Cats, Griz now on the ropes

Home games are dwindling for both the Montana Grizzlies and Montana State Bobcats. And so are the chances for either team to make a serious push for the Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs.

And both the No. 19 Griz (2-1, 3-3) and No. 20 Bobcats (2-2, 3-3) need big, rebound wins at home Saturday in order to stay in the playoff hunt. In fact, both teams need to almost win out at this point in order to get there.

"We do need to pick it up as far as our sense of urgency and get ready for this and play it like every game is a playoff game," Griz senior linebacker Kendrick Van Ackeren said. "Because if we lose one, our chance of getting into the playoffs goes down tremendously."

Indeed, Montana is in a precarious and strange position heading into Saturday’s home game with spiraling North Dakota (2-2, 4-3). The Griz have just one conference loss, but, three losses overall don’t look so good on their playoff resume.

Montana is also reeling in a number of ways. Two weeks ago, UM stumbled in an overtime loss to up-start Weber State, and in that game, lost its second starting quarterback of the season when Chad Chalich went out with a broken foot. That means sophomore Makena Simis gets his turn at the wheel of a struggling offense which is scoring just 23 points per game in spite of racking up nearly 450 yards of total offense per outing.

Turnovers and red-zone efficiency have crushed the once-promising Griz offense of late, and now Montana must try to right the ship against one of the better defenses in the Big Sky. UND allows just 120 yards rushing and 330 total yards per game, so the Griz offense, which has yet to establish a featured running game, and is still missing veteran running back Joey Counts and Lorenzo Logwood, will have to find its way against a very stingy UND defense.

But, Montana also has a stingy defense, and head coach Bob Stitt will lean on that to get the Griz through its second-to-last home game. UM allows just 22 points per game, and unlike on offense, the Grizzly defense is relatively healthy. Montana is also going up against a sputtering UND offense. UND hasn’t been very prolific this season, but in brutal losses to Idaho State and Weber State, UND has really struggled to move the ball, move the chains and find the endzone. UND is averaging just 24.6 points per game, and they are without starting quarterback Keaton Studsrud, who is the catalyst for their offense.

Still, UND is a team that has proven to be worthy challenger for the Big Sky title and a playoff berth, and they’ll no doubt come into Washington-Grizzly Stadium ready to upset a hurting Montana squad that has little margin for error, and some daunting road games upcoming the rest of the way.

For the Grizzlies, who had their second bye of the season last week, putting the past in the rearview mirror and moving forward with their third-strong QB at the helm is now the utmost priority.

"It's awful," Stitt said of the bye following the loss to Weber State. "'Oh you had a couple days off?' No we didn't. Our minds were on it constantly throughout that time.

"Makena needs to know he's the guy," added Stitt of his third starting quarterback. "But on the positive side we have a chance to do something that not many teams do. That's win games with three different starting quarterbacks. That's a huge challenge, but I think we can get 'er done."

Meanwhile, quarterback or offense is not Montana State’s problem heading into its non-conference game with winless East Tennessee State Saturday. No, the Bobcats have one of the best signal callers in the FCS in Dakota Prukop, who’s thrown for 1,836 yards and 15 touchdowns and has run for 598 yards and eight more scores. No, where the Bobcats are hurting is on defense, and nothing hurt more than last week’s loss at Portland State, where again, MSU scored 40 points, and it still wasn’t good enough to win.

PSU scored on eight straight drives against MSU, and the young Bobcat defense seemed helpless to stop anything the Vikings threw at them. MSU is now near the bottom of the FCS in total defense and is allowing nearly 40 points per game. The Cats are also surrendering a whopping 276 yards per game on the ground, yet, veteran head coach Rob Ash insists, there’s no panic.

“There’s three areas that you look at: scheme, personnel and technique,” Ash said. “We’re making some adjustments to the scheme, we’re talking about some minor personnel changes, a couple of spots here and there that we might make some adjustments, and then technique comes from teaching and that’s what we have to focus on.

“The only way to instill confidence is through performance,” he continued. “We have to give our guys the right tools and the right assignments and the right techniques as we teach them to they can perform and when they do they’ll gain confidence from that performance. It won’t take a lot. A few good plays and it will snowball in the other direction rather than the direction it went against Portland State.”

MSU has the perfect opponent to start to instill that confidence. ETSU (0-6) just revived football this season, and the Buccaneers have really struggled. And things won’t get any easier playing in Bobcat Stadium on Saturday afternoon. While a win for MSU is almost assured, Ash said his team is approaching this game no differently, and the Cats know they have to have a sense of urgency if they want to make the FCS playoffs yet again.

“We respect every opponent and we expect them to come in, this will be their Super Bowl playing in a great environment,” Ash said. “Everybody knows the situation we’re in. But still, you can’t win two in a row unless you win one in a row, so we always come back to that thought.”

Saturday’s game between Montana State and ETSU will kick off at 2:35 p.m. in Bozeman. The game will be televised statewide on Cowles Media. Saturday’s game in Missoula between Montana and North Dakota is set to kick off at 1:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on Root Sports Northwest.