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Interesting opening week for most conference schools (sorry Idaho State) but really not many changes in the rankings. Northern Arizona got their first win over Montana (at Montana to boot) in quite a number of seasons and the former Great West schools are doing rather well. Here are this week's power rankings (last week ranking in parenthesis). As usual, all are my opinion only.

1. Montana State (1)---The Bobcats jumped out early on Northern Colorado and never did let up at home. Conference season and they are looking good. This week finds them on the road at Southern Utah. Can they beat a quality opponent on the road.

2. Eastern Washington (2)---Speaking of the road, the Eagles started the season at Weber State, always a tough place to play, but they got away with the win. This week is the conference home opener against the suddenly vulnerable Montana team.

3. Cal Poly (3)---The Mustangs started out conference play at home against the other Great West California school, UC-Davis, and stuggled a bit more than what people thought. They still got the win but will need to play better as they go on the road to North Dakota.

4. Northern Arizona (5)---Many years of frustration were tossed aside as the Lumberjacks went into Montana's home and got the win in a game that really was not as close. Now it remains to be seen if they can get a great season out of it. Will the good season continue at home against Portland State?

5. North Dakota (6)---The "Dakotans" (easy to call them that as they are the only Dakota school in the conference) took to the road last week and got a tough road win at Sacramento State. They are appearing to be as tough away from home as at home. This week they stay home and play Cal Poly.

6. Montana (4)---Confusing to say the least as the Grizzlies jumped out to a big lead at home against Northern Arizona, then watched it all go away. Really, how good are the Grizzlies? They get a strong test this weekend at Eastern Washington.

7. Southern Utah (8)---Down on the road the whole way, the Thunderbirds got a late touchdown at Portland State, then the struggling defense came up with a big stop at the goal line to preserve the win. Impressive, but not as impressive as, say, beating Montana State at home this weekend?

8. Sacramento State (7)---All of sudden the Hornets big win at Colorado seems a distant memory as they fell at home to the upstart North Dakota team. Similar to last year, the Hornets once promising season is starting to fall apart. This weekend, a chance to right the ship at Idaho State.

9. Weber State (10)---The only team left in the conference without a win, the Wildcats never were out of the game at home against Eastern Washington. No wins but quite the brutal schedule so far. This weekend, a chance at a win at UC-Davis.

10. Portland State (11)---After leading at home against Southern Utah for most of the game, the Vikings could not punch it in for the tie at the goal line. A heartbreaking loss for sure and things do not get easy as they go to Northern Arizona this weekend.

11. UC-Davis (12)---For the Aggies the defense is playing superb, keeping the team in games, yet the offense cannot seem to get on track. They had their chances against Cal Poly, yet could not come through. This weekend, they welcome Weber State.

12. Idaho State (9)---Nebraska is always a great FBS and kudos to the Bengals for taking a game like this. However, when you get beat as badly as the Bengals did, you hope you get something good out of it. This weekend, they play at home against Sacramento State.

13. Northern Colorado (13)---After looking rather good at times in the season so far, the Bears looked like the Bears of old against a slightly struggling Montana State team. This week, they will regroup and try to capture their play from the beginning of the season.

RECAP: 1-2 close, 3-5 a bit behind, 6 close behind, 7 on an inland, 8 after that, and 9-13 bringing up the rear.

Nice analysis and I agree. The Grizzlies of the 1st half are a top 3 team in the conference. The 2nd half Grizzlies are, I hope, an abbhoration. Same record as last year at this time 2-2 and coming off a bad loss (at Sac). Ran off 7 straight after that in conference. Here to history repeating itself.

I might want to object to your characterization of my Hornets, mainly because you forgot to mention the zebra screw-job we took last week. (No, it was nowhere near as bad as what happened tonight.) Of course, our team mistakes clearly overshadowed that. Whatever my objections, JALMOND, your placement of us in the league structure is spot on. Unfortunately....

I'd actually put us at #7.

Unless this team has a come to jesus moment, that's about where we might end up. Until we can play a complete game and not throw everything away, the teams that can deserve to be ahead of us. In so many ways and for so many reasons, we NEED to beat EWU this week.

JALMOND wrote:Many years of frustration were tossed aside as the Lumberjacks went into Montana's home and got the win in a game that really was not as close.

Not sure what you mean by that.

Stat/NAU/UM

score/41/31
1st downs/19/18
total yards/406/382
total O plays/69/68
Ave gain/5.9/5.6
turnovers/0/5

Everything was close but the turnovers, which were the story of the game.

kemajic wrote:

JALMOND wrote:Many years of frustration were tossed aside as the Lumberjacks went into Montana's home and got the win in a game that really was not as close.

