Montana 34 South Dakota 17: Post Game Recap
It was a fairly solid road win today for the Griz, who were anywhere from 3 to 5.5 underdogs headed into this game. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t flawless, but it has the team coming home with a big win and headed into what’s looking to be a tough home opener.
Some takeaways
– Toure / Akem / and JLM showed early that they’re a force to be reckoned with. 26 catches, 341 yards, and 2 TDs between the trio. I’d been saying that Toure is poised to bounce back, and while its just 1 game, this suggests he is well on his way. Akem just picked up right back where he left off, and was just outrunning cornerbacks like nothing
– Dalton Sneed should be a good candidate for Offensive Player of the Week. 430 yards passing, 3 passing TDs, 1 rushing TD. Yeah two costly picks, one was a throw away while being hit, but the other was just a bad one into triple coverage. Sneed worked the offense well and helped the team march down the field with really good frequency. What I liked the most from Dalton today was that he didn’t opt to take off running immediately in the face of pressure, he kept his eyes downfield, and many times resulted in pass connections because he still was looking to complete the throw. Sneed might’ve been keeping on some read plays a little too often, but that’ll clean up.
– Knight looks to be like RB1 to me. One bad drop in the pass game that wound up being a factor in a stalled drive, but otherwise he made guys miss, showed some good patience waiting for gaps to open up, and ran pretty well. I still like Eastwood as a change of pace/bruiser guy, his one near lost fumble did scare me, but he seems like a guy they can rely on more in pass-protection. Knight’s 7.3 ypc was largely aided by a 17 yard draw play, however he still had a solid showing considering his shared touches.
– Was it me or did Dante and Jace have some off-moments? Early on both were having issues in space, Jace drops a sure-fire pick (the drive wound up turnover on downs anyways), he also extended a would-be TD drive with a roughing call on a 3rd down pass. I see they both statistically finished well, so obviously they balanced out the game, but it seemed to me there were some rough moments for them.
– Its early but the pass defense had some rough moments. Glad Nash returned. It seemed to be a little of bend / don’t break today as USD was able to get some yards between the 20’s. While UM largely outgained them in the 2nd half especially it seemed that USD was able to move the ball with some ease through the air. However, there was some clutch moments too. Hauck breaking up a 4th down pass. Calhoun’s beauty of an INT. The early pass defense. Physical play by the corners. If they can build on the successes from today and work out the errors I like what what we have.
– Some fresh faces today were in the backfield a lot. Rice, Mamula, Gubner. And then there was Jesse Sims who was a damn wrecking ball in the middle – he looked to be ok as well at the end of the game.
– Griz O-line I’d grade a C+ to B- for pass protection, which is vastly improved over last season. Sneed still had moments of pressure but seemed to have more time overall. Despite one penalty it appeared that Ganoung (sp?) played most of the game at RG. The issue, early, was push in the running game. It just wasn’t there. USD’s rush defense last season was garbage, and while they have a new DC I was hoping for more there.
– Tough early miss by Purdy but he rebounded, maybe just some nerves.
– USD has some talent on offense but it seemed to be that when their bigger running back, Henry, seemed to go out with an ankle injury they lost something that worked. It’ll be interesting to see other teams and how they look at that on film. As a bigger/bruiser back he was having early success. The backup ripped off some runs himself but seemed to be less of a factor. Their QB honestly didn’t impress me as much as I thought he would. The Griz had a good game plan to generally not let him run wild, he netted 25 and had a long of 21.
– Maybe the best thing to come away from with this win was the 4th quarter. No points allowed by the defense, in fact 2 turnovers on downs and 1 interception. The offense, while it didn’t score, ran out the clock and even got the run game churning a bit. I noticed despite so many pass attempts and such limited rushing success the Griz had almost 36:00 of TOP. We’re starting to see more things that we know Hauck really wants this team to do. This was something I was really anxious to see if that growth was there and in the small scope of this game, it was. Honestly I’m not sure if last year’s team wins this game, even with a 14 point lead in the 4th quarter. There could’ve been some more unforced errors, and as we saw a lot last season the defense in the 4th really lost their ability to keep opponents out of the end zone.
Picture via GoGriz.com
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