George Ferguson Column: The good, bad and weird from the Brawl

MISSOULA — With the Montana Grizzlies and Montana State Bobcats coming into the 116th Brawl of the Wild at a combined 9-11 on the season, I admit, and I wrote last week, some of the excitement surrounding the annual showdown between the Cats and Griz was gone.

But, after what I witnessed on Saturday in Missoula, I have to admit, I was wrong.

Once again, the game between the Griz and Cats created excitement, energy and plenty of passion on both sides of the Divide. I guess, in the end, some things never change.

I’ll also say this, it was, if nothing else, a weird Brawl. When Montana scored on its first play from scrimmage, many had to be thinking blowout. Nope, not even close. When Chad Newell scored in the third quarter, Cat fans were thinking blowout too. No, that didn’t happen either. And when quarterback Chris Murray completed just his second pass of the entire game, on a fourth-quarter, fourth-and-one play, with all 11 Grizzly defenders at the line of scrimmage expecting a run, that finished the game in a weird way.

And for the really weird, yes, the Bobcats beat the Grizzlies, even though they completed just two forward passes all day. So, with that said, here’s some of my takes on the good, the bad, and well, I won’t use ugly, I’ll just keep using weird, from the 2016 Cat-Griz game.

The Bobcat Good: Murray’s legs. I have to say, I didn’t think Murray would beat the Griz without having to complete meaningful passes. At least I thought he’d have to complete more than two. But, Montana showed no ability to stop Murray’s sensational running ability, so, why not keep running? And that’s exactly what Murray and the Bobcats did. Newell, Gunnar Brekke, it didn’t matter. The Cats simply ran right over the Griz.

Want more MSU good? The risks first-year head coach Jeff Choate took during the game. Choate was clearly conservative with the passing game, but in the end he let it all hang out in order to get his team a win over the Griz. An early quarterback pooch punt was brilliant. Haven’t seen one of those since the days of Dave Dickenson. The fourth down pass call was great, and all day Choate continued to take chances, essentially chucking all percentages, charts and graphs telling him to do otherwise out the window. He was a gambler no doubt, and clearly, it inspired his young team.

The Griz Good: Montana senior defensive end Ryan Johnson was the best defensive player on the field Saturday and it wasn’t remotely close. While many Griz’ fans were left scratching their heads Saturday night, it wasn’t for lack of an effort by Johnson. He was simply unblockable and unstoppable Saturday, and the Griz didn’t lose on his account. Johnson left his guts laying in the middle of Washington-Grizzly Stadium, and he is one of many seniors the Griz will sorely miss.

More Griz Good: I also have to give kudos to the University of Montana for handing out rally towels before the game. First, it made an already great atmosphere even better, but secondly, I’ve long said Montana needs to do more of this. Fans and students pay a lot of money to attend Griz games, and, Cat-Griz in Missoula has become one of the most expensive tickets in the history of sports in the Treasure State. Fans deserve to get a little something back for being loyal, even in the face of continuing rising ticket prices, and the rally towels Saturday were a nice start. Keep it UM.

The Bobcat Bad: Not a lot to critique when a 3-7 MSU team rolls into Missoula and wins with an 18-year-old QB, and, rushes for nearly 400 yards on a supposed good Griz’ defense. But, I will say, I hope the Cats have some sort of plan to develop a passing game. The offense worked against the Griz, but it surely isn’t going to work over the course of 11 games, or over the course of Murray’s next three years. That’s simply not sustainable unless the Cats are phasing into a triple-option team. Choate certainly seems like the guy to take the Cats back to prominence, but, their passing game was an unmitigated disaster all season long, and it could have cost them a win in a Brawl they dominated. It’s great to beat the Griz and bring the Divide Trophy back to Bozeman for the first time in four years, but, passing has to be addressed for the long haul.

The Griz Bad: Not even sure where to start. Montana played poorly on offense, poorly on defense, but hey, it did finally make all the kicks attempted in one game. Really, it just seemed like the nosedive the Griz took, one that started with a loss at Northern Arizona five weeks ago, was in full tailspin Saturday. Montana had boatloads of talent on both sides of the ball, but, when it came to winning the Brawl, the talent mattered little. And it begs the question, and it’s one only head coach Bob Stitt can answer. Who are the Montana Grizzlies? What is their identity? How could this team, one that started off the Stitt era with a win over North Dakota State, not only lose the Brawl on their home field in the manner they did, lose four of their last five games, miss the playoffs and lose a total of 10 games in two seasons, all after that glorious win over the Bison on ESPN? How did all of it happen? Stitt is the only one with those answers.

That’s some of the good and bad from Cat-Griz, but there’s more.

First, a plea to what I call the one-percenters. That’s the one percent of both fan bases that every year act like complete idiots during the game. Please, just knock it off. The game might be called the Brawl, but it doesn’t mean one should be incited, and, for my umpteenth Cat-Griz game now, I saw a select few fans, wearing both blue and gold and maroon and silver, acting like complete morons toward each other. And what has always irked me about that is, those one-percenters think they’re behaving that way in defense of, or in promotion of, their team. And all the while, Cats and Griz players are always showing respect and class toward each other on the field. Outside of the regular trash talk, one of the great things about this rivalry is that the players have a huge amount of respect for each other. I saw Cat players help Griz players up off the turf and Griz players helmet-tapping and back-slapping Cat players all game long.

So please, if the players doing battle can treat each other like decent human beings should, then why can’t some fans do the same? Trust me, the Cat-Griz rivalry doesn’t need fans behaving like that to make it the rivalry that it is. It was great long before any of the few fans that acted like idiots Saturday even knew what the Cat-Griz game was. It’s a great rivalry without that stupid stuff and trust me, if the players could see how you were acting, they’d think you were idiots, too.

And lastly, I have one more plea and it goes to UM AD Kent Haslam, new MSU AD Leon Costello and to the folks that run Root Sports. From now on, make the Brawl a night game or semi night game. Two years ago, the game kicked off at 4 p.m. in Missoula. That was the best atmosphere I’ve ever seen for Cat-Griz and I’ve been going to Cat-Griz games for a long, long time. A late afternoon or early evening kickoff gives fans so many more options. It makes game day drives easier and safer, it gives more people opportunities to care about high school football state championships and still be able to view the Cat-Griz game after. And, there’s just something really cool about the Cat-Griz game being played with the lights on. I don’t care about the cold either. We’re Montanan’s. We can handle cold weather. Please put the Cat-Griz game in a prime time setting. It’s that big and it deserves that kind of special treatment at this point.

So that’s it. That’s my take on the 2016 Brawl of the Wild. Congrats to the Bobcats. The Divide Trophy is now sitting in Bozeman, and that’s where we’ll all be next year. See you all at Bobcat Stadium on Nov. 18, 2017. I can’t wait.