Bears Face Measuring Stick At No. 3 Montana

GREELEY, Colo. – Northern Colorado carries a two-game winning streak into the most demanding environment on its schedule Saturday, traveling to No. 3 Montana for a 2 p.m. MT kickoff at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

The Bears are 2-3 overall and 1-1 in Big Sky play after a 23-17 overtime win over Northeastern State and a 37-13 Homecoming rout of Utah Tech. Montana represents a different tier entirely, a program head coach Ed Lamb called a "gold brick game," his term for an opponent whose defeat would alter the trajectory of the program.

"Montana has played their way into being a gold brick representative game for us, which just means we're playing an opponent that a victory over them would change the trajectory of our program," Lamb said. "It's not something we want to shy away from, and yet we want to focus on us. We have no chance if we go in there scared. Can't be scared of them. Maybe we should be. I can tell you we're not."

Scouting Montana
Lamb said the Grizzlies' defense is built on the same foundation that has defined the program for years.

"They've done a really nice job of piecing together an interior front. There's a standard of toughness and effort," Lamb said. "They're able to hold the line of scrimmage on the interior and have an elite pass rusher on the outside edge that creates a lot of havoc both in the run game and the pass game. A lot of speed, active linebackers who understand the system. They don't get caught out of position very often."

He noted that Montana's offense runs on RPO concepts, which has trained its linebackers well in reading run and pass. That in turn allows the secondary to play aggressively and vary coverages.

"It's kind of hard to get them trapped into one look," Lamb said. "And there's a standard at Montana that I've seen over the decades now that I've been coaching against them, of effort and enthusiasm. They tend to ramp that up when they're at home and use the crowd to their advantage."

Safety Franky Morales said the scouting report starts with the run.

"They got a good running back. Hope to get him down on the ground, gang tackle him, stop the run first, and then the pass game will handle itself," Morales said. "They're the same team that they've been since I've been in college."

The Environment
Washington-Grizzly Stadium is widely regarded as one of the loudest venues in the FCS. Lamb put it ahead of every stadium he has coached in.

"The closest 25,000 there are louder than the closest 25,000 at Tennessee, Wisconsin, USC," Lamb said. "Those are all places where I've coached and won. There is no place to me that is more exciting than playing at the University of Montana."

Morales has played there before and described it in more measured terms.

"It's a good atmosphere. Big crowd," Morales said. "I wouldn't say it's much different from playing at Wyoming either. Everybody has that experience with the big crowd. Just keeping it level-headed during all that crowd noise and doing your job."

The Bears have prepared with artificial crowd noise at practice, and coaches have emphasized communicating by signal and hand rather than voice.

"End of the day, it's just playing our own game with the crowd noise in the background," quarterback Brayten Silbor said.

Offense Looking to Finish
Lamb said the offense's underlying numbers have been strong all season, but the scoring hasn't matched them.

"If we're looking at rush efficiency, pass efficiency, touchdowns-to-interception ratio, completion percentage, total yards, yards per game, yards per play, there's a lot of metrics that look really good," Lamb said. "But our scoring is lagging behind all of those metrics. We've got to figure out a way to finish drives."

The Bears have not scored a point against Montana in 12 straight quarters, a stretch Lamb acknowledged without flinching.

"That comes directly from me," Lamb said. "That is just a remarkably embarrassing stat for everyone around here, and something that the Montana players and coaches for years now should be taking a lot of pride in."

Playing as One
Northern Colorado's defense has been the more consistent unit through five games, but Morales said the last two weeks have brought something the Bears lacked early: complementary football.

"Even at the beginning of the season, we weren't playing complementary ball," Morales said. "Most of the time when the offense was doing good, we were doing pretty bad, and when we were doing good, they were doing bad. But now we've picked that up, playing as a team, as a whole unit. That's led us to some good success in all phases of the game, even special teams."

Lamb tied that improvement to a philosophy he has repeated since arriving in Greeley. The Bears are not trying to scheme opponents into submission. They are trying to out-block and out-tackle them.

"We're running fewer and fewer plays. We're getting less and less creative. We believe in our players," Lamb said. "Our message to them is that they're good enough to win. We've got to block and tackle. I told this whole team several weeks ago that the one consistent prayer I have is just that you guys will see yourselves like we coaches see you. We see them as capable, competent, winning players."

Tickets can be purchased through the UNC ticket office online at UNCBears.com/Tickets, by calling 970-351-4849, or in person at the UNC ticket office during normal business hours.

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