A big offensive line wants to prove its playoff pedigree Saturday, by making way for an all-around back that runs hard and sets up the play-action pass – possibly to the receiver whose brother plays defensive end.

Double that and you have Saturday’s first-round playoff game between No. 3 Montana and No. 11 South Dakota State, in Washington-Grizzly Stadium. Kickoff is at 12:05 p.m. MST.

The similarities between the unbeaten Griz and 8-3 Jackrabbits are eerie, including the fact that SDSU receiver Mike Steffen’s brother Jake starts for the defense. Montana counters with twins Tyler and Jace Palmer.

But the most curious is between Jacks’ running back Kyle Minett, a 210-pound junior who graduated high school 47 miles from the SDSU campus, and UM’s 195-pound Chase Reynolds, whose hometown of Drummond is 50 miles from WGS.

Minett has 14 more rushing yards than Reynolds, and Reynolds has 1,159 this season. How their stat lines compare by the end of the afternoon seems likely to tell the story of the game.

“I think Chase Reynolds is a guy you have to stop,” said SDSU coach John Stiegelmeier, who is guiding the Jacks into their first FCS postseason. “It’s a long day if you don’t; he’s a very good player. And from watching film, I’m guessing he’s one of those guys who gets better the longer he runs. You don’t discourage him.”

Minett is pretty much cut from the same cloth, to hear Montana defensive tackle Austin Mullins tell it.

“He’s got a little bit of everything,” said the senior, whose 35 tackles lead the Griz D-linemen. “He’s not explosive in one particular area, but he’s good all around. He can be shifty, he can power it in there, he can catch, and he has breakaway speed.

“He doesn’t necessarily want to go outside the tackles; he wants to stay in between them, so I guess you could say he’s closer to (Weber State’s) Trevyn Smith rather than Chase Reynolds. Even though Reynolds’ stats and his are real similar.”

The Jacks’ are mixing in a redshirt quarterback, Thomas O’Brien, who like senior Ryan Crawford made his first start only this season. O’Brien doesn’t have the stats (eight TDs, six interceptions) of either Griz quarterback – Justin Roper has eight TDs and Andrew Selle 18, and each has three picks – but the offensive approach is the same.

“It’s a lot like ours,” said Mullins. “They want to run it and throw it off the run.”

The game also features a pair of stingy defenses – Montana allowed the fewest points in the Big Sky Conference and SDSU the second-fewest in the Missouri Valley – and dangerous special teams.

Whether the excellently named Tyrel Kool (84-yard kickoff return at Minnesota) can match Montana’s double-threat, Marc Mariani, is another key. Stiegelmeier calls Mariani’s return prowess “scary,” and knows the senior is just as much a big-play threat in the pass game.

“I think those two guys (Mariani and Reynolds) jump out at you statistically and they jump out on film,” said the coach. “But bottom line, you have to win the battle on the offensive line and defensive lines. Their D-line is very athletic for as big as they are. Those are the things we’ve always started from.”

Montana’s offensive line had its hands full with the Montana State Bobcats last week, before the Griz dominated the third quarter and pushed a 9-5 edge out to 26-5.

The Jacks have big-play linebacker Derek Domino, safety Conrad Kjerstad and end Danny Batten leading a defense that loves to zone blitz and has 26 sacks.

The tackles – 285-pound Steven Bazata and 275-pound Ross Basham – line up over the guards “to make it hard to get the back sides cut off,” said UM’s all-Big Sky guard, Terren Hillesland.

“They like to bring backers right up the middle, plus a safety. It’ll be a good challenge for us,” Hillesland, an all-Big Sky guard, added. “And they could come out different than they showed everybody else and we’ll have to make adjustments. I think we’ve shown we can do that.”

Stiegelmeier has presided over two SDSU losses to the Griz, both at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, in 2005-06. The first was 7-0. The second game, a 36-7 loss, came when Batten was a true freshman. The Buchanan Award nominee was a starter on what he calls a completely different team.

“You look at the tape and you can see it,” said the 245-pound senior, who has 82 tackles and nine sacks this season. “I was a 225-pound freshman running around like a chicken with his head cut off.”

Montana is suiting up for its 45th playoff game, and SDSU its first. But the Jacks sound undaunted.

“We’ve been there. We’ve played in the big stadiums. We know how good we can be, and we know the teams we need to come to play against, and Montana’s one of those teams,” said Batten. “We need to come to play.”

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 523-5247 or at fneighbor@missoulian.com.