No. 1 Wolfpack eyes top seed
Glacier needs only to win its last two games of the season to lock up the top seed in the Class AA football playoffs. The Wolfpack (8-0) is the last undefeated team in the state after Helena (7-1) was upset 33-14 at Billings Senior (6-3) on Thursday.
The first step of that quest is tonight at Great Falls High (2-6), a team that is more dangerous than its record may indicate.
In their last home game, the Bison upset Butte in a game the Bulldogs could’ve used for playoff seeding. The Bison will be looking to catch a much bigger fish this weekend.
“It’s easy to respect them because they play so hard,” Glacier coach Grady Bennett said.
“There’s some teams when they’re having a bad year, you can turn the film on and you can see the kids are frustrated and they’ve given up a little bit. Great Falls High plays hard.
“They keep striving to get better regardless of what’s going on in their season. As a coach and a group of players, you really respect that.”
Great Falls has won two of its four games at home this season and has been competitive under the lights of Memorial Stadium.
Jordan Wilkins is one of the top quarterbacks in the state and Kessler Leonard is among the top receivers. On defense, Bostian Johnstone leads the state with six interceptions.
To try to keep the Bison and the rest of its schedule from keying on what they’ve seen on tape, Glacier has slowly added wrinkles to its gameplan, building off the wealth of experience it has on the team.
“I think on both sides of the ball, that’s one of the things that’s been fun with this group,” Bennett said.
“We have so much experience that we kind of started almost in the middle of our package. We almost felt like we had it all in, whereas most times you start at the very beginning with a real base package.”
The constant morphing of the playbook has kept the team engaged throughout the season.
“Every week we’ve been able to add a few things here, some fun twists there. Do some fun things, some new things, focus on different areas. It’s enjoyable when you can do that as a coach because the kids pick it up and it’s fun.
“It keeps them excited and hungry to come to practice, too. They know teams are going to try to take certain things away or double up on a certain player. Try to do certain things against our offense.
“So, every week we’re trying to find new things, new twists. New ways to still free guys up, ways to get different looks that used to look the same. It makes it fun for the guys.”
The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m.