On Friday I said the offense's only real weakness was after it got off schedule, but we stayed on schedule 65 percent of the time. Saturday first-and-ten stopped being fine: 12 of 27, after 30 of 52 in the first two games. Second-and-long was still bad, 2 of 8, but it had company. Every number in this section is first-and-ten only, so the short first downs and the one first-and-19 are out of it.

On Saturday, my eyes told me our first-and-ten failings were largely because we were running into heavy boxes and run blitzes, over and over, with cover 0 and man-free behind it. The play-by-play said the same. On first-and-ten we ran 12 times and threw 15. Only 4 of the rushes were successful, with them going for -1, -1, 0, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 8, 12, 17 and 57. Then 8 of the 15 passes succeeded, including chunk plays of 33 and 42.

The self-scout carried our tendency: we ran on 46 percent of first-and-tens through two games, 24 of 52. Saturday's sheet is the same sheet, 44 percent, 12 of 27. Southern Dixie Tech had two games of it on film and played to it. Eleven of those twelve carries went up the middle. Seven were Eli, and one of the seven stayed on schedule.

So here is my annual refrain: please, Pease, throw it more on first-and-ten. The first-and-ten throw was the best call on the sheet Saturday and the first-and-ten run into a loaded box was the worst, and we split them down the middle anyway. Corvallis will have the same games on film, plus this one. Which leaves another interpretation: we spent Saturday entrenching our tendencies so we can break them next week. That would be a genius move. Fingers crossed.

The offense has had no answer once it is off schedule, which is why successful first-and-ten calls are paramount. The whole argument: pass more on first-and-ten so we can rush more on third down.

The line I called superb was stood up by a front that had stuffed three runs in 76 carries all season. We averaged 8.1 a carry anyway, a top-five-percent rushing day in FCS terms, because we finally saw four long runs, after only one the first two weeks.

You will read that without the 75 and the 57 yard carries we ran 26 times for 95 yards. Skyline wrote a version of it. The big plays happened, and deleting them penalizes an offense for the one thing it did best. The metrics built for this job count every snap and still separate the two stories: success rate, 42.4 percent, a median FCS day and ten points below our first two games. IsoPPP, the value of a successful play, was top quarter of the league, 1.44, reflective of the explosive plays carrying the day. Both are true. Neither required pretending a touchdown didn't happen, which it clearly did:

Gosh it is fun to watch that boy run.

Eli's third-down share tripled, 4 of 14 after 2 of 24, and the two third-and-ones went to him for 18 yards and a touchdown. The eleven third downs of five or more went to the air and converted twice. That is the usage pattern working exactly as designed.

Ah Yat was sacked once in 38 dropbacks: the protection held all day while the run blocking did not, which is what running into a loaded box looks like on a stat sheet. The line could have played better. The play calling was not doing them any favors.

One more before the defense. Brooks Davis had a career day, 12 catches for 151 yards, and on the first drive he looked just as fast as he is quick, exploding past blocks for a long gain. The off-season work and the well-known work ethic showed up.

I said the Mustardettes were gunning for a shutout and that this group was winning on first contact and on the back end. The box score says neither held, to a team that had scored seven points in two games. This is true, but I want to look at something. Split the box score at the end of the third quarter and things look more promising.

Three quarters of stellar play, with the one explosive play yielded ending with Chris Johnson II punching the ball out of the end zone. It was 28-0 with just under nine minutes left, and then the team lost interest at just about the same time the fans did. Barben threw for 151 of his 301 yards after that, and the backups were getting their reps. The stadium was empty by then, so I'll fill you in on what I saw.

The day's 7.68 net yards a dropback is a fourth-quarter number. The run defense got stingier as the game went on. And in the fringe Southern Dixie Tech lost half a point of expected value per play; for the season Montana's fringe defense sits at −0.353 expected points a snap against a league median of −0.052, seven times the median and the most durable thing on either side of the ball.

That is the case for optimism. The case against it is that 4.4 a snap through three quarters is still a step up from the 3.6 that offense mustered against Montana State and BYU, and that a backup secondary giving up 15, 15, 15, 15, 26 and 60 on two drives is a depth problem, one we will hopefully not be testing in Corvallis.

After Jake Mason went off in an air cast (didn't look good, all the best to him), I'm pretty sure we ran the next two plays with ten men. Not great. And the front started the day short a man already with Solo not at the stadium. Bobby 3.0 said he "is taking a personal leave and we really hope he comes back... That's going to be his decision." We wish Solo well and hope we see big No. 58 in pads on Saturday. His absence is notable.

What the officials were allowing Southern Dixie Tech's offensive line to do grew so annoying I started taking video for one drive: Tech committed a facemask, hands to the face, and two holds on the edge. Obviously none called. Saturday's referee was Spencer Mumford, and across my five years of analysis his crew calls the least holding in the conference.

Shaun Rainey said Tyler King got mauled in the open where everyone could see it and that he has no clue why this conference does not call holding. SWX posted a first-quarter clip under the words "Possibly a missed holding call here," and GrizFanPod answered the whole conference in one word: "Possibly?"

