FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — It's a game that could go down as a Big Sky Conference classic as No. 13 Northern Arizona upset No. 2 Montana 49-44 on Saturday afternoon in a clash of two of the top teams in the league.
It was an old-school shootout between the Grizzlies and Lumberjacks. A talking point heading in was NAU's success at home lately overall, and historically against the Grizzlies, and the Lumberjacks took advantage of mistakes by Montana in the second half to squeeze out the massive win.
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"We gave up some critical plays in key situations," UM head coach Bobby Kennedy said. "I kind of thought coming out to start the second half when we got stymied on offense, we'd like to obviously go down and steal that possession, so that was tough.
"There was a silver lining with our defense where we got that stop early and then we were able to go down and score, but games come down to a few plays here and there and it was tough giving up that kickoff return."
While the first half went back and forth, Montana ended it on a high note with a late score by Eli Gillman to take a 24-21 lead and a big sack by Tyler King to head into half with momentum. It was a run that gave another record to Gillman this season as he rose to the top of Montana's all-time career points scored.
But while the offense had a big day overall, going scoreless in the third quarter was critical to both sides, as momentum swung to the Lumberjacks who took a 35-24 lead by the end of the frame, and the Griz were left playing catchup the rest of the way.
"Nothing crazy. We just got to sit there and execute," Gillman said. "We just got a little antsy, I guess you could say. I guess once we sat back down and started executing again, everything was fine. Everything we wanted was right in front of us. We just ran out of time.
"We're still confident and we know we have a lot of playmakers. We know our quarterback can do it all, really. There was no hesitation out of us being down two scores or whatever it was. We knew we were going to keep fighting until the clock hit zero. And I think that's what we did."
GRIZ REPLAY: No. 2 Montana at No. 13 Northern Arizona
Defensively, Montana had no answer for quarterback Ty Pennington who put up a monster day with six total touchdowns.
But the mistakes reared their head in the third quarter, as a pair of third-down-and-long penalties by Devin Dunn and Hunter Haines extended drives that led to those NAU scores to take the lead, while the Lumberjacks were 8 for 13 on third down on the day as Montana's defense couldn't get off the field.
"He's a really good quarterback," UM linebacker Peyton Wing said. "They got really good receivers, too. They were doing their thing. They were doing a good job at it and we just got to be able to respond to it a little bit better."
"There were a couple times where I thought we were getting off the field and we got penalties," Kennedy added. "And what's amazing is in this league anymore, I don't know what's here or there. I'm not going to cry over spilled milk. I thought our guys played really hard.
"That was a shootout. Northern Arizona is a really good team. We were getting (to the QB) sometimes, it was just a step short, and then they got the ball off. We got to get better in our coverage in the secondary. But, you know, from where we were last week, I thought our guys played really hard and did a good job.
"You talk about pass interference and things like that, I think on our side, on their side, there's grabbing on every play. We got to coach it better, we got to clean it up, but you never know what's going to get called."
When the Griz got within 35-32 after a defensive stop led to a touchdown connection between Keali'i Ah Yat and Lekeldrick Bridges with 13:19 to play, UM evened the playing field and seemed to be back on track. But the back-breaking kickoff return touchdown by NAU's Lindsey Graves immediately put the Grizzlies' backs against the wall again and proved too much to overcome.
"We've handled adversity before, early on in this season before too, and last season, as well," Wing said. "Our biggest thing is our leaders on the team, our senior leaders and our younger guys, buy in even more. We know what to do. We know how to get better. We got to watch the film and correct the mistakes. We're good at getting over it and fixing it and not hanging our hats on that, fixing what we need to fix and moving on because it's a long season and we got a lot of opportunity ahead of us."
"He was taking a lot of shots and our guys got there a number of times," Kennedy added about Pennington. "And he's just a really good player. He can make plays with his arm, can make plays with his feet. I mean, credit to that kid, he's a tough hombre."
Self-inflicted wounds have hurt the Griz often this season, whether it be penalties or execution. In this contest, a first-quarter penalty on right tackle Austin Buehler negated a Brooks Davis catch that put UM on NAU's 1-yard line, and Montana ultimately settled for a field goal to go up 10-7.
Before Ah Yat's touchdown to Bridges, Monte Gillman saw a 1-yard touchdown run eliminated by a hold on tight end Titus Rohrer that forced UM back to the 11 on third down, making that connection between Ah Yat and Bridges that much more difficult, yet impressive in its execution on both ends.
Ah Yat also threw an interception in that scoreless third quarter, his first pick thrown since the opening play of the season. He threw 222 passes between those turnovers.
They've also shown how dangerous they can be when they play cleanly — just two weeks ago in a road win over UC Davis — so their message after Saturday's loss was one of regrouping, learning, correcting and improving with plenty of season left to be played.
"The message is that there's no boo hoo'ing, right? We got to get ready for next week," Kennedy said. "Idaho is a quality opponent. I really believe we have a good team. I've got an unwavering belief in this group. And I do think that they showed some resilience today, even though we came out on the short end."
"You just got to get the message across to the team that the mission is still the same," Gillman added. "As long as everybody's on the same page, it's pretty simple to flush it and move on to next week. We knew we were going to have to keep winning anyway, so it's just a little more intense now."
