Bergquist shows swagger of Swogger

By CARL HENNELL

The Daily Inter Lake

MISSOULA - Talk about holding an ace up your sleeve.

Sophomore quarterback Cole Bergquist got the surprise start for the University of Montana football team Saturday - with hired gun Josh Swogger out with a broken pinkie finger on his non-throwing hand - and proceeded to put up more than 300 yards in leading the Grizzlies to a 36-7 shellacking of South Dakota State University.

In front of the largest home-opening crowd in Washington-Grizzly Stadium history, the Griz avenged a surprisingly-close 7-0 victory from last season against the non-conference foe and evened their season record at 1-1. They go into their open weekend with two weeks to prepare for their Big Sky Conference opener against Sacramento State at home.

Bergquist, who started eight games last year before the Grizzlies recruited Washington State University transfer Swogger to start, completed 63 percent of 35 passes for 257 yards and a touchdown and added 55 yards rushing on 11 attempts. But more importantly, he had a swagger of confidence to him that showed Montana he was good enough to be a starting QB for a national championship-caliber team.

"Eight starts will do that for you," UM coach Bobby Hauck said. "He had those starts last year, worked all through spring and summer and is benefiting from a new quarterbacks coach. All that adds up to his confidence level being higher.

"Cole had the best game of his Grizzly career."

Hauck said Swogger could have played, but the team chose to rest him. Swogger is still No. 1 on the depth chart and is expected to start in two weeks.

"This was awesome," Bergquist said. "Last year, I wasn't able to go through all my reads in a play. But I almost had happy feet out there because I was making all my reads and still had time."

Wide receivers Eric Allen and Ryan Bagley set and tied career highs, respectively, in receptions. Allen, a Washington transfer, had seven catches for 101 yards. Bagley, of Great Falls C.M. Russell, had nine catches for 88 yards and a touchdown.

Not only was Bergquist accurate, he showed quick feet and good judgment in scrambling for extra yards plus he successfully audibled a handful of times. The first audible was on the first drive of the game on a second-and-4 play at the SDSU 28-yard line. At the snap, he took a three-step drop and hit Allen on a quick slant for a 9-yard gain. Then in the third quarter on a first-and-10 from the SDSU 15, he audibled into a run and Reggie Bradshaw rumbled off tackle, beat one man in the flat, and scored his second TD.

The Griz offense tallied 31 first downs - only one shy of the school record - and held the ball for 39 minutes while nine rushers combined for 244 yards. Bradshaw, a transfer from Louisville, led the way with 78 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries.

Still, Hauck wasn't ecstatic.

"Our kickoff coverage was bad, our punt coverage was bad, our rush D was bad, our red zone offense was bad … The score was good enough," he said.

The bad red-zone offense Hauck talked about was reflected by kicker Dan Carpenter's single-game, school-record five field goals.

And even though the Griz, who used a vanilla 4-3 defense the whole game, pitched a shutout during the game's final 50 minutes and held the Jackrabbits to just one third-down conversion after the first quarter, the 'Rabbits averaged 6 yards per carry on 21 attempts.

"They (the Jackrabbits) run the ball too well," Hauck said.

SDSU responded to the Griz opening-drive TD with their own 13-play, 78-yard opening-drive TD. But that was all it could muster the rest of the game.

"The story of that (first) drive was a personal foul penalty on us," said Hauck, referring to a Tuff Harris foul that negated the Grizzlies' only sack, which was by Butte sophomore strong safety Colt Anderson.

SDSU QB Andy Kardoes completed five passes in that drive but finished the game 10-for-30 for 101 yards.

"They (the Griz) used the same coverage schemes as last year, they just return seven starters who are that much better," Kardoes said. "But that whole team just flies to the ball, which we expected. I'm not sure where we shut down."

Even with the Jackrabbits setting themselves up in good field position by averaging 19.1 yards per punt return and 55 yards per kick return, Tyler Joyce, Mike Murphy & Co. flexed their muscle on defense.

"We got beat up physically," SDSU coach John Stiegelmeier said. "That Griz D, they didn't defend some of our formations and still beat us on the side where they had less guys than us.

"We got beat by a good football team."