MISSOULA — It's officially past the halfway point of the regular season for the Montana Grizzlies, and now they turn the page to the second half as they welcome a unique opponent this weekend —t he Sacred Heart Pioneers.
An FCS independent, Sacred Heart makes the trek 2,400 miles west from Fairfield, Conn. The Pioneers enter the game 5-2 for a matchup with the undefeated and fourth-ranked Griz (6-0) in a non-conference contest.
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"I imagine they're thinking that they can get an at-large playoff bid if they continue to win at the rate they're winning," UM head coach Bobby Hauck said. "And I'm sure that they're looking to make a statement win by coming in here and getting us, so we better be ready on Saturday."
This week was initially Montana's bye week, but rather than go on the road in the opening week UM opted to movie its off week then and play 12 straight games.
The Griz wanted to fill their open date with a home game. They are paying Sacred Heart $290,000 to make the trip, the largest guarantee ever paid out by Montana.
"It's odd, certainly. I don't ever remember encountering this in any place," Hauck said. "But if you look around college football, I suppose the SEC does it every year, like the week before the last game where they have a non-conference game scheduled, a lot of them. So it's unusual but not unheard of."
The Pioneers, behind a solid running game, have found success. They'll join the Coastal Athletic Association next season.
For the Griz, it's about continuing to improve week by week. UM's offense was stagnant in the opening half against Cal Poly last Saturday but turned it on late against the Mustangs.
"It just shows for us, no game's too big or too small," UM running back Stevie Rocker Jr. said. "Just shows offensively we have what we need and what we can do, but we just have to put it all together in all four quarters of the game.
"We always will have a game we start fast or we have a game where we finish out in the second half, but it still shows that we have our best football still ahead of us and we still have a chance to go play a lights-out full game and we still have yet to show that too."
That's the goal UM wants to accomplish as it begins to tighten things up with the second half of the season now here in mid-October.
"Just like any other team, the more games we play, the more we're going to start clicking together," UM safety Diezel Wilkinson said. "Definitely going through spring ball and fall camp together has helped a lot. So now that we have some games under our belt, I feel like it's only going to go up from here."
