Griz have played a weak schedule and their fans should calm down
The Montana Grizzlies are enjoying a 5-1 record, including recent back-to-back wins where they outscored their opponents 135-14. Despite their dominant first half of the season, some in the state (mostly in Bozeman) are saying the Griz should temper expectations due to a weak schedule. Are subpar opponents the reason for the Griz success this year?
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): Is now a good time to bring up that the Griz schedule has been pretty pathetic?
Z-Train (Griz Fan): When you are this good, the Big Sky Conference is cakewalk.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): Griz have played ONE big sky team over .500 (Cal Poly). They’ve only played one other team over.500 this season – St Francis who is 4-3. What does 13-25 mean to you? That’s the combined record of every team the Griz have played this year. Damnnnnnnn. The Cats combined opponent record is 22-25.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): You’re missing the larger point though – the Griz have not played a bad game. Even in their loss to Cal Poly, they broke long-standing offensive records. Even if the Cats had snuck by Sacramento State, it wouldn’t have been a good game. You should beat that team by 50. Or if you’re the Griz, 61.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): You can’t take a loss to Cal Poly and call it good game. No matter what records were broken. And the part where Griz haven’t played a bad game could PROBABLY have something to do with the quality of opponents they’ve played. 2 damn teams over .500 and one plays in the NEC!
The Griz scored 150+ unanswered against a winless team and a team that (yes beat the Cats) lost to a DII school. Yawn.
Bear Tycoon (Griz fan): We have to judge the in the universe we live in. 5-1 is great, but if they were squeaking by shitty teams, or having incredible luck on turnovers, I’d be worried.
Against good teams they’ve won (UNI) or played well in a loss (Cal Poly). Against bad teams, they’ve dominated. Could the schedule be tougher? Of course. But playing a weaker schedule does not directly lead to worry if you perform as the Griz have.
Z-Train (Griz Fan): Important to note that the schedule is only relatively weak in hindsight. At beginning of year we went on the road to a top five team (UNI), went on the road to top-25 team (Cal Poly), played the defending Big Sky Champion Southern Utah, are going on the road to preseason favorite Northern Arizona, and are on the road to possibly-best-team-in-the-country Eastern Washington. It was scheduled fine. They don’t need to play NDSU every week to placate angry cat fans
Not to mention St Francis was a relatively strong opener in that it wasn’t a Division-II school, has a winning record, and is projected to make the playoffs.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): All I’m saying is temper your “Best Team in the World” shit until you beat someone. Northern Iowa is 2-4. Southern Utah is 4-4.
Z-Train (Griz Fan): No one is saying the Griz are the best team in the world.
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): Last week, we literally published an article saying the Griz will win the National Championship.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): Listen, the Griz are going to win the National Championship (see my article you just linked to). But, let me talk hypothetically about a looming issue that has me worried.
The Griz are 4th in the Big Sky and they do not play 2 of the 3 teams standing in front of them! North Dakota, Eastern Washington, and Weber State. The Griz only play Eastern and they have to play them in that blazing red shit hole in Cheney. EWU is ranked #1 in the nation.
There’s a chance that if the Griz drop a game to Eastern Washington they could finish 4th. Does the FCS playoff committee take 4 teams from the Big Sky?
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): If the Griz only loss the rest of the season is to EWU the committee cannot and will not leave them out of the playoffs. There’s just no way.
Jasper Moonshot (Griz fan): So is the Big Sky actually weak this year? Could it be top heavy with 3-5 good teams (depending on how you feel about the Griz and Cal Poly) with abject LOSERS (Trump voice) at the bottom?
Hot Take Nate (Cats fan): Yes. I think the weak are super weak right now and the top remains to be seen because they haven’t played each other at all. So Griz fans, you need to calm down until you beat a quality team.
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