Glacier faces another stiff, early season challenge

Glacier’s start to the 2013 football season was marked with an exclamation point last week against Billings West. The Wolfpack made a statement, posting 36-point win over a traditional powerhouse.

The Wolfpack’s schedule doesn’t afford time for excessive celebration though. Glacier’s September schedule features three brutally tough road games: at Great Falls C.M. Russell and games against both teams from last season’s state championship game, Bozeman and Butte.

“When we looked at the schedule, everybody talked about how tough our schedule is,” Glacier coach Grady Bennett said.

“We have to play all these teams at some point. So, we just play whatever’s next on the schedule. It’s a good stretch for us to find where we’re at and where we can be.”

The first on that list is CMR, a team that beat the Wolfpack 24-21 last season in Legends Stadium. The Rustlers return a host of starting talent from that team including quarterback Jayse McLean, who left last season’s contest early with an injury.

“They’re a typical CMR team — solid, well coached,” Bennett said. “It’s hard to find a lot of flaws. They do things so well.”

For the second straight season, the Rustlers enter the game following a tough loss, dropping their opening game this season to Missoula Sentinel 49-28 after taking a 21-0 lead.

“Last week, they didnt get stopped, they just stopped themselves,” Bennett said.

“Offensively they have a lot of weapons. They can do a lot of things.”

The Wolfpack has a few offensive weapons of its own, with first-year starter Brady McChesney pitching four touchdowns in the season opener, including three to junior receiver Sam McCamley. The only cause for concern with the potent new offense was three early interceptions. Turnovers plagued Glacier in last season’s loss to CMR and could be costly this week.

“Offensively, we weren’t sure what we were gonna see last week,” Bennett said. “No matter how well we played in Week 1, we want to see improvement ... The good thing about (the interceptions) was all three were good decisions, he just missed. He made the proper reads, those things are gonna happen.”

For its part, the Wolfpack has stayed focused on the task in front of it, despite the daunting task over the next four weeks.

“We felt like we had another great week,” Bennett said.

“This is a real focused group. They understand the focus it takes each week. It’s good stuff.”

The game kicks off tonight at 7:30 at Memorial Stadiium in Great Falls.