On Friday night, the No. 4-seed Montana Grizzlies (11-2) head south to Huntsville, Tx., to face the No. 1-seed Sam Houston State Bearkats (13-0) in an FCS Semifinal Round matchup. The winner of this game will play the winner of the other semifinal game between No. 3-seed Georgia Southern and No. 2-seed North Dakota State. In preparation for this big matchup, Bearkats head coach Willie Fritz has been trying to get his players to focus on the opportunity at hand. He recently sat down for an interview about the contest with Gene Shallenberg of the Huntsville Item to provide some of his insight on the game.
Here are some highlights of what he said in the interview:
On the offensive weapons for Montana:
Their quarterback (Jordan Johnson) has really played well over the last few weeks. We've got to do a good job of containing him in the pocket and not allowing him to get outside of our contain rushers. When we're blitzing, we've got to fit in gaps, so he doesn't have seams to tuck it and run. He's a really good football player.
They've got quick, elusive backs (Peter Nguyen and Jordan Canada) and they've got a big guy (Dan Moore). You've got to wrap these guys up. They've got a big offensive line. That's going to be an important part of the game.
On Montana's offensive system
They're running the power-read - I guess some people call it the glide play where they're running the (running) back across. It's a little different. We don't see it all the time. You've just got to fit right. They're hoping we get sloppy and get two guys in a gap and that back finds a crease and goes or the quarterback pulls it.
They run a little bit of stuff similar to us, as far as the zone-read play with the quarterback, and they have a really good vertical game down the field. They're going to throw a couple of trick plays at us early, so we've got to watch for those as well.
It will be interesting to see how this game plays out with so much on the line for both teams. It's the tournament-style win-or-go-home game that everyone wants to see in college football, so the atmosphere should be great for the game. Stay tuned to SB Nation Denver for continuing coverage on the game and for further coverage on the FCS playoffs.
Stick with our 2011 FCS Playoffs StoryStream for more on the postseason.