Tickets for the Montana v. Valpo game

[JD24]

That's just awesome information and welcome to the board.

[VULB#62]

Mtgrizfrankb, thanks for the welcome. I am soooooo looking fwd to being in Missoula for the game. I am even dragging my daughter's MTSU family to the game (they live in Bozeman). They will obviously be yelling Go Valpo 

Your thoughtful help is really spot-on. The people of the state are so friendly. Our fans have to be sure to get into it. The Missoula backdrop will blow us Mid-Westerners away.

IMO, this is THE game for Valpo fans to travel to. This place is spectacular.

[VUOR63]

Mtgrizfrankb,

I'll echo the gratitude for the information you posted.  I will put it to good use.  My family has been looking forward to this trip for about 10 months so it should be fun.
I did the same thing as you did and perused the Montana message board and I must say that I am very impressed with the level of intensity of your fans as well as the commitment to bashing your arch rival at every opportunity.  Look forward to talking football with some Grizz fans before the game!

[mtgrizfankb]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone. Yes our main fan forum is egriz.com and there is a another called maroonblood. I dont recommend either...haha joking but Egriz you will be able to access for free and is by far the best site in my opinion. Im glad to hear a few of you making the trip! You should have a wonderful time. I will link some pictures and videos below my comment so that people can see what everything looks like and what to anticipate. If you do make it over to egriz, I would recommend reading anything bwahlberg writes on the site. He is bar none the best fan we probably have. He writes up info on every game, pre and post game, scrimmages and he does get some inside info in on the team. On egriz fans are a little disappointed about the last couple of years and are eager to get this year going.

A little info on our team for you who may want to know:
Our head coach is Bob Stitt. He will be topic of many discussions in griz country. He is a different style of coach and now in his 3rd year here. Excellent recruiter and offensive mind. He is known all around the country for creating plays such as the fly sweep (where the QB actually passes the ball forward to the WR crossing on the motion). enough of him. The University of Montana pride is usually the griz football team. We had a wonderful streak of playoff appearances that put us on the map. We play in the big sky conference and should compete for a title every year. I say should because we failed to do so last year and finished at 6-5 which is unacceptable for griz football. Washington Grizzly stadium holds just over 26,000 fans and I anticipate it will be full for game 1. 

now for the actual team:
We play a high spread offense that coach stitt created. His vision is to run about 90 plays a game when functioning well. It's not a true hurry up offense but it is fast paced. We pass....a lot. We don't however pass deep as much as the normal spread does. Many plays have a run/pass option and the QB makes those choices at the line of scrimmage.

QB: we will start Reese Phillips in game 1. There has be a QB battle this year as our senior last year graduated. Reese is a senior who transferred as a junior to us from Kentucky university. He is mobile but not a true runner. He will make plays with his feet when he has too but would rather deliver the ball in air. He is a read option threat and most of our runs come out of the read option type set.

RB: We return our highest scoring RB this year in Jeremy Calhoun, he is an agile runner who is very balanced. He has a nose for the endzone and even as an underclassmen used to find TDs often. He can catch out of the backfield and we expect our RB to do so often! Behind him, we have multiple players looking for time. a transfer from Wash. state and a few up and coming R.Fr could look for time. we should be deep at RB.

WR: by far our best position on O. We have all our main WR threats back and while still young they are now experienced too. Justin Calhoun (Jeremy's brother) is our outside threat and he should be an all bigsky player this year. We also have JLM, he is a small slot WR but he has the moves. he broke some ankles and turned a ton of heads last year when he had 21 catches in a game last year. he was also HM for all bigsky last year as a redshirt freshman.  I could bore you with our other WRs but there is too many to really get into detail with. because we don't use a TE, we use big H-back WRs who have size and speed. look for 10+ WRs to get good time and rotate in and out.

OL: Our line has been our problem child for about 5 years now and has been the reason we struggle at times. First and foremost, this year we will start 3-4 seniors on the o-line and we have a few Soph. and redshirt freshman biting at the bit to get playing time. We had a HUGE Oline class 2 years ago and it is paying dividends. Our Oline has been great in the scrimmages, we will wait to see what happens when game time hits, but we are so glad to feel solid on the line again as running and pass blocking has been poor the last few years.

Defense: To say we run a multiple type D would be an understatement. We can play with 3 down, 4 down, 2 down or none down sometimes. we had a jail break formation we used a lot last year where all 7 players will be at the line moving around and standing when the ball gets snapped. We blitz from LBs, S, FS, Corner, just about everywhere. Last year we did get caught not playing zone well and some teams picked on that and ate us alive. This spring and Fall we have seen a lot of work in zone schemes and we are much better in the secondary than last year.

Dline: I would like to say this is our best area on D but it would have to tie with the LBs. Our D line is very deep right now and we have all sorts of types of players to fit the schemes. We have players on the D-line that are 300 and can eat the inside. We have rover DE/LBs and we have pass rushers. It will be interesting how they all get used. We had a few big transfers the last year from maryland and Juco's and the depth is deep. we average in the high 200's for dline weight. David Shaw you will see alot at 319 pounds he will be our 3-4 anchor guy as well as Davidson at 295. Chris Favaroso is our Juco transfer that could have gone FBS but chose us. He will be our pass rushing end for sure and is a monster on the edge. Lastly you will hear #37 a lot as well, Tucker Schye. We have a legacy number #37, this number gets passed down from player to player, it has to be someone from montana and it has to be someone who emphasizes the spirt of griz football. Tucker does just that. He is a quick DE that will get to most plays before they end. We raise the #37 flag every home game at the beginning with an old griz player.

