Montana stuns No. 1 North Dakota State 38-35 on late TD
MISSOULA – Bob Stitt is off and running at the University of Montana – at four-time defending national champion North Dakota State’s expense.
Joey Counts scored on a 1-yard run on fourth-and-goal with 2 seconds left to give the Grizzlies a 38-35 victory over the top-ranked Bison on Saturday in the Football Championship Subdivision showdown.
“Here’s my statement: How about that?” Stitt said. “That was unbelievable. It was pretty crazy how calm I was and everybody all around us was. The players, man, they were so focused.”
The innovative Stitt took over at Montana after 15 seasons at Colorado Mines, replacing the retired Mick Delaney. The debut was a smashing success in front of a record 26,472 fans who braved smoke from forest fires to pack Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
“I’m so happy for our kids, because this is what they came to play for,” Stitt said. “They came here to win every game. They came here to be first. We didn’t play today to be second.”
NDSU lost for the fourth time in its last 62 games.
“They made one more play than we did,” Bison coach Chris Klieman said. “It was a great game and my hat’s off to Coach Stitt. I thought they did a better job than we did the second half.”
Brady Gustafson was 30 of 55 for 434 yards and three touchdowns in his first start for No. 12 Montana. The 6-foot-7 junior completed passes of 15 yards to Jamaal Jones and 31 yards to Reese Carlson on the winning 15-play, 80-yard drive that started with 1:39 left.
“Brady was awesome,” Stitt said. “He did everything that we asked him to do. He had a few situations when he didn’t hit things, but he never lost focus. He just kept grinding, and he never, ever panicked.”
Carlson’s catch came on fourth-and-10 and moved the ball to the 13 with 21 seconds left. Gustafson then hit Ellis Henderson for 12 yards to set up first-and-goal. Montana needed four plays to get in and spent its final timeout after Counts was stopped inches short on third down.
Counts broke through on the left side for the score.
“I know as soon as Joey ran into the end zone my eyes started tearing up,” Jones said. “Those are the kinds of things you dream about, especially as a senior, especially it being my last, first game. That was picture perfect.”
Montana tied it at 28 in the third quarter on Gustafson’s 62-yard pass to Henderson. The Bison regained the lead on King Frazier’s 7-yard scoring run with 10:37 left in the game.
Gustafson also had TD passes of 7 yards to Jones and 38 yards to Ben Roberts. Roberts is a senior who spent three seasons playing baseball at Washington State.