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Senior
quarterback Craig Ochs directs traffic en route to throwing
for three touchdowns. |
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| Senior
wide receiver Tate Hancock caught five passes for 74 yards. |
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| Griz
superfan Jim Joyner scares JMU supporters during the pre-game
tailgate party. |
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| Senior
inside linebacker Nick Vella, UM's second leading tackler in
2004, can only watch the final seconds slipping away. |
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Chattanooga Blues:
The good, the bad, the ugly
of the I-AA national championship
By
Cary Shimek
MHMS Editor
Everyone
views the world through a different lens, and mine is tinted maroon
and silver. I’m a huge Griz football fan, and to see the 2004
team fight so hard, improve so much and then come up 10 points short
on a rutted field in Chattanooga, Tenn. ... well, it hurt.
As we all know, the Griz lost the I-AA national championship game
31-21 on Dec. 17. On that day, the Dukes of James Madison University
— they of the purple jerseys, powerful running game and stout
defense — were the better team.
During its fifth title shot in 10 years, UM missed a third national
championship. But the Griz came oh-so-close, and on another day I
think the outcome would have been different. And sometimes a loss
can teach you a few things — even bring out the best in people.
So — looking through my own lens, mind you — I came up
with my personal list of the good, the bad and the ugly of our 2004
national championship game odyssey.
The
Good
Craig Ochs. Our senior quarterback didn’t disappoint,
throwing for 371 yards and three touchdowns in the big game. His 169.8
quarterback rating in the playoffs matched that of Griz great Dave
Dickenson in 1995. A I-A transfer from Colorado, Ochs became a true
leader, bringing poise and prayer to his new team. He sure answered
the prayers of the Griz faithful during a great season in which he
threw for 3,807 yards — UM’s second-best single-season
total.
The first quarter. It was no contest. On their first
possession, the Griz rampaged down the field and scored on a 3-yard
pass to senior Jefferson Heidelberger. The Dukes managed just 2 yards
of total offense in the period, compared to 150 for the Griz.
The comeback. We were down, but Ochs threw an 8-yard strike
to senior tight end Willie Walden with 7:29 left to play in the third
quarter, giving the Griz a 21-17 lead. Sadly, the lead didn’t
last.
Washington-Grizzly Stadium. I know this seems odd,
but I’m not sure we would have been in the big show without
three straight playoff games in the comfy (and loud) confines of Washington-Grizzly
Stadium. With the top seeds in our bracket losing (aligning the stars
for the Griz), the road to Chattanooga passed through Missoula, and
Montana outscored its opponents 137-37 at home. At one point during
the Sam Houston game, a decibel meter hit 108 — a level found
in the front row of a Metallica concert.
The send-off. Thousands of fans lined the bus route
taking the team to the airport, holding “Up With Montana”
and “We Believe” signs. The players had to have been touched
by this show of support, which included a Montana Rail Link locomotive
paralleling the buses, bearing a “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”
sign and blaring the famous tune by the same name. I had the privilege
of driving Athletic Director Don Read in the procession, and I could
tell he was impressed. He said Missoula didn’t offer a send-off
when he took the 1995 Griz to the title game, so it was something
new for him.
Sticky Fingers. The South is famous for ribs and
barbecue, and this Chattanooga restaurant offers some of the best.
The place gives the diner a big towel instead of a napkin. Word must
have gotten out on the UM charters and at the pep-rally, because when
I ate there, every diner was a Griz.
The parents. I flew down on a charter plane that
included many parents of Griz players. They are always fun to meet,
and one of my favorites was Elvis Hilliard, the father of standout
sophomore running back Lex Hilliard. Elvis runs a drywall company
and builds spec homes in Kalispell. He is quite an interesting character
because he got Lex playing rugby for the Kalispell Moose team when
the Griz runner was only 14 years old. Elvis also does acupuncture
to treat his son’s injuries, and he stuck Lex with eight needles
the night before the big game, hoping to help a left knee that was
dinged up during the Sam Houston game. The acupuncture evidently worked,
as Lex felt 100 percent the next day. Too bad Elvis couldn’t
have fixed that rutted field Lex was forced to run on during the big
game.
The fans. Citizens of Grizzly Nation made the pilgrimage
to Tennessee by the thousands. When you walked in downtown Chattanooga
on game day, 80 percent of the people you met sported maroon and silver.
