup. Swogger, along with Green and lineman Jeff Marshall, were the starting seniors on offense, though Ryan Wells started one game at center.
Bergquist will be a junior next season, while fellow QB Clint Stapp will be a sophomore and Andrew Selle a redshirt freshman. Senior Jason Washington, the Bowling Green transfer who started four games in 2005 before suffering a shoulder dislocation, is also back, but likely not at QB.
“He (Washington) is probably going to have a position change,” said Hauck, who has another quarterback in Cut Bank product Jeff Larson, who is grey-shirting this year.
Whoever starts will have plenty of talented targets. The tight ends - Dan Beaudin, Steven Pfahler and Kevin Klaboe - were all freshmen. Top receivers Ryan Bagley, Eric Allen and Craig Chambers were juniors, while Mike Ferriter, Rob Schulte and Matt Troxel were sophomores.
Then there's the offensive front. Cody Balogh and Colin Dow were first-team all-Big Sky, and return. So do Brent Russum, Eric Michel, Terran Hillesland, Levi Horn, Kevin Bell and Dan Girard.
Add to that list Chris Dyk, who had his freshman campaign cut short by a knee injury in practice, and Oklahoma transfer J.D. Quinn, and the Griz are loaded there as well.
“I think our offensive line will be an enormous strength for us,” Hauck said. “They played really well down the stretch. They played terrific in particular in the UMass game, against the best blitzing team around. They quit blitzing against us. It probably saved the day for them that they quit pressuring, because we were hurting them.”
In the end, though, Montana's offense didn't get enough going against the Minutemen. The defense couldn't hold.
It was a D that contributed a goal-line fumble recovery and a TD to the Grizzlies' 26-20 win at Portland State, that saw Thomas intercept two passes to spark a second-half rally at Weber State, that held Payton Award finalist Jason Murrietta to 93 passing yards.
Finally, it faltered against a very good UMass team.
“They're like us,” Hauck said of the Minutemen. “They don't have many weaknesses. Great running back. The quarterback led the nation in passing efficiency, so he was effective. The defense was great. They're a complete football team, as are we. That's why it was a two-point game.”
So the Griz can take stock and feel good about their campaign. Hauck certainly does.
“I'm pretty ecstatic about how the season went,” he said. “It was a great year. It doesn't get much better.”
Reporter Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 523-5247 or at fneighbor@missoulian.com.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)