AA football: Fourth-ranked Glacier entertains winless Big Sky
Coming off its biggest win of the season, the No. 4-ranked Glacier football team (4-1) is back at home to take on Missoula Big Sky (0-5) tonight at Legends Stadium.
Big Sky has yet to win this season, playing one of the state’s toughest opening schedules, but brings an athletic team to town. Quarterback Jesson Preston is a dual threat weapon and receiver Alex Mustard is one of the fastest players in the state.
“He’s a 10.9 (seconds) guy in the 100 (meter dash),” Glacier coach Grady Bennett said. “They’re going to try to get him the ball in open space. They have a couple of guys we have to watch.”
The Wolfpack had its offense rolling in last week’s win, scoring 58 points, its most of the season in beating No. 5 Butte (3-2) on the road. Starting running back Noah James rushed for 201 yards and Brady McChesney threw for 287 yards, both highs this season.
“Our offensive line keeps getting better and better,” Bennett said. “We know we can feed (James) the rock. It gives us such great balance. Teams have to honor Noah, but they can’t gang up on him because of our weapons on the outside ... It gives us a lot of options, things we can do.”
It was also a big night for the defense, which despite allowing 41 points, forced six turnovers and returned three interceptions for a touchdown. The Wolfpack has allowed on average only 70 rushing yards per game and has forced 11 turnovers, the second most in the state.
“We hadn’t forced the amount of turnovers in the first few games that we had the last few years,” Bennett said.
“Defensively, coaches were really emphasizing that last week. Of course we’ll take the points, but even with that we like that were able to force six turnovers.”
Glacier entered the halfway point of the season with just one loss, after three road games and what seemed like a murderous schedule at the beginning of the year. Now, the Wolfpack has set itself up for a favorable position in the playoffs with just one trip outside of Kalispell in the season’s final five weeks.
“These kids, I’m so proud and impressed how they came into this season and answered the doubters and naysayers,” Bennett said.
“Now lets just finish it off and keep getting better. We’ve put ourselves in a position to make a great run at this thing. We have to keep playing great football and see where we can take it.”
The game kicks off at 7 p.m. at Legends Stadium.