Kramer Defends Calls

Considering he had spent too many hours the previous two days trying to explain some questionable play-calling in last Saturday’s 30-27 Big Sky Conference football loss to Montana, Mike Kramer was in a particularly upbeat mood Wednesday.

Even for Mike Kramer.

But it was easy to tell that Eastern Washington’s fourth-year coach had heard enough criticism of a late-game screen pass that was intercepted inside Montana’s 30-yard line, snuffing an excellent scoring opportunity that could have decided the game in favor of the Eagles.

“My God, it started with my wife and ended with my mother,” Kramer said of the second-guessing, which was fueled when running back Mike MacKenzie - who had averaged more than eight yards per carry against a weary Montana defense - did not get the call on third-and-1 from the Grizzlies’ 29 with just under 3 minutes remaining.

“It’s a logical, natural question that has to be asked,” Kramer added. “You can rationalize it all you want, but we just failed. More importantly, we - as a staff - failed, not necessarily to make the right choice, but to ensure we’d be successful.”

Kramer said watching video of Griffin Garske’s short pass deflecting off Lamont Brightful’s shoulder pads and into the arms of a Montana defender was trying, at best, for him and his assistant coaches.

But he refused to admit the wide-receiver screen was the wrong call.

“The palpable silence from everyone as we watched that play was one of the toughest things we’ve ever been around,” he said. “But in that same critical situation, we would probably call the same play and Lamont just wouldn’t drop the ball. It hit him right between the 10 fingers God gave him, Griffin threw it perfectly and we had the right separation between their linemen and linebackers. So, technically speaking, it was a perfect call and it would have scored.”

When asked about not handing the ball to MacKenzie, who had gained nine yards on a first-down call just two plays earlier, Kramer pointed back to a critical fumble the senior made in an earlier overtime loss to Portland State.

“I love Michael, and he’s playing great,” Kramer said. “But I can go back to the Portland State game where a simple handoff to Michael wasn’t a sure thing. So we could play this what-if game for a long, long time.”

There were several other questionable calls in Saturday’s loss - like a third-quarter, first-down option pass from wide receiver Bashir Levingston to his cousin Keish Levingston which was intercepted by Montana’s Chris Colvin in his own end zone, killing another long Eastern drive. And three consecutive short passes - two of which fell incomplete - on the Eagles’ final possession, which was set up by a blocked punt. The drive started at Montana’s 30-yard line with 1:32 left and ended when Nick Reynolds missed a 47-yard fieldgoal try following an illegal procedure penalty. As it turned out, Kramer was well-informed about the play-calling.

His headset, which he uses to monitor play calls, malfunctioned early in the game. But Kramer refused to blame his team’s failures on the malfunction. “They were the right calls and we’re moving on,” he said.

The Eagles (3-4 overall, 2-3 in the Big Sky) play at Cal State Sacramento (4-4, 2-3) this Saturday.

Brady busters

League-leading Montana State (5-2, 3-1) accomplished something in last Saturday’s 32-26 win over Cal State Northridge (4-3, 3-2) that no other Big Sky Conference team has done.

The Bobcats’ defense, behind an uncharacteristic number of blitzes, made Northridge freshman quarterback Marcus Brady seem ordinary.

Brady, the top-rated passer in the league, completed just 16 of 33 passes for 152 yards and threw three interceptions.

Grizzly check

Anyone trying to sort through the craziness of this year’s Big Sky title chase might want to resort to logic and put their money on perennial power Montana.

The Grizzlies (5-2, 3-2) won consecutive games for the first time this season by beating EWU last Saturday, but they still seem to have the inside track to the regular-season championship and the automatic I-AA playoff berth that goes with it.

Coach Mick Dennehy’s team has only three games left and two of those are against second-division teams - Idaho State (2-5, 1-3) and Sac State. The other is a regular-season finale against arch-rival Montana State, which must travel to Missoula. If Montana wins out, it will hold the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over the Bobcats and Portland State (4-3, 4-2). But the Grizzlies would still need both Cal State Northridge (4-3, 3-2) and Weber State (5-3, 3-2) to suffer a third loss although one of those two will be eliminated this weekend when they square off in Ogden, Utah.

Quick kicks

With his three scoring strikes last Saturday against EWU, Montana’s Brian Ah Yat boosted his career touchdown pass total to 80, which ranks fourth on the Big Sky’s all-time list… . Idaho State, which plays at Montana this weekend, hasn’t won in Missoula since 1983.