Patience pays off for Griz

There is no line on the statistical spread sheet of a college football game that measures discipline.

If there were, Eastern Washington would probably have lost that numbers battle Saturday by the same lopsided margin it did the time-of-possession comparison – which goes a long way in explaining the Eagles’ 19-3 Big Sky Conference loss to Montana.

Not to shortchange the effort of the Grizzlies (5-1-1, 1-1 BSC), but Eastern’s 103 yards worth of penalties and a couple of major breakdowns on special teams played major roles in the outcome of this important conference showdown that played out on a brilliant, but wind-raked, autumn afternoon in front of a sellout Woodward Field crowd 10,830.

The defense of the Eagles (2-4, 1-2), despite holding Montana to 348 yards and doing a much better job of defending the pass than it did in last weekend’s 47-36 loss to Portland State, committed a variety of infractions that helped sustain a couple of time-consuming Grizzly drives.

Eastern’s punt-protect team suffered meltdowns that resulted in two blocked punts that set up both of Montana’s touchdowns.

“It’s tough to give up first downs like we did today because of discipline, and that’s something we have to fix right away,” said Eastern’s sophomore linebacker J.C. Sherritt, who had a hand in a team-high 15 tackles. “That can’t be an issue the rest of the year, or it’s going to come back and cost us again.”

EWU was flagged for 13 penalties, five of which were committed by the defense during a pair of Montana drives that consumed more than 14 minutes of the second and third quarters when the Grizzlies were operating directly into a strong, gusty wind.

Neither resulted in a score, but both were instrumental in keeping Eastern’s offense off the field when it had the wind to its back – and in helping Montana build its massive time-of-possession advantage of almost 18 minutes.

“It’s funny,” UM coach Bobby Hauck said of those two key drives after watching his Grizzlies beat EWU for the sixth straight time on its home field. “You don’t get points, but it’s a momentum changer because they don’t get a chance. One of the reason’s we held them to three (points) today was not just because our defense played well, but that our offensive used up a lot of time.

“We were able to play keep-away from their offense, and all of sudden, the league MVP on offense doesn’t look like the MVP, but very average.”

Hauck was referring to Eastern quarterback Matt Nichols, who managed to complete just 19 of 45 passes for 191 yards – more than 150 less than the average of 343.8 he had coming into the game.

In defense of Nichols, it should be noted the Eagles had the ball for only 6 minutes, 58 seconds of the second and third quarters when they had the wind to their backs. But Nichols still stepped up and put the blame for the loss on the offense.

“They did a great job of holding on to the ball,” he said of the Grizzlies, who outgained the Eags 348-315. “But we did some poor things with the football – like turning it over early when we probably should have scored and taken an early lead.”

Eastern Washington coach Beau Baldwin passed on a chance to comment on the penalties that plagued his defense, saying he preferred to wait until watching film of the game before deciding whether they were caused by aggression or a simple lack of discipline.

“Our defense played well enough to win,” he said. “We just weren’t able to put it together as a whole team, and that’s been kind of it the last two weeks – just trying to put both sides together.”

“It was definitely a grind out there,” Sherritt said.

Northern Arizona 37, Portland State 17: Lance Kriesien threw for 229 yards and two touchdowns and freshman Deonte Williams rushed for 138 yards and two scores as the Lumberjacks (5-1, 3-0) beat the Vikings (2-4, 1-2) in Flagstaff, Ariz., for their fifth straight win.

Weber State 35, Montana State 12: Cameron Higgins passed for 347 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Wildcats (5-2, 3-0) over the Bobcats (3-3, 1-1) on a blustery, snowy afternoon in Bozeman.

Northern Colorado 29, Idaho State 9: Bryan Waggener threw two touchdown passes and the Bears (1-4, 1-1) turned their homecoming game into their first win of the season, beating the Bengals (0-6, 0-3) at Greeley, Colo.