Griz seek road win at Northern Colorado

UM NOTES | UNC NOTES

It's the battle of the bears this week as the Montana Grizzlies travel to Greeley, Colo., to take the Northern Colorado Bears in a must-win encounter for both teams as the FCS playoff selection show looms.

Montana (6-3, 3-3 Big Sky) enters the game riding the high of a record-setting home win where ROOT Sports Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week Chad Chalich threw for seven touchdowns and ran for another in UM's 62-44 win over Idaho State.

Northern Colorado (5-4, 3-3 Big Sky) plays its second-straight home game as it hosts Montana, looking to rebound from a hard-fought 23-13 loss to conference leader North Dakota at Nottingham Field.

With the win over Idaho State, Montana guaranteed itself the program's 29th winning season in the past 30 years.

THE GAME: The No. 17/18 Grizzlies travel to face UNC at Nottingham Field in Greeley, needing to pick up the program's second road win of the season to stay in the playoff hunt.

Both teams sit at 3-3, tied at No. 7 on the Big Sky table, with Montana holding an edge over UNC with one additional non-conference win.

In head-to-head Big Sky comparisons, the Bears have fared better than Montana, picking up a win over Northern Arizona at home and falling to Eastern Washington 31-49 at EWU. But the Bears also dropped a surprising game at UC Davis and struggled past Sacramento State 27-19.

Montana has scored 60-plus points in three of its last five games, however, and all signs point to another shootout for the Griz in Greeley, with UNC averaging over 33 points-per-game, and putting 50-plus points on the board three times so far this season.

WATCH: The Griz/Bears game will be shown on Cowles Montana Media stations statewide. Most fans can see the game on their local FOX Montana station, or SWX in the Billings/Miles City market.

Comcast cable subscribers in the state of Colorado can tune in to see the game on Comcast Entertainment Television (CET). CET is available to roughly 1.2 million viewers along the Front Range and is found on channel 105 throughout Denver Metro, Fort Collins, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and other areas.

Josh How will provide the play-by-play for the CET broadcast and will be supported by Paul Browning as the color commentator.

For fans around the globe, the game will also be streamed live and free of charge at WatchBigSky.com.

LISTEN: The "Voice of the Griz" Riley Corcoran brings you the call on the Montana Grizzlies Radio Network with longtime color commentator Greg Sundberg in the booth and Adam Painter on the sidelines. Fans can tune in worldwide to hear the audio only stream of the game at GoGriz.com.

WEEKLY POLLS: Following Montana's win over Idaho State, the Griz bumped up three spots in the FCS Coaches poll this week to No. 17 with 217 points. North Dakota continues to climb the rankings at No. 10 in the coaches' poll, and Eastern Washington holds steady at No. 3. Cal Poly also checks in at No. 20.

In the STATS FCS media poll, the Grizzlies move up one spot to No. 18, collecting 1,350 votes, just 18 fewer than the No. 17 team, Youngstown State who fell to North Dakota State 24-3 last week. EWU is ranked No. 3, while UND moves up to No. 12 and Cal Poly stays ahead of the Griz at No. 14.

The Griz also move up in this week's Athlon Sports FCS Power Poll, coming in at No. 15, up from No. 19.

IMPLICATIONS: Copy last week's implications, paste them here this week. While not mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, at 6-3 the Griz face a "must-win" situation if they are to return to the playoffs for the 24th time in program history.

If the Grizzlies win out, the most likely scenario will see UM host a first-round game at Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Nov. 26. Anything can happen in FCS football, however, and with only three losses, the playoff committee could still award the first-round bye.

Montana has made three-straight appearances in the playoffs and returned for the 23rd time in program history under first-year head coach Bob Stitt in 2015.

SERIES HISTORY: Montana leads the all-time series with UNC 13-1, with the only loss to the Bears occurring in Greeley back in 1976, a 27-19 win.

Since 1977 however, Montana has taken 13-straight wins and has never lost to UNC since the Bears joined the Big Sky Conference in 2006. Montana is 5-1 all-time at Nottingham Field.

