Every figure here covers all ten games for each team through Nov. 7; the charting is PFF's, and our defensive numbers leave out the snaps the backups played after games were decided.

In efficiency, explosiveness and finishing drives, our offense is better than theirs and their defense is better than ours. Explosiveness is where it gets settled. Nobody in the league hits big plays more often than we do, and Idaho State's defense gives one up about once every seventeen snaps, close to half as often as we are used to getting one. The Griz offense will need to find a way to bust some long plays to tilt the game in our favor.

Idaho State has a Bobby on the staff and can't spell what he does. Bobby Jay coaches the safeties, and his own school's directory lists him as "Defensive Pass Game Coordniator." The same school's game notes put our head coach on the cover as "BOBBY KENEDY," one N. The two Bobbys went through one building's paperwork and neither came out clean. On the roster, #0 Robert Freeman IV returns kicks and punts, and the numeral means three Robert Freemans came before him. Per the bylaws each prior Robert is worth a quarter, so he counts as one and three-quarters. The bylaws say a Bobby with a typo in his title counts 75%. Level two, with a spelling deduction.

No Montanans. Not one on a 105-man roster that is a third Californian. They do have two Bobcats. Jeff Pitman, the assistant head coach, was Montana State's strength coach from 1995 to 1997. #5 Titan Saxton's bio says he led the Bobcats to back-to-back state championships, at Sky View High in Utah. #10 Jimmy Trilla's bio says he listens to Montana of 300 before games. Week 11 census: Montanans zero, Bobcats two, Montanas one, on a playlist.

#4 Jackson Daniels, a cornerback that mixes well with coke. #17 Josh Ball. #80 Julian Mason, #20 Tytan Mason, #26 Mason Lindberg and a quarterbacks coach named Mason Randall. No word on if they lay bricks in the off-season. #66 Justin Frost, in Missoula, at 8:30 on a November night. #13 Tommy Poe. #71 Messiah Johnson, blind side tackle. Cooke walks by faith. #76 Zoom Esplin, tackle. Tyler King has the same plan. #5 Titan Saxton, safety, and #20 Tytan Mason, running back. #51 Stryker Rashid. #49 Steel Kurtz. #2 TreShawn Shorty. The two-deep calls him Tre, which is shorter.

Two weeks ago in Cheney we sacked Eastern's quarterback eleven times, a school record, plus three forced turnovers. Last Saturday Portland State threw all afternoon and we did not get home once. In Cheney somebody extra, usually multiple somebodies, was coming on what felt like every snap. The lines were twisting and playing pressure games all afternoon. Against Portland State we were back in soft zones and five-man pressures, and they did not work too well. My read is that Cheney belonged to General Baer, our senior defensive analyst Kent Baer, who ran this defense from 2018 through 2022, and that last week Colonel Mustard, our coordinator Eric Sanders, he of the yellow hats, had too much input. It's General Baer's defense now. We must run the Eastern Washington game plan again.

#1 Jordan Cooke is the quarterback that plan was drawn for. He is a fifth-year senior at 228 pounds, and when four rush he stands back there and picks at you. Blitz him and he completes about half his throws, and the pressure that reaches him ends in a sack half again as often. He has also thrown eight touchdowns and no interceptions against the blitz, so it has to get home, the way it did in Cheney. Blitz him, and mean it.

The place to send it is the edge. Last year this line gave up four sacks all season, nobody in FCS was sacked less often, and Cooke could have played in a bathrobe. This year his two tackles, #71 Messiah Johnson on the left and #66 Justin Frost on the right, have each let through more than twice the pressure of the worst man on our line. Tyler King lines up outside the tackle on most of his snaps, has eight and a half sacks, and wins his pass rushes more often than anybody on either roster. King eats.

Idaho State does not have a tight end. Not a bad one or a hurt one. None. It is a dome offense. They line up four wide and about a quarter of the throws go to the slot, #8 Chedon James, who gets less out of his than either of the outside men gets out of theirs. The outside men are the problem: #13 Tommy Poe and #80 Julian Mason. Let James catch the short one and tackle him.

