Furman at Montana

[The Jackal]

Montana is good. I get the impression that Furman is a lot better than their fans think we are.

We don't need to make it more than it is. In fact, I think Montana and Furman have a lot of similarities. It should be a good game.

[FUpaladin08]

You can go on YouTube and search “Montana Grizzly Football.” You can watch ~15 min summaries of their games with Delaware, MSU, and Sac St.

It’s pretty amazing how they seem to get 5 yards on their run plays before the first defender contacts. That’s tough to sustain all game. What’s hard to determine is if these defenses are not up to task or does Montana make good defenses look bad? I see so many missed tackles that we just haven’t seen from Furman this year, even against SEC South Carolina. They had no run game against Furman and won by 50/50 deep balls.

We’ll see what happens Friday, but I predict both offenses will be frustrated running the ball and will have to get it done throwing. It’s my hope our turnover margin takes over to secure the win.

[apaladin]

It’s hard.to get a good grip on a game by watching 15 minutes of highlights because they are highlights. Not gonna show plays that don’t do well. Need to watch the whole game.

[GrizGrad]

Montana’s Best Recruit ever says deuces before Furman comes to town. Can’t blame him. Quite a few RB’s peaced out instead of facing Furman’s D this season

That would be a great take except for the fact that Iverson has seen exactly zero time running the ball this year except in garbage time when the Griz were killing teams. Nice try, though.

Fear knows no playing time. FUBeAR can’t help it if this one is wiser than the rest of the Griz RB’s. No worries though. There’s still time for the other RB’s to ‘strain a hammy’ In Thursday walk-thru or ‘roll an ankle’ in pre-game warmups.

Eh, he had like 8 carries all season long, all in blowouts. Our redshirt freshman running back, Eli Gilman, did however win the Jerry Rice Awarad today.

[The Jackal]

You can go on YouTube and search “Montana Grizzly Football.” You can watch ~15 min summaries of their games with Delaware, MSU, and Sac St.

It’s pretty amazing how they seem to get 5 yards on their run plays before the first defender contacts. That’s tough to sustain all game. What’s hard to determine is if these defenses are not up to task or does Montana make good defenses look bad? I see so many missed tackles that we just haven’t seen from Furman this year, even against SEC South Carolina. They had no run game against Furman and won by 50/50 deep balls.

We’ll see what happens Friday, but I predict both offenses will be frustrated running the ball and will have to get it done throwing. It’s my hope our turnover margin takes over to secure the win.

It's always an interesting situation when teams that share little overlap finally play in the post season.

There's no way of knowing. Montana fans look at Furman and subjectively think the SoCon sucks, so nothing Furman does will appear that impressive.

I've watched some Big Sky games and never came away awed by the talent level of some of the teams. It's all subjective at this point.

Montana fans will point to Furman's offense struggling against Wofford. Furman fans can point that Montana also struggled in their loss to less-than-impressive NAU and squeaking out a win over D2 Ferris State. Furman's out of conference schedule was tougher than Montana's. We'd look really good against Butler and Utah Tech too.

To me, this game comes down to two thing:

1. Can our offense stay on the field, sustain, and finish drives? Those dropped passes in the end zone against UTC, for instance, have to be touchdowns. Have to be.

2. Can our defense limit the big play? Montana is going to want to throw some haymakers and get their crowd into it. We've got to keep the ball in front of us. Fly to the ball. Tackle. Hit their QB. Stuff the run.

I think the game will be won by the team that can run the ball and hit on their shots.

[FUBeAR]

Montana’s Best Recruit ever says deuces before Furman comes to town. Can’t blame him. Quite a few RB’s peaced out instead of facing Furman’s D this season

That would be a great take except for the fact that Iverson has seen exactly zero time running the ball this year except in garbage time when the Griz were killing teams. Nice try, though.

Fear knows no playing time. FUBeAR can’t help it if this one is wiser than the rest of the Griz RB’s. No worries though. There’s still time for the other RB’s to ‘strain a hammy’ In Thursday walk-thru or ‘roll an ankle’ in pre-game warmups.

Eh, he had like 8 carries all season long, all in blowouts. Our redshirt freshman running back, Eli Gilman, did however win the Jerry Rice Awarad today.

Why are you arguing with FUBeAR? It ain’t FUBeAR’s fault you got guys quitting the Team rather than face Furman’s Defense. Look, these are smart kids. They know what’s up.

And congrats to Mr. Gilman on the Award!

