Difficult road game for Wolfpack in Butte

Coming off a 40-0 win at home, the No. 5 Glacier football team is staring down one of its toughest tests of the young season tonight, traveling to defending state champion No. 4 Butte for a game that will likely have playoff implications.

The Bulldogs, led by offensive player of the year Dallas Cook, will test a Glacier defense that has only played one team with a win this season, a loss at No. 1 Bozeman two weeks ago. The senior 6-foot-5, 235-pound quarterback is a towering dual-threat player, who is averaging 325 yards passing and 82.5 yards rushing in four games this season. He is drawing interest from a host of Pac-12 conference schools and Montana and Montana State.

“He’s a big-time recruit,” Glacier coach Grady Bennett said. “He’s multi-faceted. It’s not that he’s looking to run all the time, but he can. He gets the ball out so quick and they have good perimeter speed ... Defensively it will be maybe one of the biggest challenges we’ve had.

“Our defense flies to the football pretty well, but we need to make sure we tackle him. We have to make sure we get him down because he can have two guys hanging on him and still make a great throw.”

The Wolfpack hasn’t played Butte since the opening week of 2008, the program’s first varsity win, and hold a series split 1-1. The two teams each have title aspirations this season, but need to keep pace with the undefeated Helena schools and Bozeman.

Butte’s fast-paced offense has kept it in a handful of close games in recent seasons. Bennett has preached that his team stay focused in a game that could turn into a shootout.

“Field position will be huge,” Bennett said. “We know they’re going to do good things on offense because they’re very good. But, if we can make them go 80 yards every time, and watch us a lot ... It’d be nice of Dallas can watch a lot of the game.”

Sustaining drives will go a long way to keep the Butte offense off the field. The Bulldogs have given up more than 236 yards per game on the ground and 186 in the air, near the bottom of the state in both statistics.

“We have to do a great job on third downs,” Bennett said. “We have to keep drives going. We have to think going into the game, we don’t want to punt.”

The close quarters of Naranche Stadium and the tough opponent have the Wolfpack excited to hit the road. Glacier has just one more trip outside of Kalispell in its last five weeks.

“It’s just a fun opportunity,” Bennett said. “It’s one of those games you can’t wait to go play.”