……. and another missed extra point ….. argh. Looked like one of my duck hooks.
Nice block by Dixon to and run by Lan.

I don’t think the southern Utah coach is going to be Mr. Happy at his press conference. Idaho State scores again on a long run. 31-14

Montana up now. Getting a bunch of help from the refs.

Stare down pick by the Catamounts.

Western Carolina is no slouch. They gave NC State all they could handle. The key for them is their very experienced and cool QB. You can see the experience differemce between him and Ay Yat.

I am not surprised that western Carolina is doing well, but it is tough to win in Missoula. That’s why I loved the Aggie 2018 blowout there.

Western Carolina 14 Montana 0 first quarter.

Go Cats.

San Diego 14 North Dakota 3 with 11 minutes left in first half. USD offensive line looking good with upper classman and grad students.

Sure hope Rex is back for Idaho. Gonna needs all hands (or at least most) on deck for that game.

CJ wore 25 so it wasn’t him.

I noticed that Ian Simpson appeared to be in the game with Southern Utah (saw his number 0) and I believe the announcer called his name when he received a block in the back that pinned Southern Utah deep. If so, he was a gunner on a punt - I would think it a bit abnormal that a tight end would be a gunner. Anyway I remember him having a good game against Commerce last year and I believe was injured at some point. He would be a good addition to an already pretty strong tight end group. Good to see Gale make a couple big receptions. I believe he has the best big play potential of the group, and for whatever reason (maybe blocking?) was kind of marginalized the first couple of games.

Would have thought Idaho at ACU might be interesting given their fame at Texas Tech, but they looked quite pedestrian at Northern Colorado.

Western Carolina might give Montana a scare if they recover from their poor performance against Campbell. They have a good QB and gave NC State a game. Being in Missoula is a challenge for visiting teams with the crowd noise.

hmmm…. I seem to recall that the Hymenopteras lost the last Causeway???

The 89 yards rushing was a bit skewed by sacks but agreed there does need to be more rushing output. After rewatching the video, Larison’s catch on his touchdown run was spectacular.

Excellent special teams - loved the kickoffs into the end zone and punting was solid. It appears that Cade Cox instead of Altekruse punted that last punt - not sure why. Ridley was banging them confidently and Hutton’s kickoff return was pivotal in terms of field condition - Hutton is so dependable and gives 100% on every play.

Announcers mentioned it was the first time in 3 years that the Ags came from behind at the half. A gutsy win despite struggles at times. Need these sorts of wins if you want to aim for playoffs. Although this was not a league game, it sort of reminds me of the Idaho State win in 2018 when Idaho State missed a gimme field goal too.

copied from a Washington County Historical County webpage ….

“By the mid-1850s, the reality of civil war hung over the United States. Brigham Young asked the Indian Missionaries in southern Utah to see if cotton could be grown in there. When they reported in the affirmative, President Young immediately made plans to colonize the Virgin River Basin. In 1857, the Samuel Adair and Robert Covington Companies were called to settle southern Utah and to grow cotton. Nearly 40 families, mostly with cotton growing experience (from Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, Texas, and Tennessee), arrived in Washington Utah in April of 1857. The region was dubbed "Dixie".

The families endured the summer's blistering heat and were forced to continually rebuild their washed out dams on the Virgin River. Due to the alkali soil, the cotton crops did not completely germinate as expected, resulting in a limited harvest. A spirit of frustration and hopelessness overcame many of the early settlers. Any by the time the Civil War ended, the economics no longer justified growing cotton in Utah's Dixie.”

So sort of logical initial naming added to the fact that it was in the southern part of Utah (Zion amongst LDS). Cotton is only grown below a certain latitude to insure a long growing season.

C.J. Millican(LB) was also listed in a pass incompletion in which C.J. Hutton was the intended receiver. Hutton was wearing number 25 at the time and not his normal no. 1. This is from the ESPN app play by play listing. I am not sure who enters the data during the game. I would think it is the home team and with double numbers Millikan would come up before Tompkins alphabetically. Just a guess. From a UCD perspective. I would think it would be under the SIDs purview to provide correct data to the home team. Again, not sure just a guess. In any event I don’t think that level of detail is attributable to Plough - he has bigger fish to fry - specifically calling plays and winning games.

Not saying that wasn’t a bad decision by Hastings, but after looking at that play again …..
The biggest mistake Miles made was a wide open Gbatu down the middle streaking last the safeties and all DBs. He did not appear to initially look to Davis on the field sideline, but rather an initial Quick Look over the middle, then to the sideline. Obviously a bad decision to throw there. The other thing I noticed was that Davis was just standing there with his arms to his side - I would think that after getting to that position without an immediate throw, a receiver would start making his way back to the QB to shorten the throw a bit and cut off the DB angle.

Anyway Miles certainly is not perfect and that pick and a couple of crucial sacks were not helpful (he did get a fair amount of pressure at times throughout the game) he was for the most part quite accurate and ultimately was an important part of the win.

Both Weber and EWU go down. Two fairly recent FBS powers are struggling.

I always say D can keep you in most games. Big effort. Meyer is just a baller.

my blood pressure and heart rate :-). Would be nice to get Rex and porter back. On the plus side, others got some good game experience.

Yes Meyer again. It’s gonna take me a while to go to sleep.