On third or fourth and short they run it almost every time, and nobody carries it there more than the quarterback. Their best back, #20 Tytan Mason, is good for seven yards a carry, but he did not play last week. Against the Cats the run game was Cooke, sixteen carries of it.

Peyton Wing going forward is the best blitzer we have. Peyton Wing going backward has been thrown at all year, and nearly everything gets caught. Sage Salopek and Devin Dunn have given up eight touchdowns between them. Cooke had the best day of his career against this secondary a year ago.

Throws on first down work against us more than half the time, and first down is when Idaho State likes to throw, close to six times in ten. From what I've seen online we should have Braeden Orlandi back at safety. Poe and Julian Mason will still get theirs. I don't see a way around the fact they are going to put up points.

The second half of Hawkins's answer was about his own offense: "There's some things we absolutely got to improve on. Scoring more touchdowns in the red zone." Credit to him for knowing it. Idaho State has scored touchdowns on 21 of its 34 trips to the red zone, and #26 Mason Lindberg has tied the school record for made field goals. Inside our 20, give up the three.

I made General Baer a Cheat Sheet

Idaho State's site ran Cody Hawkins's postgame answers under labels, and under "On preparing for Montana" their head coach said this: "There are some things we are doing better than anybody in America right now. You know, getting after the passer being one of them."

Their pass rush is real. It gets the quarterback down about once every fifteen dropbacks, which beats two-thirds of FCS and leaves a fair amount of America. The one to find before the snap is the freshman on the edge, #14 Trehsyn Fesili, and Torin Jeske and Austin Buehler, our tackles, get him all night.

Keali'i Ah Yat has been sacked nine times all year, about as rarely as any quarterback in FCS, going down only about one in every forty dropbacks. Jack D'Ambra, our center, has allowed one pressure all season. One. The only way anybody has made Keali'i ordinary is to hit him, and it has happened so rarely it barely shows up. Kept clean he is the best quarterback in this league, and he is almost always clean.

That leaves Grant Duff, their coordinator, with the blitz, and the blitz is the worst idea he has. Against it Keali'i has thirteen touchdowns and one interception. Blitzing him has been a donation, and I'd like the Bengals to give generously.

Leave #2 TreShawn Shorty alone. Quarterbacks have gone at him all year without a touchdown, and he has picked off a couple himself. The men to throw at are the linebackers, #44 Jacob Perez, #7 Nathan Reynolds and #18 Jackson Irwin, who have let about seven of every ten balls thrown their way get caught. Reese Brooks, Titus Rohrer and Mariano Birdno, our tight ends, have caught 37 of the 50 balls thrown to them. Brooks in particular catches whatever is thrown at him. Idaho State has none, on purpose. Their linebackers have a tackling job and a coverage job, and we should make them do the second one, with Eli out of the backfield when the tight ends are covered. Throw it to the big guys.

Everything good about this defense is against the pass. Run on it and you get 5.42 a carry, once the sacks come out, and most of FCS is stingier than that. Eli Gillman averages 7.7 and is the top-graded back in FCS. If Pease wants to hand it to him thirty times, that would be a great call. On third and short they smother the pass and give up the run, so nobody needs to get cute there either. Run it on first down. Then run it again.

Eli already has the school's rushing record. The one Lex Hilliard still holds is carries, and Eli needs eleven to tie it and twelve to pass him. At his usual workload it happens Saturday, on Senior Day, probably in the second quarter.

This defense does not give up big plays and our offense lives on them, so this is a night to take a first down at a time and let Eli finish. Knowing him, he will find a way to bust a long one. Patience is not this offense's first language. Their drives end with their kicker. Ours have to end with Eli. Sevens against their threes is the game.

A cheat sheet where to attack for Coach Pease

#26 Mason Lindberg has missed one kick from the forties all year, and past fifty he is a different kicker. A drive that dies at our 25 is three points. One that dies at our 35 probably isn't, so those ten yards are worth fighting over. Jo Silver has the bigger leg but has not attempted a field goal in either of the last two games. Everett O'Donnell out-punts their man by about three yards a kick.