Bobby Alert, and a correction. Friday's scout swept Southern Dixie Tech's staff for Bobbys and reported level zero with an asterisk. I made a calamitous omission. The umpire Saturday was Bobby Alcantar. The umpire stands behind the defensive line watching the interior, and his job, above every other job, is holding. We love our Bobbys around here. This one we would love to see reach for his pocket.

The flags that did fly cut both ways. Montana's seven for 64 was the cleanest game of the season and less than half the Drake number. SDT was called for a good number of judgment penalties, all of them obvious, but got away with many more. Every coach in the league should be teaching their guys to hold.

The play clock did not work the entire game. Griz Vision went dark for a chunk of the second half. Announced attendance was 25,418 against a listed capacity of 25,217, a sellout by definition and not by eyeball. I had new seats but the same complaints about my standing on defense. I acquiesced in the second half given everyone's general apathy, including the team in maroon (my lung capacity remained uninhibited; the standing is really just to shame all the non-yellers). To sum up the fan and player performance:

Cotton Eyed Joe played. 4:01 p.m., right after the Paine touchdown made it 35-7. DJ Briggs kept his word, but my campaign stays open. It'll take a little while to rebuild trust.

As a musical aside, there was a hilarious moment during the waning moments of the Cats' game at Nevada. After a Wolf Pack receiver fumbled to seal an embarrassing FCS home loss, Boot Scootin' Boogie could immediately be heard blaring through the stadium. The announcers were doing their post-mortem over the sweet notes of Brooks and Dunn. I couldn't help but laugh. The dozens of fans still in attendance had to be aghast.

This week's runaway winner is @mt_pete, who at 5:56 Saturday evening told the world that Griz fans were acting like a 21-point home win over Utah Tech meant something. "Cute." He then worked his own replies for four hours, and the replies were the best part. Thirty-odd Griz fans answered him, and not one of them argued that Montana looked good. One asked, "Are these Griz fans in the room with you right now?" Nobody in Missoula was happy, Pete.

No rev-share checks this week from @mt_pete, as this didn't seem like a joking matter. Instead I wonder if his family might consider a welfare check or a 72-hour hold, as the Griz-Derangement seems to have morphed into full-on Griz-a-phrenia.

Griz 0 through three home games. I was sitting on the reserved side this weekend, and it's aptly named. Not an FTC heard, nor much of anything, third down or otherwise. I'm back to the spritz balcony in three weeks, and my ears will be open. I couldn't hear any Billy Idol over the broadcast, but we know they played it at the rocking R, so we'll mark down four more this week, conservatively. Cats 7, Griz 0. Mony Mony.

A landslide. Shortest entry of the season: "I just woke up from my nap…yikes," filed at 3:35 p.m. A man slept through a 21-0 lead and woke up to file a grievance. The team was sleepwalking, but you were literally asleep, sir.

Last August the NCAA finished with Michigan. Three seasons of in-person scouting, recording of the other team's signals, a staffer buying tickets to other people's games, with a national championship won in the middle of it. The verdict: four years of probation, a fine of $50,000 plus ten percent of the football budget, two more fines sized to the postseason revenue and ten percent of the scholarships. Plus punishments for a coach who already left for the NFL and for the staffer who'd already been fired.

Zero games vacated. The committee wrote, in its own report, that a postseason ban was required in this case. Then it didn't impose one. Every win stayed. The trophy stayed.

Montana's crime was bail money and a lawyer. Montana's fine was $3,000, to charity. Montana's wins are gone. So the NCAA has told us cheating that only helps you on the field costs money and no games. But bailing two guys out vacates six games, including a semi-final run. It's long past time. Give us the six back.

An Eagle River, Alaska kid. He showed up in Missoula in 1997 and ran between the tackles on teams that went 45-10 while he was here, a three-time All-American, sixth in the Payton voting his senior year, when he ran for 1,658 yards, still the single-season record. He carried it 30 times for 142 and scored the only touchdown in the 2001 national championship game. Then he went to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and stayed out of the way for twenty-five years, which is how a man with the school's career rushing record gets his name spelled wrong by the beat, and by his own school's roster page, in the same week his record is about to fall (e before r guys).

The record in the book is 4,070 career yards. Sometime in the first half next week in Corvallis, Eli is going to run past that number, and the number is wrong. The NCAA did not count playoff games in career statistics until 2002, and when they changed it, they never went back and fixed it, even though the numbers are right there. Count those games and this guy rushed for 4,892 yards and 54 touchdowns, both of which his Hall of Fame bio prints and neither of which the record book will. Eli is 65 yards from the record and 887 from the man.

Our guy told the local beat this week that the record still meaning enough for us all to monitor the chase "means more than keeping the record means for me."

Yohance Humphery. That guy rocked.

Next week is in Corvallis, a 9 p.m. showdown with the Beavers. The first road game, which means for one week the play clock, the video board, the holding calls, and the halftime exodus are on somebody else's athletic department. Kent, let's use the next couple weeks to get things shored up at home. Wa-Griz has a D- grade after three games.

I have faith that this team can show up and play for four quarters, and that we have been holding things in reserve for better opponents. We had better hope: Oregon State was leading No. 13 Texas Tech in the fourth quarter this Saturday before losing 35-24. If our guys don't strap in, they are going to be the ones saying "What happened?" by about 11 p.m.

Let's hope not.

Go Griz.