(In fact, I saw only one group of James Madison fans downtown. The
purple people seemed to materialize just before the game.) A sea of
spirited Grizdom also outnumbered the Dukes at a pre-game rally across
the street from Finley Stadium. I remember thinking, “Put our
fans against their fans in a cage match, and there would be purple
splattered everywhere.”
National exposure. UM’s football success led
to three consecutive appearances on ESPN2. That’s national advertising
our University can’t afford to buy.
Jim Joyner. This guy might be UM’s No. 1 fan.
Using the talents of his artist brother, Tim, Joyner shows up at Griz
games with a fantastically painted head. Recently he’s arrived
looking like a Griz apocalyptic road warrior. It was great to see
Jim in Chattanooga, and his many exploits can be found online at http://www.joynerart.com/nooga/.
The
Bad
JMU’s first touchdown. The Dukes scored on
a 1-yard run by Maurice Fenner with 16 seconds left in the first half,
giving them a 10-7 lead. If we could have held ...
Rushing yards. UM had 44 yards rushing, and the Dukes had ... 314.
Ouch! Fenner rambled 164 yards himself.
The fourth quarter. JMU’s offensive line was
huge and athletic, and it seemed to wear our defense down at the end.
The Dukes kept running and controlled the clock. A UM athletics official
told me the Griz strategy going into the game was to jump out to a
lead and hold the Dukes off as time wound down, because they knew
JMU had the muscle to wear us down late. Sadly, our 4-point lead in
the third quarter wasn’t enough.
The plane ride. I was on a charter with the UM band,
cheerleaders and boosters. Fog settled on Missoula the day before
the big game, leaving us trapped at the airport. Band kids used newspapers
for blankets; cheer squad members performed out of sheer boredom.
Finally we were bused to Helena for our flight. We got to Chattanooga
eight hours late and missed the Dec. 16 pep rally. And fog forced
us through Helena again on the way home! We made it back to campus
at 8 a.m. the morning after the loss. It was a long ride home.
The cockiness. I’ve been to three national
championships, and this was the first time most of our fans assumed
we were going to win. When asked for predictions, most fans yelled,
“We will destroy them 38-10!” or “54-7 Griz!”
Of course, I was guilty of this as well. When UM scored easily on
the first drive of the game, I wrote “Night of the Grizzly!”
in my notebook. It was supposed to be the title of this article. But
the JMU fans I talked with before kickoff were just as bad. Maybe
true fans can’t predict anything but a rout.
The
Ugly
The field. The turf in Finley Stadium was re-sodded
a month before the game, which wasn’t such a good idea. Huge
chunks of the field started coming up, along with netting that was
supposed to hold things down. Footing was treacherous for the players,
and the place looked like a WWI battlefield by the end of the first
quarter. I’ve never seen a game with so many “turf tackles”
or players throwing chunks of sod out of the way so they could find
firm footing for their stances.
The penalty. Late in the game, one of our young players
was called for roughing the passer. He struck the QB’s head
for no good reason, and ESPN evidently showed the play again and again,
which wasn’t the image we wanted on the national stage.
So that’s
the good, the bad and the ugly, but I haven’t yet addressed
the best.
After the game, as that deflated black feeling settled in and the
JMU fans frolicked under the fireworks, Montana receiver Levander
Segars, return specialist extraordinaire and one of the most exciting
players ever to don a Griz uniform, sat alone by himself on the bench,
helmet on and head low. A senior, he had just played his last game.
Many of our fans, their faces numb, stayed on to watch the Dukes celebrate.
A few of these classy folks even stood and clapped, showing respect
for the new I-AA champions. But when they saw Segars sitting alone
after giving his best, they started chanting “LV, LV, LV”
as they had many times during a wonderful 12-3 season.
I choke up just thinking about it. It was beautiful to see LV stand,
take his helmet off, kiss two fingers and throw it to the crowd, his
face wet with tears. I’d like to think he felt a little better
as he jogged toward the locker room.
In the post-game news conference, coach Bobby Hauck described the
2004 Griz best: “I’ve never seen a team that came so far
since Sept. 1 until the end of the season.”
Indeed, they got better and better and gave us one heck of a wild
ride. Thank you, Griz, and I’ve got one thing to say:
You’ll be back.
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