Griz open season with big road win

Saturday, August 31

Vermillion, SD

1 PM (MT)

Montana

1-0

South Dakota

0-1

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Montana

South Dakota

8/31/2019 5:45:00 PM | Football

Box Score PDF Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

To tag it Statement Saturday would be pushing hyperbole, especially considering it's still August. But the Montana football team definitely made an emphatic declaration in its road win over South Dakota at the DakotaDome in Vermillion on Saturday as the 2019 season got underway.

Dalton Sneed threw for 430 yards and three touchdowns, and Samuel Akem and Samori Toure both caught nine passes for a combined a 300 yards and a pair of scores as the Grizzlies won 31-17.

Montana, which punted just twice and was a sparkling 10 of 16 on third down, had 30 first downs and 510 yards of total offense.

It wasn't just a road win over a team from the Missouri Valley Conference. Montana became the first team to defeat the Coyotes in their home opener since Missouri Western did so in 2002, when South Dakota was still a Division II program.

"I just told (the team in the locker room), you just did what 16 straight teams could not do, and that was come in here and put a beatdown on them," said second-year coach Bobby Hauck on his postgame radio show.

"I don't really think the score says what a beatdown it was. We missed a short field goal. We threw a pick on the six, and we took a knee on the five at the end of the game. It was a helluva performance by our guys. I'm really proud of them."

Montana was kept off the scoreboard through the opening quarter and the game's first 21-plus minutes. That's when the offense finally got rolling.

The Grizzlies would score on five straight possessions over the second and third quarters, going touchdown, touchdown, field goal, touchdown, touchdown.

All four drives that ended with a touchdown covered 65 yards or more.

After South Dakota opened the scoring with a 20-yard field goal early in the second quarter, Montana answered with a nine-play, 67-yard drive that ended with Sneed finding Toure for a 16-yard touchdown.

Sneed made it 14-3 when he took the ball in from two yards out later in the quarter, the only run on a drive that covered 82 yards in eight plays.

The quarterback, who looked like a redshirt senior in complete control of his team's offense, went 7 for 7 on the drive for 80 yards, hitting five different receivers.

Some were quick strikes, some came after Sneed stepped up in the pocket after waiting for the play to develop, a level of patience and trust in the teammates protecting him that wasn't always there in 2018.

"As evidenced by the passing totals and the easy completions, they were ganging up on (the run) and gave us numerous fronts we hadn't practiced against," said Hauck.

"We still have a young O-line. They struggled a little bit early on, but all in all it was a pretty complete game. Dalton was able to step up in the pocket. He trusted them to get things picked up. That was something we never saw last year."

One of the game's easily overlooked plays came just before halftime, after South Dakota scored to make it 14-10 with 45 seconds on the clock.

After Malik Flowers, who had four kickoff returns for 116 yards and is going to keep opposing special teams coaches awake at night, gave his team the ball at the 37, Montana's offensive coaches called a draw to Marcus Knight, an exploratory look at what might develop.

With South Dakota defending the deep throw, Knight found plenty of open space and rolled off 17 yards to get the ball into USD territory. It convinced Montana's coaches to go for points over running out the clock.

Thirty-three seconds later Brandon Purdy connected on a 43-yard field goal to give the Grizzlies a 17-10 lead at the half.

The momentum of that decision carried into the second half.

Sneed connected with Akem on a 43-yard scoring strike on the opening possession of the third quarter, the quarterback's calm response to an all-out blitz on third-and-5.

Knight made it 31-17 later in the third quarter when he took a pass in the left flat and casually sidestepped two Coyotes on his way to a six-yard score.

After the offense was done setting the table, the defense finished the game off in the fourth quarter, twice turning South Dakota over on downs in Montana territory. The Coyotes' final possession ended with Justin Calhoun coming up with his second career interception.

Montana held the ball for more than 12 minutes of the fourth quarter, a good chunk of that coming on a drive that started at its own six and ended 11 plays later with an interception in the opposite end zone.

The drive didn't end with points, but it bled the clock and drained a little more hope out of a South Dakota comeback.

"It wasn't as clean as we wanted it to be. There are definitely some things we didn't do well enough. We've got to run the ball better," said Hauck, whose team rushed for 80 yards.

"But it was a pretty dang good effort. The effort level for a first game was pretty exemplary."

Meanwhile, well to the east, Penn State was putting up 79 points and 673 yards of offense on Idaho on Saturday, which has no relevance to Montana's game except some Nittany Lion coaches spent the week watching video of the Vandals from last season.

That would have included the Grizzlies' 46-27 win in Moscow last November. It impressed them enough that they let Hauck know it a few days ago.

"A couple of the coaches on the defensive side are buddies of mine. They texted me this week and said we love watching your guys play. They play so dang hard. I read our guys the text. They went out and did it today. They played their tails off," said Hauck.

"Hopefully our reputation is growing that way. There is a reason I love these guys. They are focused, they are locked in, they are highly competitive. They listen to what we're telling them, and they go do it. I'm ecstatic about that part of it."

Montana will make its home debut next Saturday at 7 p.m. at Washington-Grizzly Stadium against North Alabama, a team that picked up an impressive 26-17 home win on Thursday night over Western Illinois in its season opener.