The Childs file first. #96 Bronson and #93 Jagger, both defensive linemen, both seniors, both from Kennewick High in Washington, both transfers from Weber State. Same town, same school, same class, same two programs, and neither bio mentions the other. Suspected. The bios do give up two brothers who are not on the roster. #7 Zedekiah Anahu-Ambrosio's older brother Hezekiah plays linebacker at Nevada, so the family is working through the Old Testament and the Mountain West at the same time. #76 Zoom Esplin's younger brother plays hockey for the Spud Kings. I would read a whole column about a hockey player whose brother is named Zoom. Neither one counts. The bylaws require a brother to be in the building and in pads, and they are specific about the kind of pads.

Week 11 Brother Index: Idaho State 0 confirmed, 1 suspected. Griz 4 confirmed and 3 suspected. Advantage Griz, on land and on ice.

#14 Trehsyn Fesili, true freshman, defensive end, six sacks and two pick-sixes. Trehsyn, you play your home games in a dome. We play ours in front of a full house that stands up on third down, and the man it helps most is the one with his hand in the dirt, because the tackle across from him can't hear the count. Ask Tyler King what third-and-eight sounds like at home. You're a freshman with six sacks who picked Pocatello. You've earned a louder building. Listen to it Saturday. Then call us Sunday.

Nobody blows the Bengals out. Their four losses came by a combined seventeen points. They have played a one-score game with everybody good on their schedule, and a week ago they had the Cats in a third overtime. They won at Utah State. The last three meetings with us were one-score games, and we were the ones coming from behind in the most recent.

Cooke threw for 421 on this secondary a year ago, and this year's version has given up eight touchdowns between Salopek and Dunn alone. He has two outside receivers who win. He also has a defense behind him that lets him be patient: it holds passers to fewer yards a dropback than 94 percent of FCS does, and it takes away the explosive play, which is the thing we live on.

Grant Duff, who runs that defense, is 4-2 against Montana in games he has coached, 4-1 on Weber State’s staff and 0-1 at Idaho State. His guys have forced nineteen fumbles in ten games. Their kicker has missed once from the forties all year. And Hawkins is not wrong about the rush, which has 21 sacks, third in the Big Sky. If this is a one-score game in the fourth quarter, the Bengals have had a lot of practice at it.

Their best thing is the pass rush, and it is rushing the one quarterback in this league nobody gets to. Their next best thing is covering wide receivers, and we are going to hand it to Eli and throw it inside. Saturday asks those two tackles to keep our blitz off Cooke, and it asks a defense that gives up the run to stop the best back in FCS. And when they get inside our 30 it asks for touchdowns, which is about the only place this defense has consistently slowed anyone down.

Our two conference losses were shootouts. We scored plenty in both and it didn't matter, because we could not get the other offense off the field. Can Idaho State do that to us? Throwing it, yes. Cooke has done it before, his outside receivers win, and our coverage has been what it has been. That is why I have them in the thirties. The half of a shootout they have not shown is the touchdowns, and that is why I have them a score short.

My prediction: Tyler King gets Cooke twice, once around each tackle. Peyton Wing comes up the middle all evening, and gets there himself in the third quarter. Cooke gets his 300 anyway, most of it to Poe and Julian Mason, and keeps one at the goal line because of course he does. Eli takes carry number twelve in the second quarter, and he adds three more TDs to the record. Reese Brooks catches a touchdown with a linebacker on his hip. Idaho State blitzes Keali'i on a third down in the red zone and regrets it before the ball lands. Lindberg kicks two field goals and misses one from past fifty.

Somebody in the stadium Saturday night will be getting after the passer better than anybody in America, and it had better be General Baer. Aggressive blitzing also mitigates their best weapon, the QB run, so it's a double whammy for stopping their offense. That's the formula. Anything else and we riot.

Good Guys 38, Bengals 34.

Go Griz.