Sep. 28—In the 90th meeting between the No. 8 Idaho Vandals and the No. 5 Montana Grizzlies football teams, the Grizzlies held off the Vandals 41-30 on Saturday at Washington-Grizzly Stadium to keep the Little Brown Stein in Missoula.
The Grizzlies (4-0) stifled the Idaho offense for most of the game and dominated through their own rushing attack led by Big Sky Conference rushing leader Eli Gillman.
Idaho coach Thomas Ford Jr. said that he was proud of the competitiveness and unwavering belief that the Vandals (2-3) showed throughout the game. He said moving into the rest of Big Sky play, he feels confident.
“I feel great. I mean, we competed our butts off against a very, very good opponent — a really well-coached opponent,” Ford said. “I think that we’re going to have the upper hand in some of these matchups we have coming up. I don’t know that we’re going to see an opponent quite like this for a little while, but with that being said, every week in the Big Sky, you gotta go play like it’s a championship game, and that’s how we’ll attack it.”
A struggling Idaho offense
The Vandal offense had trouble moving the ball for most of the game.
The short and intermediate routes that Ford and offensive coordinator Matt Linehan enjoy so much that they call them “layups” and the “engine of the offense” were not present in this contest.
Ford said that the Grizzlies were simply forcing the Vandals to take deeper passes, essentially eliminating the layups.
“When they’re playing press man, you can’t take layups,” Ford said. “They’re forcing it into deeper passes with conversions and things like that. But again, that’s part of the process. They do a good job here on defense, and I think they tried to take those layups away from us, and so we had to look elsewhere.”
Missing both starting running backs, senior Elisha Cummings and sophomore Art Williams, is not something that went unnoticed. Idaho relies on the run to unlock the rest of its offense and senior running back Nate Thomas was stuffed a multitude of times.
Thomas finished with 19 carries for 70 yards and no scores, averaging just 3.7 yards per carry.
The first half was the biggest struggle for the offense.
Sophomore quarterback Joshua Wood threw 5-for-14 for 35 yards through the end of the first half.
But Wood did come alive more in the second half. He finished the game 14-for-28 for 262 yards and no passing TDs. He ran the ball 10 times for 32 yards and three touchdowns.
Late in the third quarter, Wood threw for two explosive plays that flipped the field for the Vandals.
Wood scrambled outside the pocket to the right and hit freshman receiver Ryan Jezioro on a deep route for a 62-yard gain.
And then a similar play happened, with Wood scrambling to his right and then hitting sophomore receiver Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar for a gain of 47 yards late in the third quarter.
Idaho also converted on three 2-point conversions, but it was not enough to overcome the Grizzlies’ strong offensive presence.
Montana’s elite offense
Idaho’s defense struggled to contain the elite offensive play from the Grizzlies.
Gillman, who was already leading the Big Sky Conference in rushing yards, exploded for a career-high 27 carries for 142 yards. Gillman also scored twice.
Gillman was the bell-cow back for the Griz and was the difference-maker in this matchup.
As a team, the Grizzlies rushed for 190 yards and four touchdowns.
“I thought we did a good job slowing him down,” Ford said. “The guy is a hard runner, and they’re going to continue to feed him. And as the game (went) 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, so I thought we did a good job on him, but not a great job, and obviously not good enough to win.”
The other facet of the offense was the passing game, which was not as crucial because the rushing game had achieved such great success. Quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat passed 17-for-23, throwing for 223 yards and one touchdown.
Redshirt senior wide receiver Michael Wortham totaled 164 all-purpose yards. He had 55 yards receiving, 19 yards rushing, 74 yards on kickoff returns and 16 yards on punt returns.
Wortham also scored twice, once on the ground and the other through the air.
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Looking forward for the Vandals
Ford said that the Vandals simply cannot choose to dwell on this loss; rather, the team will have to move on as quickly as possible.
“Well, we have no choice,” Ford said. “But when you take a step back, and we will do that this weekend, and you really look at the grand scheme of things, everything that we want is still at play for us: an opportunity to make the playoffs, heck, an opportunity to win this league.
“If these guys obviously run the table, they’ll win the league. But this is a hard league to run the table in, and if we can do the same thing, we could be in a position to still win our league and certainly make the playoffs.”
Idaho is entering a bye week this week, so there’s time to take a deep dive into each side of the ball and try to eliminate any weaknesses.
The Vandals will continue their season against Northern Colorado on Oct. 11, back at home in the P1FCU Kibbie Dome.
Montana 41, Idaho 30
First Quarter
UM — FG Morrison 37, 11:11.
UM — Gillman 2 run (Morrison kick), 4:37.
IDA — FG Adams 31, 13:22.
Second Quarter
UM — Wortham 11 run (Morrison kick), 7:02.
IDA — FG Adams 41, 2:55.
Third Quarter
UM — Wortham 22 pass from Ah Yat, (Morrison kick), 9:22.
IDA — Wood 8 run (Cortez-Menjivar pass from Wood), 3:43.
UM — Gillman 6 run (Morrison kick), :38.
Fourth Quarter
IDA — Wood 4 run (Thomas pass from Wood), 13:31.
UM — Ah Yat 1 run (Morrison kick), 7:49.
UM — FG Morrison, 1:56.
IDA — Wood 1 run (Kincheloe pass from Wood), :19.
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing — Idaho, Thomas 19-70, Wood 10-32, Matheney 3-4, McWilliams 1-2, Kincheloe 1-0. Montana, Gillman 27-142, Wortham 6-19, Ah Yat 7-17, Rocker Jr. 2-8, Davis 1-5.
Passing — Idaho, Wood 14-28-0—262. Montana, Ah Yat 17-23-0—223.
Receiving — Idaho, Jezioro 4-102, Superales 4-98, Thomas 3-11, Cortez-Menjivar 2-48, Harste 1-3. Montana, Deck 5-67, Wortham 5-55, Davis 4-63, Gillman 1-17, Dever 1-16, Finch 1-5.
Junt can be reached at 208-848-2258, tjunt@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @TrevorJunt.