It’s good to see some Montana peeps actually winning awards … not like that ‘Stolen Valor’ podcast grifter pretending he earned a National Championship ring when he’s not on the 2001 Montana roster and never lettered in ish
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/side ... 0731105407
…as FUBeAR’s internet persona friend, 3 Year Letterman, likes to say…for example…

[GrizGrad]

Montana’s Best Recruit ever says deuces before Furman comes to town. Can’t blame him. Quite a few RB’s peaced out instead of facing Furman’s D this season

That would be a great take except for the fact that Iverson has seen exactly zero time running the ball this year except in garbage time when the Griz were killing teams. Nice try, though.

Fear knows no playing time. FUBeAR can’t help it if this one is wiser than the rest of the Griz RB’s. No worries though. There’s still time for the other RB’s to ‘strain a hammy’ In Thursday walk-thru or ‘roll an ankle’ in pre-game warmups.

Eh, he had like 8 carries all season long, all in blowouts. Our redshirt freshman running back, Eli Gilman, did however win the Jerry Rice Awarad today.

Why are you arguing with FUBeAR? It ain’t FUBeAR’s fault you got guys quitting the Team rather than face Furman’s Defense. Look, these are smart kids. They know what’s up.

And congrats to Mr. Gilman on the Award!

It’s good to see some Montana peeps actually winning awards … not like that ‘Stolen Valor’ podcast grifter pretending he earned a National Championship ring when he’s not on the 2001 Montana roster and ain’t lettered in ish…as FUBeAR’s internet persona friend, 3 Year Letterman likes to say…for example…

Not sure if this is meant to be satirical, sarcastic or both. Just adding some context. Looking forward to welcoming you all to town later this week.

[Davemeister]

"Wayne's World", Party Time!, Ex-cel-lent!

Dave, do you have a question for me?

As a matter of fact I do. Are you skeered of the Big Bad Griz?

[saltyshaker]

if we get by the griz bears and maybe then the bizons at home, we make it to frisco where we likely face only jackrabbits.surely we could handle that.but then again we lost to the little terriers.not scared of the big animal teams but watch out for those little ones.

[FUDude]

Last night we were downtown having a bite to eat at the Missoula Club, wandered over to Reds for a beer and then ended up at the Silver Dollar bar, Missoula has a pretty nice downtown area. Lots of places to eat and drink that are within walking distance.

I really wouldn't put too much stock into the stuff those guys on egriz say. The general consensus within our group and other locals is that place is toxic. They have 5-10 regular posters that control the board. Moderators that ban anyone that isn't in their club. One of the moderators is an accused pedophile, of course he's the most aggressive one. They told me about how the site condones any crime if the football program is involved. They have a lawyer on their site that threatens posters, they look the other way at rape allegations and support misogyny. Google it. That site was involved in a nasty rape thing when they hired their current coach back. Most of the people having drinks with us had nothing good to say about the site or the people that post there. Its best to stay away and let our team do our talking for us on Friday night.

One last thing about their pod cast guys. The fat guy on Twitter that tries to run the site is a local realtor that has a bad homelife and tries to escape it by being the face of the Griz, the guy never played a snap of football and was a band member in highschool. So you have a head coach that never played football and a realtor from the band as the face of your program. You really can't make this story up.

The site has a pay side to it they were showing me and that is where these creeps really talk poorly of other posters, its cult like but thankfully its just a few people that live in mommies basement that are the voice of the Grizz

We are going to a steak house tonight after work and then to some local breweries for some drinks, nice little town to be in for a few days.

[The Jackal]

FUDude made a point on the other thread that I thought was interesting. There's no real science behind it, but Furman is going to be a bit different than what UM has seen recently.

Delaware's two leading rushers against Montana were 183 and 188lbs, respectively.

Montana State's leading rusher the week before was their QB at 209 lbs. Their top running back is listed at 199.

Portland State, the week before, that had a 225 lbs back but the second guy was 170lbs.

Sacramento State's leading rusher against them was 5'9 215. The second guy was 193lbs.

Both Idaho's leading rusher against them are listed as 185.

If Furman is full speed at Running Back (big "if"), we'll go 231 (Roberto), Robinson (215), Hicks (212), and Anderson (200). Huff too is listed at 216 and might be one of the more physical runners in the country.

While all of this is "on paper," Furman may present a little different challenge than what Montana has seen a lot of this season. The Paladin offense has a lot more beef in the backfield than what the Griz have seen in the Big Sky and saw against Delaware. Furman's smallest running back is going to be bigger than most of Montana's opponents biggest backs.

Maybe that means something, maybe it doesn't.

[FUDude]

FU offense is really built for handling the 3-3-5 defense that Montana runs.

They play a lot of zone and guys like Anderson and Pline will eat that up. Anderson specifically is good in space and finds holes to sit down in zone defenses. He is one of the keys on offense IMO get him the damn ball.