Not sure what you mean by that.

Stat/NAU/UM

score/41/31
1st downs/19/18
total yards/406/382
total O plays/69/68
Ave gain/5.9/5.6
turnovers/0/5

Everything was close but the turnovers, which were the story of the game.

Or the score. NAU spotted the Griz a 24-7 lead shortly after the 2nd quarter began, then ran away from the Griz after that. Also, as I said to your little brother's fans (Carroll College), you want to count a touchdown at the end of the game and say you only lost by 10 points, that's your perogative. We all know who the better team was, objectively speaking of course.

JALMOND wrote:We all know who the better team was, objectively speaking of course.

We'll see how well that "objective" statement holds up at the end of the season. Winning by a margin of 5 in turnovers is hard to reproduce every week.

JALMOND wrote:

kemajic wrote: Not sure what you mean by that.

Stat/NAU/UM

score/41/31
1st downs/19/18
total yards/406/382
total O plays/69/68
Ave gain/5.9/5.6
turnovers/0/5

Everything was close but the turnovers, which were the story of the game.

Or the score. NAU spotted the Griz a 24-7 lead shortly after the 2nd quarter began, then ran away from the Griz after that. Also, as I said to your little brother's fans (Carroll College), you want to count a touchdown at the end of the game and say you only lost by 10 points, that's your perogative. We all know who the better team was, objectively speaking of course.

Spotted us a 24-7 lead. Your anti-Montana bias is showing, still.

Grizalltheway wrote:

JALMOND wrote:
Or the score. NAU spotted the Griz a 24-7 lead shortly after the 2nd quarter began, then ran away from the Griz after that. Also, as I said to your little brother's fans (Carroll College), you want to count a touchdown at the end of the game and say you only lost by 10 points, that's your perogative. We all know who the better team was, objectively speaking of course.

Spotted us a 24-7 lead. Your anti-Montana bias is showing, still.

Yeah...Interesting choice of verbage. Montana didn't dominate the first half...NAU was just spotting us a lead.

SuperHornet wrote:I might want to object to your characterization of my Hornets, mainly because you forgot to mention the zebra screw-job we took last week. (No, it was nowhere near as bad as what happened tonight.) Of course, our team mistakes clearly overshadowed that. Whatever my objections, JALMOND, your placement of us in the league structure is spot on. Unfortunately....

The refs didn’t cost us the game last week, the turnovers in the redzone did. Stop making these stupid excuses. Safron didn’t execute when it mattered and that’s the bottom line. Safron takes care of the football and doesn't fumble the snap inside the UND 5 and doesn’t try to force the ball into coverage then that game goes down to the wire.

mlbowl wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:
Spotted us a 24-7 lead. Your anti-Montana bias is showing, still.

Yeah...Interesting choice of verbage. Montana didn't dominate the first half...NAU was just spotting us a lead.

Also, I guess we shouldn't count NAU's first TD, since it came so close to the start of the game and all.

JALMOND wrote:

kemajic wrote: Not sure what you mean by that.

Stat/NAU/UM

score/41/31
1st downs/19/18
total yards/406/382
total O plays/69/68
Ave gain/5.9/5.6
turnovers/0/5

Everything was close but the turnovers, which were the story of the game.

Or the score. NAU spotted the Griz a 24-7 lead shortly after the 2nd quarter began, then ran away from the Griz after that. Also, as I said to your little brother's fans (Carroll College), you want to count a touchdown at the end of the game and say you only lost by 10 points, that's your perogative. We all know who the better team was, objectively speaking of course.

When you say a game wasn't a close as the score, the implicatio is one team built up a huge lead then the other scored multiple times in garbage time to make it look closer than it appeared. Despite how poorly the Griz played in the second half, this game was 27-24 at the end of the 3rd quarter despite 5 Montana turnovers. In fact, I think a better observation would be the score was not indicative of how close the game really was (as proven by kemajic's post).

But you go ahead with the haterade. Griz fans realize it's been a long time coming (like 15 years).

AZGrizFan wrote:But you go ahead with the haterade. Griz fans realize it's been a long time coming (like 15 years).

For all the years I've been doing this, at some point during the season I've been accused of being a hater of each of the Big Sky teams.

Even Portland State.

You never got that from ME, JALMOND. Even when I've disagreed with you, you've always been fair to my Hornets, IMO.

JALMOND wrote:For all the years I've been doing this, at some point during the season I've been accused of being a hater of each of the Big Sky teams.

Even Portland State.