LBs: This is like our WR group of the Defense. our LB core is deep and strong. we return all 3 starters from last year but regrettably one of the players will miss game 1-2 for a suspension. That being said, many worry if he will be able to get his job back on week 3 as the kids behind them are pushing hard. we will rotate 5-6 LBs and stay fresh. If i had to pick 1 i would say look for James Banks, he came to us after FBS UAB got rid of football and he will be a force this year. Our LBs like to blitz and like to hit.

CB: This is the area of hope and concern. We dont have good CB depth this year, But we do return the players from last year and we have some senior leadership at the position. Ryan Mckinley is a SR starter and has the size and skill to be a shut down on deep threat WRs. He can be over physical at times and have bad positioning but he really has toned up for this year. Markel Sanders will be the other CB. He is a junior and transfer from Washington state a few years ago. His side is avoided when on the field. He likes to play at the line and has great positioning. He does not have the top end speed it seems and can let WRs get a step but he has great technique that usually will make up for it. Behind them its a toss up, we have talent but unproven players at CB and a WR convert that is also starting to show out on D. we will see what CB is like.

Safety: Should be another strength of the team. We have both Starters returning and another pair pushing for playing time. Justin Strong is just that...strong and will hit and hit HARD. he is a transfer from Oregon State and really flys to the ball. Got beat deep a few times but as he has matured he has been better on the deep end. Josh Sandry should be the other big time S. He had 3 INTs in the spring game and has showed out this fall.  He is only a R-Soph but came on the scene big, once again he is young and could be suspect vs good WRs but he is very strong and has good vision for the field.

Special Teams: Who knows, to be honest this is a huge ?. Last year our ST were not that great and lead to a lot of good positioning for other teams. this year our kickers are back again and older. we have seen pretty good consistency in fall, but we did that last year too until the season. Stitt has pushed ST players hard this year, even holding some ST only practices. On the other hand, our Punter is legit. Williams has been hitting 50 yard punts on the regular this fall and has been a great story. He should be very solid as a Junior.


Other notes: We like going for it on 4th down. if we are between our 40 and your 25, expect us to go for it. Stitt likes playing the odds. He will go for it on 4th a lot, even though he did tone that down some last year. It will be interesting to see our Redzone O, as last 2 years that has been a major struggle. With improved Oline and some power back options, hopefully we will see more TDs this year than last. Our Redzone D was top in the bigsky last year and I expect that to stay with our Dline and LBs. Anyways, thats a brief look at the Griz this year. Below I will add some links just to picks and videos of what a game is like at wa-griz. Hope to see you all in a week!

Go Griz


Videos:

[JD24]

Thanks for that writeup.

Now I'm going to have a good cry. 

The word 'doom' comes to mind

[vu72]

Nice videos but...YOU DON'T WANT TO PLAY US IN...BASKETBALL!!!! 

[mtgrizfankb]

Haha that's probably true!

[talksalot]

Nice videos but...YOU DON'T WANT TO PLAY US IN...BASKETBALL!!!! 

70-58 Valpo was the final score the last time we played the Grizz...November 28th 1998... at the Big Island Classic in Hilo.

a Montana win 73-61 when we played in their Tournament in Missoula.  We won the 3rd place game over Centenary the next day.... December 1988.

Yup, we need to get 'em in the ARC.   We can compare atmosphere.

[VUOR63]

"Doom" did enter my mind but then I realized the one thing I didn't see listed at any of the positions was a player that puts his pants on two legs at a time.  That's right, Montana players put their pants on one leg at a time just like Valpo players.

In all seriousness, I'm pretty far removed from playing at Valpo but it there are a few seniors on Valpo who have put the same amount of time into football as any other FCS or FBS school in the nation.  Our guys play at high school level stadiums every Saturday so an opportunity to play in front of 26,000 people is special.  I remember getting the snot kicked out of us when we went to NDSU in 2004 and I still talk about that game to this day.  This game may be a prime set-up for getting waxed as Montana gets ready for their Week 2 match up against Washington, but hopefully our Valpo guys enjoy playing the game and, more importantly, enjoy the brotherhood they are re-building in the Valpo program.
 

[mtgrizfankb]

2004 was NDSUs first season in 1-AA. I remember that time very well. Two years prior they beat the griz in missoula too. I love what you mentioned. There is no reason to think that on the right day valpo could couldn't beat Montana. You never know what will happen when player put on the pads. Playing infront of 26k will be a blast and can bring players to new heights. Hope every player enjoys the trips and the fans that come enjoy the atmosphere as well

[PolsonGriz]

Nice videos but...YOU DON'T WANT TO PLAY US IN...BASKETBALL!!!! 

I would disagree, if you don't play the best you will never improve.

[PolsonGriz]

As far as tickets go for this game one will be able to show up on game day and be able to buy a ticket from the numerous individuals at the tailgates or get a free one as this game will not be sold out.