Huff just needs to be accurate and consistent on the short throws and pick these guys apart. Possess the ball, take time off the clock and finish drives in the red zone. Its the little things, fundamentals and turnovers that will win this game for us.

I have very little doubt our defense can stop this offense. Stop the run and we win. Their QB isn't going to beat us throwing the ball or playing from behind. McDowell is not accurate and telegraphs his throws, I think we can get one or two INTs off him in this game. McDowell threw an INT on the first series last week against a lesser defense. He fumbled in the Montana St game so he is prone to give the ball away. When he runs he doesn't protect the ball very well so we will have chances to knock one out there too.

They won't put up a lot of points in this game on our defense, We need the lead and to play in front. They will wilt

[FUDude]

This guy is very disrespectful of our team in the private room, you can see hints of it on his twitter account. Lots of local people in town have less than stellar opinions of him professionally and personally. So take what he says with a grain of salt he is not like other fans. One of the guys in our group showed us a guy that was really going after "the tubby tuba player" on twitter. 15-20 people at the bar all had roughly the same thing to say about him so it isn't just a minority opinion.

Here is his homer twitter account
https://twitter.com/Bwahlberg

[FUBeAR]

FU offense is really built for handling the 3-3-5 defense that Montana runs.

They play a lot of zone and guys like Anderson and Pline will eat that up. Anderson specifically is good in space and finds holes to sit down in zone defenses. He is one of the keys on offense IMO get him the damn ball.

Huff just needs to be accurate and consistent on the short throws and pick these guys apart. Possess the ball, take time off the clock and finish drives in the red zone. Its the little things, fundamentals and turnovers that will win this game for us.

I have very little doubt our defense can stop this offense. Stop the run and we win. Their QB isn't going to beat us throwing the ball or playing from behind. McDowell is not accurate and telegraphs his throws, I think we can get one or two INTs off him in this game. When he runs he doesn't protect the ball so we will have chances to knock one out.

They won't put up a lot of points in this game on our defense, We need the lead and to play in front. They will wilt

Been watchin' their 3-3 a bit - not really enough to make firm 'calls' ... but FUBeAR gets a sense that FU's Inside Zone/Zone Read schemes could be pretty effective.

Their 3-3 looks like the Harlem Globetrotters running the 3 man weave down court - they are stunting EVERY play with those 6 and occasionally one of the other 5 getting involved - elaborate 1 over 2 twists on the D-Line with X-Stunts by the LB's at the same time. Blocking that kind of ish with a Man / Gap scheme is pretty hard...not impossible, but really hard. We've been running a lot of counter / counter-trey with H-Back recently and that's a down, down, down, kick, kick/log kinda scheme....can be done against crazy stunts with guys staying 'on path' and picking up the 'bad jerseys' but it's hard.

Their DL isn't as big as the FU DL - they average 15-20 lighter. Their #2 NG is 6-3 244 for example - but they are very athletic and they will RUN - run to penetrate and run to the Football ... but if Zone Blocking is done right (which it often is not)....only the EMOL should be able to get penetration/depth...and that when the RB sticks his foot in the ground and finds the seam inside...thinking this is IZ / Split Zone, but not sure....



Anyway - based on the little tape he's seen, FUBeAR is gonna recommend LEAN on 'em with Zone Schemes and POUND 'em with BIG BACKS ... until they regret their decision to play Defense. Will try to watch more tape - this could be all wrong - just - really what FUBeAR saw in about 20-25 plays vs. Delaware

[Bootie]

You can go on YouTube and search “Montana Grizzly Football.” You can watch ~15 min summaries of their games with Delaware, MSU, and Sac St.

It’s pretty amazing how they seem to get 5 yards on their run plays before the first defender contacts. That’s tough to sustain all game. What’s hard to determine is if these defenses are not up to task or does Montana make good defenses look bad? I see so many missed tackles that we just haven’t seen from Furman this year, even against SEC South Carolina. They had no run game against Furman and won by 50/50 deep balls.

We’ll see what happens Friday, but I predict both offenses will be frustrated running the ball and will have to get it done throwing. It’s my hope our turnover margin takes over to secure the win.

The comment about runners getting 5 yards before contact reminds me of the frustration of GSU offense of old, where thise guys could somehow fall down for 5 yards regularly. Tough to control and stop but getting them in 3rd and long does the trick. We all know it can be done, and have seen it done, when no one thought it could be done. I’ll never forget the stunned looks on the fans faces in Paulson stadium that day, trying to figure out how the unthinkable happened. Whose house? Our house. Go Paladins!!