MISSOULA – Both the offense and defense had their bright moments in front of about 1,500 fans at the Polson High Athletic Complex as the University of Montana Grizzlies wrapped up 2008 spring football practice with a scrimmage.
All four quarterbacks saw action in the 61-play scrimmage Saturday afternoon that lasted about an hour, and they combined for 171 yards and two touchdowns, and completed 17-of-30 passes with no interceptions.
Senior quarterback Cole Bergquist was 8-of-13-0 for 90 yards, while sophomore Andrew Selle completed 6-of-11-0 for 47 yards. Signal-callers Jeff Larson and Clint Stapp had a limited number of reps, but each threw a touchdown pass.
Larson connected with junior wide receiver Marc Mariani for an 18-yard touchdown pass. Larson completed 2-of-4-0 passes for 19 yards.
Stapp had a 15-yard scoring pass to junior Bryan Riggs, who made a spectacular leaping catch in the back of the end zone. Stapp was 1-of-2 with his one completion a TD.
“We’ve got a pretty heated quarterback competition (between Bergquist and Selle) going on right now,” said sixth-year Montana head coach Bobby Hauck. “We had a prescribed number of plays for each quarterback, and I think everybody got just about exactly what we had planned on. Both Andrew and Cole had an equal number of reps with the number one line and the number two lines, and they both did some good things when they were in there.”
The Griz defense had three sacks and provided constant pressure, forcing the quarterbacks out of the pocket on numerous occasions.
“Our run game didn’t look very good on offense today and we need to get that going,” Hauck said. “Conversely, though, the run defense looked good. I thought our throwing game was really good today on offense, so now I’m worried about our pass defense. But, that’s just how it goes in spring football.”
Tom Bauer, Ryan Featherston and Tyler Hobbs all registered sacks.