BOZEMAN — A season ago, Montana’s football program was in disarray. The Grizzlies missed the playoffs for the first time in recent memory, their quarterback was banished due to off-the-field issues and they lost to the despised Bobcats at home.
That’s all behind them now. With a 10-2 record (6-2 in the Big Sky), the Grizzlies will return to the FCS playoffs, Jordan Johnson is back calling signals and on Saturday they defeated Montana State 28-14.
Johnson threw for 250 yards and a touchdown and Jordan Canada ran for two other scores as UM overcame an 82-yard punt return by MSU’s Shawn Johnson, that put the Bobcats (7-5, 5-3) ahead 7-0 in the first quarter.
“To come here and beat our rivals, that’s unbelievable,” UM’s Johnson said. During his time away from the game, he admitted he considered leaving the program. “One of the big reasons I stayed at Montana was so I could play in this game.”
The Grizzlies closed out the first half with Canada’s 7-yard dash to knot it at 7. They then opened the second half with a 3-yard score by Travon Van to silence the record crowd of 21,527 at Bobcat Stadium.
“To go into halftime 7-7 knowing you’re going to get the ball back is huge,” Johnson explained. “At the beginning of the game we just shot ourselves in the foot; it was just us beating us. Once we settled in and played our football, we did all right.”
Johnson completed 23 of 35 passes for 250 yards. It was his 20-yard scoring strike to Clay Pierson in the fourth quarter that put the game out of reach. That three-play drive was setup by Brock Coyle’s second forced fumble of the day, this time jarring the ball loose from the normally sure-handed Cody Kirk.
“He didn’t see me; I think he thought he had daylight,” said Coyle, who grew up in Bozeman but always rooted for the Grizzlies. “I came up behind him and came down pretty hard on the ball and it came out. It was huge.”
The Bobcats answered Pierson’s touchdown catch with Shawn Johnson’s second score, this time from 1-yard out, but Canada closed out the scoring with an 8-yard run. Canada led all runners with 71 yards. Jamaal Jones was Johnson’s favorite target, hauling in eight passes for 120 yards. The Grizzlies finished with 365 total yards, and were not hurt by a blocked punt nor by a blocked field goal attempt.
“We played some good football a year ago in that 5-6 season,” UM coach Mick Delaney said. “We had a lot of close games and we learned a lot from them. Any time you don’t learn from adversity, you’re not going to get better. From every game we’ve played we’ve learned something to help us get better the next week.”
The loss was the Bobcats’ third straight and once again they struggled on offense, being held to just 277 total yards.
“We have to go back and look at what we did early in the season that was beneficial to us and what changed in those last three games,” MSU quarterback DeNarius McGhee said.
McGhee topped MSU with 57 yards on the ground while throwing for 160 yards on 17 completions in 33 attempts.
“We knew the offense went through (McGhee) and we shut him down pretty good today,” said Coyle who led all players with 11 tackles.
Held to 15 first downs, MSU was forced to punt eight times.
“Our defense was lights out,” Delaney said. “There were so many things that made the difference, but the No. 1 thing was our defense.”