Story Published:
Aug 26, 2010 at 3:40 PM MST
Story Updated:
Aug 26, 2010 at 3:40 PM MST
MISSOULA, MONTANA (8/26/10) - The defense dominated as The University of Montana Grizzlies held their final football scrimmage of 2010 fall camp Thursday morning in Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
The offense was limited to 189 total yards. They picked up 122 yards on 17-of-33 passing and 67 rushing on 122 carries, and were held to eight first downs.
"The defense did dominate today, from play number one," said Griz Head Coach Robin Pflugrad (flew-grad). "We had a little bit of a protection issue on the very first play of the scrimmage. There was a man in Andrew's (Selle) face from play one. We had second and 10 from our own end zone, and that kind of started the whole scrimmage off. The defense did a nice job. They kept the offense from moving the ball and got a turnover.
"Then we started from the two-yard line of the defense, and the offense didn't look very good trying to punch that in," Pflugrad said.
"That was disappointing offensively, no question."
There were just two touchdowns scored in the short, 54-play scrimmage. The first score of the day came on a 2-yard shovel pass from senior quarterback Justin Roper to sophomore halfback Gerald Kemp. The Roper-to-Kemp hook-up capped the only significant scoring drive of the day, picking up four first downs, and covered 55 yards in 13 plays.
The other touchdown came on a 37-yard run by junior halfback Dan Moore, who broke free to the left side of the field and shook off a couple of tackles for the score, then raced the final 20 yards or so untouched.
"He's (Moore) a pretty fast kid, he really is," Pflugrad said; "especially for a big guy who can also be your power back. We are glad to have him back. He brings a nice dimension to our offense, although again, he was slow getting started, as was the entire offense, and as I said earlier, that was disappointing."
Junior kicker Brody McKnight provided a lot of the offense, connecting on field goals of 40, 45, and 29 yards. His only miss was a 57-yarder in a two-minute drill. Sophomore kicker Russell Schey kicked a 21-yard field goal to conclude the scoring.
"Game management was a disappointment again," Pflugrad said.
"We broke the huddle with 12 again, and that's two scrimmages in a row.
We had an alignment issue again. It's easy to say they were both young players who made those mistakes, but coming with 21 practices or so, those things have to be cleaned up. And the minute you say that you turn on an NFL game, and they have five or six issues too and those guys are professionals, and that is not supposed to happen. I understand that we are human, but we do need to clean some things up."
Roper was 10-of-15-0 for 54 yards and a touchdown. Selle was just 1-of-9-0, and under constant pressure from the defense. Freshman Jordan Johnson was 6-of-8-0 for 56 yards.
"Jordy (Johnson) kind of came in and got things going and sparked us a little bit," Pflugrad said. "We probably need to seem a little bit more going at our ones (the starting defense). He's been very good against the twos and threes.
"During the recruiting process and all spring, it was 'hey, here's our plan -- we have two seniors and two incoming freshmen and a couple of guys in between there (at quarterback). And the plan on paper was obviously to redshirt him (Johnson), but who knows at this point."
Sophomore wide receiver Levi Buckles had scrimmage-highs of 4 catches for 55 yards. Juniors C. J. Atkins and Antwon Moutra, sophomores Bryce Carver and Kemp, and senior tight end Rob Overton had two receptions each.
Moore had five carries for a scrimmage-best 47 yards and a TD, while Roper had five totes for 14 yards, and Kemp gained 9 yards on three carries.
Freshman linebacker John Kanongata'a (Bellevue, Wash.) paced the defense with 6 tackles and a sack. Linebackers Alex Shaw and Ty Timmer and safety Bo Tully had 4 tackles apiece. Senior tackle Braydon Schilling had 2 tackles and a forced fumble, while junior free safety Mike McCord had 2 stops and a pair of pass deflections. Freshman linebacker Taylor Tuliaupupu (LaVerne, Calif.) also had a sack.
The Grizzlies are just nine days away from their season opener, a Sept 4th home contest against Western State (Colo.).
