Bears Invade MSU’s Campus, Griz Travel to CA, Humans Discover Water on Mars [superfans]
This week, the Montana Mint Superfans recap last week’s victories, the discovery of water on Mars, and the very winnable games this weekend.
Montana Mint: Ok Superfans, the Griz have four games under their belt. The Cats have three. Based on this sample size, who do you think is better?
Hot Take Nate (Cats Fan): I think the best way to ask is to pretend the Cat-Griz game is this weekend – what would the spread be from Vegas?
Clarence Toole (Griz Fan): Interesting hypothetical. I think the line would be Cats -2.5. Griz Quarterback Chad “Chaz” Chalich only has three quarters under his belt, so Cats would be slightly favored. With a healthy Gustafson, or if the game was in Missoula, I think the Griz become slight favorites.
Hot Take Nate (Cats Fan): I’d stay close to that. Cats -3 because they’re at home.
Bear Tycoon (Griz Fan): I might put the line slightly higher if the game were tomorrow. Cats at -5. Their offense is legit. They’ve played three games and put up 45, 50, and 45 points. That is an average of 46.7 points per game, tops in the Big Sky and 5th overall in the FCS. They are also averaging a silly 580 yards per game (2nd in Big Sky, 4th in the FCS), and in the top 15 nationally for rush yards per game (14th), passing yards per game (7th) and passing efficiency (5th).
Coach (Cats fan): Loving the Cats offensive efficiency at this point. However, we’ve seen this many times before and when November rolls around we hit a lull due to either injuries OR cold weather. I want to see this continue throughout a season, rather than peaking in October. We need to continue to evolve until we hit “full speed” right around November 21st.
Z-Train (Griz fan): But what are the Griz defensive rankings? Probably not mind blowing but I would think respectable.
Coach (Cats fan): Love how impossible it is for Z-Train to say anything remotely congratulatory about the Cats. No mention of the offense, just straight to the Griz D.
Z-Train (Griz fan): I just don’t know anything about the Cats…I don’t watch their games. I leave the analysis to the Cats fans. But yes the Fat Cat offense is obviously crazy good and you guys have been on quite a run of solid qbs. I’ve been jealous at times over the years. But don’t look to me to toot the car horn, that’s why we have Fat Cat fanatics!
Coach (Cats fan): Riddle me this…Cats beat a ranked team and jump up one spot in the coaches poll. Griz beat an un-ranked team and move up three spots. What the fuck is that?
Also, Holmes had a monster game Saturday. His stat line looks like what some guys get in a season!
Clarence Toole (Griz Fan): In the Big Sky, Holmes has 8 sacks. The next closest guy has 3. He’s also leading in tackles for loss. UM’s Van Ackeren is second in tackles. I wouldn’t normally care much about that, but he was a fullback before this season. He just said, fuck-it, I can play DT.
Fullback, D-Line, Whatever.
Z-Train (Griz Fan): I like that we call the Griz QB Chaz, and I want to start spinning nicknames off. Like Chizzy Chazzy Bang Bang, Chaztidy Belt, Chaz Hands, Last Chaz Gulch, Assless Chaz, Chaztise, David Chazzidy, Cha Cha (Cha-d Cha-lich).
Montana Mint: Did you guys see a bear was loose on MSU’s campus? Is that foreshadowing to anything later in the year?
Bear Tycoon (Griz Fan): Ha! We posted the student alert MSU sent out about the bear on our Facebook page. And of course someone took offense to it.
I love it. Scotty can back me up on this: We can literally post anything to the Montana Mint, and someone will complain about. If we say Montana is the best place in the world, someone will complain because they worry it will alert out-of-staters about the state’s greatness.
Scotty Mint (Cats Fan): That comment made me laugh. Like every stoner with earbuds in on their way to class is constantly on alert for bears on campus just because it is Montana. They respond better to a text than if they walked right by the damned thing.
Z-Train (Griz fan): I like that we must be generally aware of bear attacks at all times idea. Right now, I am unprepared.
Coach (Cats fan): I carry bear spray with me at all times. That and licorice nibs.
Montana Mint: The Z-Train dubbed FAT CATS are on the road to North Arizona, and the Griz head to lowly UC Davis? What should people be on the lookout for?
Bear Tycoon (Griz Fan): I assume we all agree that both teams win, right? They are both favored by more than a touchdown.
Coach (Cats fan): Agreed. However, coming off a big win and playing in the NAU Skydome worries me a bit. I’ve been nervous about NAU since I was 10 or 11 years old. I remember my dad telling me we could go to the NAU game, but that the Cats would lose because of Archie Amerson. I was pissed he doubted the Cats, but we went and he was right. Archie was hella bonkerz.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): I have no doubt that NAU scores often this week but I also have no doubt that the Cats score way more. The Cats are the greatest show on the Big Sky turf and they get to take it to the Walkup Sky Dome. The Over/Under on this game is 67 – the Cats could score that by themselves! Prukop is a monster and I think he’ll get to have some more fun this weekend.
Bear Tycoon (Griz Fan): There will be a LOT of points scored. I sent mentioned stats about the Cats offense earlier. Simply put, they are good. Might be great. Their defense on the other hand is bad. Close to being the worst.
