Montana and Montana State Advance in NCAA Football
Montana’s two college football teams, Bobcats and Griz, have advanced in the NCAA 2011 playoffs this weekend against University of New Hampshire and Central Arkansas. The State of Montana will be in the spotlight again as when the Billings Big Sky Little League team advanced in the Little League World Series .
Montana State Bobcats:
The Montana State Bobcats had a near repeat of a 1976 game where the game came down to the wire on the last field goal kick that was missed by their opponent New Hampshire with seconds remaining on the clock.
Montana State had the game put away when Darius Jones intercepted a Mark Becker pass at the Bobcat 3-yard line with 1:16 to play and the Bobcats lead 26-19. However, a shanked punt gave the Wildcats the ball with 17 seconds remaining, and Becker hit Justin Mello on a 29-yard scoring pass with 6 seconds to play. Mike MacArthur hit the right upright with his extra-point attempt, sending Montana State into the quarterfinals against Sam Houston State next week. The 26-25 victory over New Hampshire helps Montana State advance to the second round of the FCS playoffs next week.
Montana Grizzilies:
On the other side of the state, a year after missing the NCAA Division I football playoffs, the University of Montana’s (Grizzilies) program appears to be returning to prime-time status this coming weekend as well. Montana advanced to the second round of the playoffs with a win over Central Arkansas 41 – 14.
Montana announced Sunday morning that its national quarterfinal against Northern Iowa will be played at 8 p.m. ET on Friday, Dec. 9 on ESPN2. Both teams have 10-2 records and shared their conference titles so its should be a good game.
The NCAA announced the game times for the other three quarterfinals for Saturday, Dec. 10. The match-ups are Montana State (10-2) at top-ranked Sam Houston State (12-0), Maine (9-3) at Georgia Southern (10-2) and Lehigh (11-1) at North Dakota State (11-1).
Here was the Montana Grizzilies 2011 Schedule.
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Hey, who are the Grizzilies? And what happened? You know, the rest of the story. Don’t keep us in suspense.