MISSOULA — Montana mascot Monte came out wearing a black robe and swinging a red light saber Saturday at Washington-Grizzly Stadium after being cast as the villain by Idaho earlier in the week leading up to the football game.
The fifth-ranked Grizzlies showed the force was strong with them as they led wire to wire in a 41-30 victory over the eighth-ranked Vandals. They won this episode of the Little Brown Stein Wars as they improved to 4-0 overall for the first time since 2022 while starting Big Sky Conference play with a 1-0 record.
The Griz now head into October with a pair of signature wins against Idaho as well as a 24-23 comeback win over then-No. 16 North Dakota, after which Montana head coach Bobby Hauck had said of his new-look team: “We probably are not ready to win a game of that magnitude, but we did.”
“I should clarify that,” he said Saturday. “When I say ‘of that magnitude,’ I meant against a team as good as North Dakota. That’s kind of what I meant by that. I’m not a real believer there are just huge games in September. There’s too much football to be played. There’s a whole season left in front of us.
“But I felt good going into the game. I thought we would win this game.”
Here are three takeaways from the game:
September statement
As the clock crept toward midnight, the final game of the week had produced a playoff-like atmosphere with a crowd that was in it all four quarters and was announced at 27,025, the second largest in stadium history.
The product Montana put on the field had the feel of a potential conference champion. It might have been a game that ends up playing a major factor in the race to determine who wins the Big Sky championship.
In only the third top-10 matchup in 90 meetings, the Griz and Vandals were ranked second and third among the six Big Sky teams in the Top 25 poll. The Griz trailed only Montana State, which they might jump Monday morning.
“Felt like we sent a message to the rest of the league,” receiver Michael Wortham said after Montana scored 40-plus points for the third time in four games as the Fightin’ Taters defense was left in tatters.
The victory announced Montana as not only a Big Sky contender but also a national contender. Through four games, the Griz now have two wins over teams ranked at the time of the game: No. 8 Idaho and No. 16 North Dakota.
Not many teams can match the quality of a pair of wins like that. Montana joined No. 2 South Dakota State and No. 12 Abilene Christian as the only teams in the country with multiple ranked wins through six weeks this season.
SDSU beat No. 3 Montana State and No. 15 Sacramento State. ACU beat No. 18 Austin Peay and No. 25 Stephen F. Austin but lost to unranked Incarnate Word this weekend. Thirteen other teams have one ranked win, with the only Big Sky team on that list being Northern Arizona.
“That’s going to be a team that’ll certainly be a playoff-caliber team, a team that can make a deep run,” Idaho coach Thomas Ford said of Montana, which he lost to as an assistant in 2023 when the Griz made a run to the national championship game. “I think they have a lot of those ingredients, right.
“They can run the football, they do a good job making plays on defense. I think they’re really well coached. … I think this group certainly has some of the tools and some of the ability that you see in that ’23 team.”
The pair of marquee victories were crucial for boosting their playoff resume as the Griz don’t have many more chances for big-time wins. Only two of their eight remaining opponents were ranked in the Top 25 poll this past week.
Their next anticipated ranked foe was Sacramento State on Oct. 24, but the Hornets lost to Cal Poly on Saturday, so the Griz might only have one more shot, when they host Montana State on Nov. 22. Without wins over Idaho and North Dakota, it would’ve taken much later into the season for UM to prove its worthiness of being in the national conversation.
That the Griz picked up their two ranked wins while still molding together a new-look team is a promising sign for the rest of the year. They’ll play four of their final eight games on the road, starting with a trip to Idaho State.
“We certainly haven’t played our best football,” Hauck said. “I don’t think we’re even close. Got a lot of things to improve on. We got guys that haven’t played much that need to improve because as the season wears on, they’re going to be called on to contribute more.”
Workhorse Gillman
The Griz rode junior running back Eli Gillman throughout the game and he showed he could handle such a large workload.
Gillman carried the ball a career-high 27 times in his 35th game and fourth season. It’s the most carries by a Montana player since Oct. 9, 2021, when Xavier Harris had 29 carries in a win over then-Dixie State (now-Utah Tech).
The 27 carries broke Gillman’s previous high of 20 in the 2024 first-round playoff win over Tennessee State. He averaged 12.1 carries per game in his career entering this game and was at 14.7 in the first three games this year.
He entered the game leading the Big Sky and ranking fourth in the FCS at 133.3 rush yards per game. He grew that average even while facing Idaho’s run defense, which was No. 2 in the Big Sky at 126.8 yards allowed per game.
He finished with 142 yards and two touchdowns, the second of which he celebrated by acting out a home run baseball swing, as he averaged 5.3 yards per carry with a long rush of 25 yards. That put him at 542 yards and eight touchdowns on 71 carries for an average of 7.6 yards per rush this year.
“I think they’ve got a quality offensive line,” Ford said. “They’ve got some tight ends that can get after it. That running back, No. 10 (Gillman), is one of the best running backs in the country. Sometimes it’s like novocaine, right, it takes a little bit to get going, but they certainly got it going, especially towards the end of the game.”
In the first quarter, Gillman ran five times for 11 yards and one touchdown. That grew to 36 yards even as his carries decreased to four in the second quarter.
That then ballooned to eight carries for 57 yards and one touchdown in the third quarter. In the final frame, he had 10 carries that went for 38 yards as the Griz went run-heavy to whittle down the game clock.