The Cats rush defense is 114 out of 123 FCS teams. They are allowing 262.3 rush yards per game!
Even worse, they are ranked 122 out of 123 for defensive pass efficiency. woof.
On top of this is the fact that the Cats have only played FCS teamsand below, so the 114 out of 123 might actually be an INFLATED ranking! A quick look of teams that rank below in rushing defense shows that many of them got smoked by FBS school. Savannah St is allowing 265 yards rushing per game, but played Colorado State and Akron. Howard University is allowing 281 rush yards per game, but they played at Appalachian State and at Boston College (they lost a combined 125-0 to those teams). The rush yards from these superior FBS schools are factored into the averages!
Hot Take Nate (Cats Fan): I’ll never really defend the Cats defense – any team in college football can score on them. But no one can stop their offense, either.
Clarence Toole (Griz Fan): The Cats should be fine. UM beat NAU last week with their lock-down defense. NAU’s freshman QB, Case Cookus, was overwhelmed. He still might be shell shocked from all the sacks he ate. Can MSU’s defense bring the sort of pressure that flusters Cookus? Doubtful. I can see the NAU offense flying a little faster this week.
However, MSU could easily rack up +600 yards and Dakota Prukop will probably rush for over 100 yards – which he’s already done 5 times in his career.
Hot Take Nate (Cats Fan): Moving to the Griz, they are laying 13 points at UC Davis. Let’s be clear: UC Davis isn’t a real team. UC Davis is basically the Harvard of wine-making schools. There are 30,000 students as a whole at UC Davis and only 100 a year graduate from their viticultural program. Great med school too.
The UC Davis stadium is a lifeless, insanely hot bowl in the middle of their campus. The crowd is more worried about finding shade in the shadow of their scoreboard than actually watching the game. I think UM comes out and overwhelms Davis with their defense and I don’t think their offense will have any trouble finding the end zone, either.
Clarence Toole (Griz Fan): I believe that UM will win this game with all my heart. UC Davis won 2 games last year and has started out 0-4 this year. However, I’m going to give you a few reasons to take the Aggies with the points:
First, They have played every team tough this year. They only lost to FBS Nevada by 14. They followed up with a 10-point loss to a Joe Glenn coached South Dakota team. They put up 27 points in a 20-point loss to FBS Hawaii. Finally, they only lost by 7 to North Dakota. They have been respectable in every game.
Second, this could be another trap game scenario. I hate betting on 18-23 year old men. I was an idiot until I was…well, I’m still a clusterfuck. Will UM see an 0-4 team and give less that 100% when they run out on the field to be greeted by all 5,112 fans (which is how many people showed up to the South Dakota game)? I could see a slow start for the Griz.
Z-Train (Griz fan): Stop the goddamn presses. This has been the greatest week of my adult life–liquid water on Mars AND NOW THEY ARE DEVELOPING A LASER RAZOR. Check out this Kickstarter!
Montana Mint: Take it away, Z-Train.
Clarence Toole (Griz Fan): Did you see how slow that laser was cutting through arm hair? It’d take me a full Saturday to tackle one testicle. What was up with them standing behind equations scrawled on a board – that made me laugh.
Z-Train (Griz fan): Also notice the inventor’s accent changes. I think it’s Icelandic at first… hard to tell.
But seriously, now that they’ve found water on Mars can we just start a space email?
Clarence Toole (Griz Fan): I was over the moon to hear about liquid water on Mars. I think all of us have expected that somewhere (and at sometime) extraterrestrial life existed. But the potential it is in our own backyards? That’s exciting.
I’d be really happy for any life to exist on Mars, but I hope there are complex communities of organisms. Because it’s been hypothesized that life on Earth may have been delivered here on the backs of asteroids, what if the microbes are exactly like those on earth? It’s interesting to think about how some earth bugs would fare on Mars.
Damn, I’m really energized by a thing we won’t have answers to for like 20 years.
Bear Tycoon (Griz Fan): I spent all Monday on Reddit digesting the Mars news. It’s incredible. Besides the significance of the announcement on our species, my favorite part was discovering the existence of Catharine Conley. She is NASA’s “Planetary Protection Officer.” Her job is to minimize the chances of life inadvertently crossing the solar system, like preventing earth microbes getting into the water on Mars. That is a lot of responsibility for a human person!
Z-Train (Griz fan): The Curiosity and Opportunity Rovers can’t go check out the water because they weren’t sterilized on earth and we don’t want to intro earth microbes into the water. Just incredible.
Coach (Cats fan): Z-Train, you’re just sitting at home drinking scotch and mass replying to us, aren’t you? Just whatever comes to mind you pause the ole X-box and fire away, right?
Hot Take Nate (Cats Fan): Reading comments from Z-train is funny. At least once in every email he makes us critically think about the word he really wanted to use. [EDITOR’S NOTE: We clean it up for you, our faithful readers].
Z-Train (Griz fan): HAHAHAHA
Hot Take Nate (Cats Fan): Finally no typos.
Z-Train (Griz fan): what a miserable person. You must agree with the substance if you only complain about a couple iPhone correction errors…Fat Cats!!!!
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