Montana Savors Its Greatest Win Marshall Grumbles Over Its Mistakes In Ncaa Division I-Aa Title Contest

Montana is now 1-for-1 in I-AA championship games while Marshall drops to a meager 1-for-5.

“It’s probably the biggest win Montana will ever have,” said placekicker Andy Larson, who hit the game-winner from 25 yards out with 39 seconds left Saturday. “People say we can’t win on the road and we can’t win on the turf. So this makes it all the more special.”

Some people will start saying Marshall (12-3) of the Southern Conference can’t win the big game. Marshall Stadium has hosted the championship game since 1992. The Herd has lost just four times at home since 1991, but two of those were in the championship game, and two were against bitter rival Appalachian State.

“We take pride in our discipline and execution,” said Marshall coach Jim Donnan. “With the penalties and missed assignments, you don’t give yourself a chance to win. We didn’t handle it well. I’m tremendously disappointed for us. We played sloppy. We made a lot of stupid mistakes. I’ll take the blame for not being prepared.”

Marshall did, indeed make stupid mistakes, with junior running back Erik Thomas making enough to last a season. Thomas dropped one pass that would have been good for a touchdown. He celebrated after a 7-yard catch, destroying a Marshall drive. And he fumbled at his own 20 in the fourth quarter to set up a Montana touchdown.

That was too much even for Marshall’s defense, one of the best in I-AA, to overcome.

“It was close, it was hard-fought,” said Montana coach Don Read. “We’ve not seen a better defensive team in years and years and years.”

Montana’s defense didn’t come into the game with as much notoriety as Marshall’s, but it, too, was solid. The Grizzlies held Marshall to 358 yards total offense, about 50 below the Herd’s average.

And on a key drive in the fourth quarter, Montana (13-2) of the Big Sky Conference forced Marshall to kick a field goal after the Herd had first-and-goal from its 3.

“They made some great defensive plays on us at the goal line,” Donnan said. “They got good penetration on us.”

The Grizzlies held Marshall’s Chris Parker, I-AA’s fifth-best career rusher, to just 94 yards on 23 carries.

“We knew coming in we had to stop Parker,” said linebacker Jason Crebo. “We knew if we stopped him, they’d have to go to (freshman quarterback Chad) Pennington. Our defense came up big today. On the big plays, we came together.”

Pennington was 23 of 40 for 246 yards, nearly matching the stats of Montana’s Dave Dickenson (29-48, 281 yards, two scores).

But Pennington will have a long way to go to match Dickenson’s career statistics. The 5-foot-11 senior finished with 12,580 career yards, with a record 1,500 of that in this year’s playoffs.

Dickenson looked especially determined in the fourth quarter, scrambling for yardage on key plays, making pinpoint passes and keeping his cool.

“It really hasn’t sunk in yet,” Dickenson said. “I’m happy, but in the same sense, I planned it. I wasn’t coming down here to lose.”

Montana, with 17 seniors, faces a big rebuilding process next season. Marshall, with only a handful of seniors, should be a favorite to make it back to the championship game.

But the Herd is running out of time to win the I-AA title. Marshall moves up to the Division I-A Mid-American Conference in 1997.

“Their team is going to be real, real tough. They might be a year away,” Dickenson said.