The Griz are 51.5 Point Favorites This Weekend
This weekend, the University of Montana Grizzlies (3-1) are hosting the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils (0-5). The Griz are an unbelievable 51.5 favorites in the game. Some Griz fans are looking forward to watching a blowout. Others are making plans to go hunting. Montana Mint Sports will be in attendance…will we be watching a bloodbath? We have the answers to your burning questions
Who the heck is this team?
Z-Train (Griz fan): Mississippi Valley State is a HBCU FCS school that plays in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. They’ve lost their first five games of the season ugly:
@ Eastern Michigan: L 14 – 61
Alabama A&M: L 16 – 35
@ Texas Southern: L 0 – 31
Prairie View: L 21 – 56
@ Jackson State: L 14 – 16
If you’re keeping track at home, they are losing by an average score of 13-40.
Alumni include Jerry Rice (duh) and Deacon Jones. The SWAC apparently (and completely unknown to me) has led the FCS in average attendance FOR 36 OF THE LAST 37 YEARS. They average about 12k per game, 3k more than the BSC in 2015.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): My buddy played baseball at MVSU and said most people went to games to watch the band at halftime.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): Deacon Jones was an insane pass rusher! Known mostly for his “head-slap” technique that he deployed indiscriminately. If you want to know exactly what I mean, listen to this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm2l0pxYw-4
They sound bad. How bad are they?
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): Well, 0-5 is about as bad as you can be. There are only two other 0-5 schools in all of the FCS (Furman and Abilene Christian).
Z-Train (Griz fan): Their offense might be historically bad. Through five game, they’ve thrown for 1142 yards, 6 TDs, and 7 INTs. But get this – they have 73 CUMULATIVE rushing yards on the year! Not per game. Total!
Their QB has a bunch of the negative rushing yds. I don’t know if that means he gets sacked constantly or they have the worst option attack in history. Either way, I expect Johnson and Kidder to be spending a lot of time meeting at Bray like Lady and the Tramp sucking up spaghetti.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): In their loss to Jackson State, MVSU went 0-11 on 3rd down conversion attempts! The game hasn’t started yet and I’m already feeling bad for them.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): Teams that have gotten into the red zone against MSVU have scores ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time. And they’ve let the opposing team into the red zone (24 times) more often than all but 10 FCS school. Woof.
Will the Griz cover the 51.5 point spread?
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): The line started at 54.5 points and has been dropping, meaning money is going towards MSVU. At first glance, it seems ridiculous that the Griz would be favored by this much over another FCS school, but Vegas knows what they’re doing. The Griz will almost certainly get up big in the first half, and will almost certainly play their backups in the second half.
If Stitt was playing his starters the whole game, of course the Griz would cove. I guess he’ll not only play the second stringers, but also not show a lot of creativity in his game plan. He’ll want to minimize useful game film for future opponents.
I don’t gamble, but if I did, I would bet on the Griz to win, but not to cover. Griz win 38-7 with Gus and the first stringers sitting for about half the game, and the second stringers not dominating as much as they’ll need to.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): Even if some nerd from MVSU created a time machine to bring Jerry and Deacon in their prime to WaGriz this Saturday, I still take the Griz and the points. My prediction is that Joey Counts gets a rushing TD.
Z-Train (Griz fan): Not only is MVSU bad, but the Griz have been playing great. Look at Gus. In 7 games last year, he threw for 1984 yds and 12 TDs, completing 58% of his passes. This year through 4 (with a stinker in a win at UNI, but still a stinker), he’s got 1304 and 10 with a 64% completion rate. That’s an increase of 43 yds per game . Plus Jeremy Calhoun now has 14 TDs in 14 career games, with 9 scores in 10 games last year and 5 in 4 games this year. He’s got a nose for the end zone AND he’s averaging 5.2 yds per carry this year.
Griz will go for 50 but will give up a couple loss of concentration TDs. I say 55-17.
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