I don't think there are enough NAU fans out there for someone to call you a Lumberjacks hater.

You've always struck me as having the ability to be objective in your outlook.

JALMOND,

I have to agree. Saying NAU spotted the Griz 24 was just a bad choice of words (maybe you meant that). The Griz played very well and, IMO, if they played like that on O the entire game it would have been a runaway by Montana. But they didn't and it wasn't so moving on to EWU......

What I didn't want was to have all the Griz bashing and defending and whatnot spill over here. My take on the Griz right now is that this is an important time and they can still right the ship. No one should count them out, that is for sure. But they need to move past this and forget that it was NAU's first win in forever. If they can, watch out. But if not, this will be a long season in Missoula. Keep in mind that a wounded grizzly is far more dangerous than a healthy one, so don't count them out of anything.

Also, I don't think the "off-the-field" problems really make much difference now (besides JJ being gone, obviously). It seems we have far more on-the-field things to worry about that have kept us from winning.

uofmman1122 wrote:Also, I don't think the "off-the-field" problems really make much difference now (besides JJ being gone, obviously). It seems we have far more on-the-field things to worry about that have kept us from winning.

Like a defense with 9 new starters and an offense with 5 new starters? Naw, that couldn't possibly be it.

Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:

uofmman1122 wrote:Also, I don't think the "off-the-field" problems really make much difference now (besides JJ being gone, obviously). It seems we have far more on-the-field things to worry about that have kept us from winning.

Like a defense with 9 new starters and an offense with 5 new starters? Naw, that couldn't possibly be it.

Wait...does that count as off-the-field or on-the-field?

JALMOND wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:But you go ahead with the haterade. Griz fans realize it's been a long time coming (like 15 years).

For all the years I've been doing this, at some point during the season I've been accused of being a hater of each of the Big Sky teams.

Even Portland State.

Well I would say that means you're pretty damn unbiased. Except when it comes to EWU and always having us behind the Montana's...hater.

I don't remember JALMOND putting EWU behind the Montanas in his final power rankings after EWU won the title....

Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:

uofmman1122 wrote:Also, I don't think the "off-the-field" problems really make much difference now (besides JJ being gone, obviously). It seems we have far more on-the-field things to worry about that have kept us from winning.

Like a defense with 9 new starters and an offense with 5 new starters? Naw, that couldn't possibly be it.

Seems to be more of a chemistry problem than anything. We have more than enough talent on paper to win the conference, it's just a matter of putting all the pieces together.

Good rankings JALMOND.

I have read all the posts and many points made by Griz fans and others are valid. I think that in a game like the NAU game no one has all the answers. It was certainly a game of two halves. At halftime I thought the Griz would put up another 21 points and we would have a blow out. They are capable of doing so. However, whether you compliment the Jacks for good defensive plays or you castigate a young QB and a senior RB for 5 turnovers....it is what it is. Yes the last TD made the bottom line look better and so you could argue that the score really wasn't that close. But you could answer that the Griz did not give up and possibly the QB change should have been made and the outcome might have been different.

A loss is a loss and no excuses. The Jacks are a good team and it appears that the BSC has a lot of good teams. You better bring your hardhat ever week or you are going to get rolled.

We Griz fans are going to be riding this roller coaster all season. With this much talent and this much youth it is going to be crazy. We will have some wins that shock us and some losses that shock us.

I am very afraid of the game with EWU. Logically, they should roll the Griz. But I will never count this Griz team out of a game until the final seconds are on the clock.

grizfan47 wrote:Good rankings JALMOND.

I have read all the posts and many points made by Griz fans and others are valid. I think that in a game like the NAU game no one has all the answers. It was certainly a game of two halves. At halftime I thought the Griz would put up another 21 points and we would have a blow out. They are capable of doing so. However, whether you compliment the Jacks for good defensive plays or you castigate a young QB and a senior RB for 5 turnovers....it is what it is. Yes the last TD made the bottom line look better and so you could argue that the score really wasn't that close. But you could answer that the Griz did not give up and possibly the QB change should have been made and the outcome might have been different.

A loss is a loss and no excuses. The Jacks are a good team and it appears that the BSC has a lot of good teams. You better bring your hardhat ever week or you are going to get rolled.

We Griz fans are going to be riding this roller coaster all season. With this much talent and this much youth it is going to be crazy. We will have some wins that shock us and some losses that shock us.

I am very afraid of the game with EWU. Logically, they should roll the Griz. But I will never count this Griz team out of a game until the final seconds are on the clock.

Why should they roll the Griz when they struggled to put away a very down Weber?