But when they take the field inside the Walkup Skydome Saturday, they may meet their match in the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks. The key Big Sky Conference game, pitting two teams with one league loss between them, kicks off at 4:05 p.m. Mountain time.
“NAU looks a little different than any team we've played this year,” Montana quarterback Cole Bergquist said. “They run a ‘flex' defense that allows them to put a lot more speed on the field. That's pretty much what we have to prepare for.”
Whether the Griz find running room and passing lanes against the Jacks, they still have to contend with NAU's myriad of weapons on offense. Lost in the talk about running quarterback Lance Kriesien and stout backs Alex Henderson and Lionel Scott is Alex Watson, the Lumberjacks' standout receiver.
“He's awfully good,” UM coach Bobby Hauck said of the senior, who has 39 catches. “Everybody seems to be trying to take him away to a degree, but they have other players. It's just their whole offense Š you're ganging up on the run and they have such dangerous receivers - Watson being the most dangerous - that it's hard to pinpoint something to stop.
“And Watson is as good a player as we've seen all season at that position. Maybe the best.”
It figures that Northern Arizona won't provide as much fun as Northern Colorado. The Grizzlies had little time to bask in their 52-7 win over the Bears last week with NAU looming. But they certainly took some positives out of the game.
“I've been waiting for that all season,” said Bergquist, who threw a career-high four touchdown passes in the game. “I felt like we'd always had the potential to click like we did.
“When we sit together as an offense, you can say as much as you want, ‘Well, we have the potential to be good and we have the potential to put up 600 yards of offense.' But until you really, actually do it in a game, you don't really know.”
Now the Griz know, having piled up 623 yards against UNC. That was amid Hauck's directive to have fun. You can't argue with the results, which were a far cry from the 173 yards gained in their 17-3 win over Sacramento State the week before.
“Last week should've been a week where we should've been putting it (pressure) on our guys, to tell you the truth,” Hauck said Tuesday. “But it's not how I felt.”
The Grizzlies fly down Friday for what will be Northern Arizona's homecoming game on Saturday.
“It's been fun going to NAU,” Hauck said. “It'll be a good atmosphere for a game. It'll be sold out, or close to it. We're playing a great opponent and it should be a great game.”
When Montana was NAU's homecoming foe in 2005, there were 9,100 fans in the 15,300-seat Skydome. The Lumberjacks' 39-22 homecoming win over Sac State last season drew 7,362 fans. But NAU did draw 9,831 fans to their 45-24 defeat of Idaho State two weeks ago.
QUICK KICKS: Montana's lone player from Arizona, linebacker Alex Hawthorne (Mesa), is making the trip, though it's uncertain how much the senior will play. He's missed four games with a leg injury. Š Hauck's winning percentage in Big Sky league games is .848 (the Griz are 28-5 in his tenure). That's the second-best percentage in league history. The best belongs to Joe Glenn, who went 20-2 (.867) in three seasons, 2000-02. Š Three of the top four marks for league games belong to UM. Mick Dennehy went 27-5 from 1996-99. In third is Tony Knap of Boise State, who was 26-7-1 from 1970-75. Š NAU is 7-11 against the Griz in Flagstaff, but hasn't beat UM since 1997, a 27-24 home win.
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