Grizzlies to be tested early by Thunderbirds

By: Bill Oram
GameDay Kaimin

Finally, today all of the University of Montana football players will be wearing the same color jerseys.
With the Southern Utah Thunderbirds in town, anything resembling practice has come to an end. Any fine-tuning of the offense, defense or special teams will have to be done on the fly.
According to Griz head coach Bobby Hauck, the team is ready.
“We’ve had good work from the end of last season to now,” Hauck said. “We’re right where we ought to be.”
The last time the Griz ran out of the tunnel onto John Hoyt Field in front of a packed house was in anticipation of a national semi-final against the University of Massachusetts Minutemen. The Griz narrowly lost that game 19-17, and according to senior running back Reggie Bradshaw, nothing could be better than getting back on the field.
“We’re really excited,” he said. “We’ve been at it since the end of last season. We’ve been out there grinding.”
In Southern Utah the Grizzlies face a team that is recovering from a dismal 3-8 season and was winless in the five-team Great West Conference. However, the mark may be somewhat misleading, according to fourth year T-Bird’s coach Wes Meier.
“We’ve got a group back that is very competitive, that has played a lot of ranked teams,” he said.
Last season SUU burst out to a 3-1 record before going on a rest-of-the-season winless streak. However, it dropped back-to-back games to perennial national powers in Cal Poly and McNeese State by a combined eight points. Against Cal Poly, the T-Birds fumbled three times inside the five-yard line.
“They have a lot of confidence,” Meier said. “They know they can be competitive, but they also know it’s going to take a game with very few mistakes to (beat Montana).”
Hauck and UM’s schedule makers have received criticism for scheduling a slate of unimpressive non-conference opponents – Albany and Fort Lewis College are the others, – but Hauck discounted that notion immediately.
“You’d have to be an idiot not to know these guys would be hard to beat,” Hauck said of Southern Utah.
The T-Birds’ strength will likely be experience. They return six all-conference players, including play caller Wes Marshall, a player that worries Hauck.
“Their quarterback worries me, he’s a veteran,” Hauck said. “So we won’t be fooling him. He’s seen everything 100 times. He’s athletic; he can run and pass, he runs the option, he throws the ball down the field well.”
Marshall’s numbers from a year ago are solid, but not gaudy. He had a 56 percent completion rate and passed for 1,942 yards. His 14 interceptions should have the Grizzly secondary salivating.
One of many storylines for Montana is its own quarterback. Junior Cole Bergquist has finally been handed the keys to the team after patiently waiting in the wings, playing when past starters went down. He started one game last year and eight in 2005.
Once inside Washington-Grizzly Stadium, the T-Birds will find themselves in an environment unlike anything they have experienced in the Great West Conference.
“We’ve done all kinds of things to try to not let that become such a factor for us,” Meier said. The team piped ear-splitting crowd noise into its own stadium in an effort to simulate the raucousness of Montana’s 23,183 (capacity) fans.
The Grizzlies lead the all-time series 2-1, the most recent tilt being in 2002. Three T-Birds from that team are currently on Meiers’ staff, and he said they’ve talked about that game, a 68-45 shootout that the Griz won, being among their career favorites.