He has been featured more after the loss of Nick Ostmo and with inexperience behind him. His 71 carries are tops on the team, followed by quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat with 21 and receiver Michael Wortham with 16. Then backup running backs Stevie Rocker and Malae Fonoti show up with 14 and 11.
The rest of the team combined for 17 rush attempts in addition to Gillman’s 27 against Idaho. Wortham ran six times for 19 yards and one touchdown. Ah Yat rushed seven times (including two sacks) for 17 yards and one score.
Rocker was the only running back beside Gillman to get a carry, taking two for 8 yards. Receiver Brooks Davis had one rush for 5 yards. The team was credited with one rush for minus-1 yard on a kneel down.
“The guy is a hard runner and they’re going to continue to feed him,” Ford said of Gillman. “As the game goes on, I think he started to wear our defense down a little bit. He broke some tackles that he wasn’t breaking in the first half.”
UM ran the ball 44 times compared to 23 passes but had more early success with its air attack. The Griz were 6-of-8 passing for 85 yards in the first quarter and 5-of-9 for 47 yards in the second quarter. They attempted just three passes in the third quarter and three in the fourth, for 64 and 27 yards.
Ah Yat completed 17 of his 23 attempts (73.9 percent) for 223 yards and one touchdown. Drew Deck caught five passes for 67 yards, Wortham had five for 55 yards and one score, and Davis caught four for 63 yards.
As an offense, the running game progressed throughout the game. The Griz averaged 1.8 yards on nine rushes (16 total yards) in the first quarter. By halftime, they grew that to 3.9 yards on 16 rushes (63 total yards).
Through three quarters, that rose to 4.6 yards on 28 carries (128 total yards). They closed the game at 4.3 yards on 44 carries (190 total yards). It was their second-most carries this year and third-most rushing yards.
“They wanted to zone pressure,” Hauck said of Idaho’s defense. “We had some good answers for that, kind of got them out of that to a degree. Then they went to more just Bear and man free. We ran some of the gap run plays pretty well. So there was some good stuff certainly.”
Developing defense
UM’s defense was doing its job early in the game. The Griz blanked Idaho in the opening quarter and buckled down in the second quarter to hold the Vandals to a pair of field goals after they reached the 14- and 24-yard lines.
On the first of those defensive lockdowns, defensive end Hunter Peck chased down scrambling quarterback Joshua Wood and caused a fumble. The ball rolled out of bounds and stayed in Idaho’s possession.
On the next drive, Peck recorded a tackle for loss and a sack over a stretch of three plays as he finished with two of the team’s three TFLs and the lone sack. Those plays helped the Griz force a three-and-out for the third time in four drives to start the game.
The defense drew two more three-and-outs to open the second half while the offense scored a touchdown in between as UM raced out to a 24-6 lead that it built to 41-22 before Idaho added a garbage-time touchdown.
“I think we’re playing really well as a unit,” Peck said. “There’s definitely a lot of things that we need to work on as well. Mobile quarterbacks are obviously a challenge, but just trying to contain him in the pocket and doing your job is what stops him.”
The Griz had held Idaho to 96 rushing yards on 21 carries in the first half and lowered that to 12 yards on 13 carries in the second half. That amounted to 108 yards for Idaho, which had the No. 2 rushing offense in the Big Sky at 203 yards per game while Montana was allowing 207 rush yards per game.
The Vandals generated offense to attempt a comeback by throwing the ball and hitting deep shots. They were 9-of-14 passing for 227 yards in the second half after being 5-of-14 for 35 yards in the first half as Idaho tested UM’s pass defense, particularly cornerback Kenzel Lawler, who held up strong.
The Griz had a season-high six pass breakups after they came in with seven total in three games. Five of them came in the first half, including ex-Idaho safety Diezel Wilkinson breaking up a Hail Mary in the end zone. Lawler and safety Micah Harper each had two PBUs, including one each in the end zone.
Wood had been 7-of-19 passing for 43 yards before he launched a third-down pass to a wide-open Ryan Jezioro for 62 yards in the third quarter on what would be a touchdown drive. He later had passes of 47 and 18 yards on another touchdown drive, and a 45-yarder on Idaho’s final scoring drive.
In between, he completed a 25-yard pass, but linebacker Solomon Tuliaupupu chased down the receiver to force his second fumble in as many weeks. Safety Kade Boyd recovered the ball as it was the third time in four games he had a hand in gaining a turnover.
“I thought we were physical, both on blocks and off them,” Hauck said. “We tackled the ball carriers really well.”
The Griz were positive in the turnover margin (plus-one) for the second game in a row. They also didn’t commit a turnover for the second straight week.
They will be without starting linebacker Peyton Wing for the first half of their next game at Idaho State. He was ejected for targeting after a tackle on the final play of the third quarter.
The status of cornerback Kyon Loud is unknown after an apparent injury while trying to tackle Wood midway through the fourth quarter. He grabbed his left shoulder/upper arm as he departed the field and went straight to the locker room after athletic trainers tended to him. Prince Ford filled in for him.
“We are not the most experienced team,” Hauck said, “but we are a high-effort team that’s willing to work to improve, and I think we took another step forward tonight.”
Frank Gogola is the Senior Sports Reporter at the Missoulian and 406 MT Sports. Follow him on X @FrankGogola or email him at frank.gogola@406mtsports.com.
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