Oregon Football: Five Things To Know About Montana

Who is the Griz? While the Griz’z three championship game losses in the past two decades is all too relatable, there isn’t much more that Montana (FCS) and Oregon Football have in common.

Montana is many things. It’s Big Sky country. It’s the adopted home of John Mayer. And it’s also the home of the once-proud Montana football program.

Tie Me Up with your Ties, Ty

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Just like in big boy football, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) has a Top 25 Coaches poll that is released weekly. Montana (2-0) is ranked in this poll, but they happen to be ranked number T-18.

Since this seems to be the only significant poll in the FCS world, and since the Griz received the exact number of points as the Delaware Fighting Flaccos, they get to spend an entire week chanting, “We’re number eighteen, also!”

While I acknowledge the fact that the FCS was and still is way ahead of the curve in terms of having a robust playoff system to determine their National Champion, I can only imagine the sort of chaos that would ensue if Rob Mullens came on to ESPN in Week 15 only to announce that two teams were tied for fourth in the College Football Playoff poll.

No Natty

I feel pretty comfortable assuming that most Ducks fans have at least one friend that is some level of a Montana football fan, but just in case you haven’t been so fortunate, Montana was once pretty good. And that “once” was pretty recently.

The Montana Mystique lasted from about 2003-09, where the Griz won seven straight Big Sky Conference titles. They went 51-6 during a stretch from 2006-09. They also appeared in (but never won) three different national championship games. Sounds familiar.

As it typically goes with lower-division football teams, however, their head coach was poached by a team with more money.

In this case, former (and current) Griz HC, Bobby Hauck, was lured to UNLV. And as with any trip to the slots, he didn’t last long at all.

But after spending what could essentially be chalked up as a rough weekend (4 seasons) in Vegas—and a brief stint as the Special Teams coach at San Diego State—Hauck came crawling back to the one that brought him.

Now that he’s back in Missoula, Bobby seems to be trying to recreate some of his original magic, and we’ll just have to wait and see if it goes any better than whatever Chip Kelly is trying to do at UCLA.

Turn on, Tune in, Shut Out

Last week, Montana beat North Alabama 61-17, and that beat down was capped off by a 45-0 second half.

I don’t care who you are or who you’re playing against. If you’re able to shut a team out, even for just one half, that means you’re a pretty competent football team.

But even Oregon State might be able to post a second-half shut out against North Alabama.

Speaking of shut outs, I’d say that this Ducks defense—which is already gaining national recognition—could really cap off a stellar non-conference performance with a full game shut out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see Avalos’ nightmare of a defense serve a goose egg in Pac-12 play, but Montana could be the perfect game to instill confidence in the group. Like I said before: A shut out it is a shut out. I don’t care who you are or who you’re playing against—even if it’s Montana.

The conversation around Oregon after the 77-6 crushing of Nevada has been mostly about how dynamic the offense looked en route to a load of points. What hasn’t been talking about enough is that last week was the first time since the 2013 Alamo Bowl vs Texas that the Ducks have held an opponent to single digits.

Gang Green is back. And it’s time to put the rest of the conference on nightmare watch.

Weekend at Herbie’s

The Griz gave up 246 passing yards in their first game against South Dakota, and then they gave up 320 against North Alabama. They’ve also given up 4 total passing touchdowns in their first two games.

I don’t consider myself an NFL Draft guru, but I have a feeling that South Dakota and North Alabama don’t have a top ten prospect slinging the ball, but the Ducks do.

Justin Herbert threw for over 300 yards and 5 TD against Nevada partly because Arroyo & Co. seemed to open up the playbook more than ever and let Herbie push the ball down the field in ways we haven’t seen since Stanford of last year (his last 300+ yard game).

Montana gives up a lot of yardage, but it’s interesting to note that they’re total ball hawks, too. Their defense averages two picks per game, but Herbie is averaging zero picks per game so far this year.

Knock on wood.

There’s no doubt that Montana’s secondary would be vulnerable even if they hadn’t already shown it on paper, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Herbie hits 350 yds and 4 scores in just two-quarters of play. This is the part of the season where you pad those stats.

Special Teams? Be Special.

I mentioned earlier that Montana HC Bobby Hauck is returning from a short stint at UNLV, but that was followed by a job as the Special Teams coach at SDSU. Special teams is Hauck’s specialty.

Montana will clearly be well-coached on special teams, but they also have the kind of dangerous playmakers that make all that coaching actually lead to touchdowns and game-breaking field position.

I specifically want to single out wide receiver and punt return specialist, Jerry Louie-McGee. In their last game against North Alabama, Louie-McGee returned five punts for 150 total yards and even took a seventy-four yarder to the house.

Louie-McGee is a Redshirt Senior and hasn’t seemed to have many opportunities on offense over his career as a Griz, but it’s clear that when he gets his chances, he makes the most of them.

I also just wanted to give Jerry a shoutout for his impeccable flow and overall fan-favorite status because he’s exactly the kind of guy that makes college football so fun to watch.

But obviously I hope the Ducks never allow him to get a return over fifteen yards, and I hope Jevon Holland finally breaks one for a touchdown himself.

And that’s (probably) everything you need to know about Montana.

Go Ducks

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