LAST MEETING: Senior quarterback Jordan Johnson threw three touchdown passes and ran for another, and senior halfback Travon Van rushed for 127 yards and a TD to lead the Grizzlies to a 38-13 win over the Northern Colorado Bears in front of a homecoming crowd of 25,269 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

The Griz scored 28 first-quarter points and led 28-7 lead after the first 15 minutes of action. When Johnson rushed for his first score since the 2011 season, a 9-yarder, he gave Montana a 28-7 advantage with 39 seconds left in the opening stanza.

FIRST AND TEN WITH THE GRIZ: Chad Chalich came off the bench for Montana against Idaho State, starting for a banged-up Brady Gustafson, and proceeded to make history. Chalich broke two school records against ISU. One for the most passing touchdowns ever in a game (seven) and another for the most touchdowns responsible for in a game (eight) with seven passing TDs and one rushing.

For his efforts, Chalich was named the ROOT Sports Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Week on Monday. He was also given a Big Sky Player of the Week nod by FCS blog College Sports Madness and received national Player of the Week honorable mentions by STATS and the College Football Performance Awards.

Incumbent starting QB Brady Gustafson is expected to be back to full health this week and remains the nation's fifth-best passing quarterback in passing yards per game despite missing a game, averaging just over 324 on the season.

Gustafson is also ranked No. 5 nationally in passing TDs this season with 24 after eight games. After one and a quarter games, Chalich comes in at No. 78 nationally out of 126 ranked QBs in passing TDs with nine on the season.

Sophomore wide receiver Keenan Curran was Chalich's favorite target on that record-setting night against ISU, with Curran tying the school record with four TDs in the game.

Curran is now the No. 8 receiver in FCS football in touchdown catches with 10 on the season. That ties him with running back Jeremy Calhoun for most TDs on the team this season, totaling 60 points each. Ten touchdowns each ties Curran and Calhoun at No. 24 nationally in scoring. Kicker Tim Semenza remains the Grizzlies leading scorer, however, with 66 points to his name on 11-13 field goals.

Though Jeremy Calhoun missed the ISU game, his twin brother Justin Calhoun added a pair of receiving touchdowns to Montana's 62-point total. Jeremy and Justin have combined for 15 touchdowns so far this season.

With Jeremey's nine touchdowns from 2015 combined with the brother's 15 so far in 2016, the two have combined for 24 career touchdowns at Montana in two short years.

To put that in perspective: a different set of brothers to play for the Griz, John Nguyen and his brother Peter, produced 21 career touchdowns between the two (with John still wrapping up his time as a Grizzly), making the Calhouns one of the most productive sets of brothers in school history with

Saturday's game at UNC will be a homecoming of sorts for Montana head coach Bob Stitt, who was a graduate assistant coach for the Bears in 1989. It also marks Stitt's first return to Colorado's Front Range with the Grizzlies, having spent the 14 years previous to his time at Montana at Colorado School of Mines, just 70 miles south of Greeley in Golden, Colo.

FOUR DOWNS WITH THE BEARS: Northern Colorado head coach Earnest Collins Jr, is 20-45 in his six years at the helm of the Bears. Coach Collins is a UNC alum and is the single-season school record holder for punt return yards.

Bears QB Kyle Sloter, a transfer from Southern Mississippi, earned Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week and STATS FCS National Offensive Player of the Week honors on Sept. 12 after throwing for 408 yards and seven total touchdowns in a 55-52 win for UNC over Abilene Christian.

Sloter is the leader of the No. 6 total offense in the Big Sky, with UNC averaging nearly 429 yards-per-game so far this season, nearly 259 of which come through the air, making UNC the No. 5 passing offense in the league.

The Bears defense comes in ranked as the No. 10 total D in the league, allowing opponents 476 YPG of production.

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Players Mentioned

Jeremy Calhoun

Justin Calhoun

Chad Chalich

Keenan Curran

Brady Gustafson

John Nguyen

Tim Semenza

University of Montana Athletics