Sep. 11—The weekly Montana Grizzly football press conferences aren’t generally a lengthy affair, and Monday’s edition unsurprisingly — given UM’s second-half performance in a 27-24 loss at North Dakota — was tight.
Especially succinct was coach Bobby Hauck.
“We were a dominant team in the first half,” Hauck said. “The first half we looked like a team that could beat anybody on our schedule and the second half we looked like a team that couldn’t win. So this week we need to figure out which team we’re going to be.”
Hauck brought two Grizzlies to the presser that, in the 2022-23 seasons, lined up at running back. Linebacker and captain Isaiah Childs and receiver Xavier Harris.
“I know we’re eager as a group right now, seniors and captains, to get back in and game-plan,” said Childs, who did not have a tackle at UND. “We have to execute when the opportunities come and we’re going to do that this week.”
It was pointed out that early last season the Grizzlies fell 28-14 at Northern Arizona — a jarring loss after a 3-0 start — ahead of a 10-game winning streak that ended in the FCS title game.
Childs didn’t see the silver lining on Monday.
“(Losing) is not our end goal,” he said. “We don’t bang our heads around Dornblaser all summer for nothing.”
The Fighting Hawks, who climbed to No. 10 in both FCS polls this week while Montana fell to Nos. 8 (media) and 9 (coaches), piled up 243 yards of offense the second half while sacking UM quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat four times. That was in 17 offensive snaps, for 18 yards of losses.
Mainly the hosts played keepaway, and played it well.
“We made plays the first half, and the second half they executed better than we did,” Hauck said. “They ran inside zone, they completed a few slants, a couple quarterback scrambles. That’s about what it was, a bunch of 4-yard gains.”
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/big-sky-notebook-griz-look-130100440.html
Author : Daily Inter Lake, Kalispell, Mont.
Publish date : 2024-09-11 13:01:00
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