SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — The No. 8 Montana Grizzlies are set for their fourth road game of the season as UM is headed west to San Luis Obispo on Saturday to take on Cal Poly.
It comes one week after Montana pitched a shutout against Northern Colorado to improve to 6-2 overall and 3-1 in Big Sky Conference play.
"If we want to win football games, especially on the road in today's college football, that's kind of what we have to do," UM senior safety Jaxon Lee said. "So just got to keep getting better every single week, making strides."
Cal Poly enters this contest 2-5 and 1-3 in Big Sky play, with its lone league win also coming over Northern Colorado.
The Mustangs had a bye last week, and the week before lost a close road contest at Idaho, showing they're a team that's better than their record shows, but statistically rank in the lower half of the Big Sky in most categories.
"They had a good performance there and came up just short," UM head coach Bobby Hauck said. "So, you know, they're extremely well coached, offense, defense, special teams.
"Head coach (Paul Wulff) knows what he's doing. They're always really difficult to plan for and to beat. So anyway, we've got our hands full going down there again"
For the Grizzlies — who haven't been to San Luis Obispo since 2018 — they're tasked with their longest road trips of the season back-to-back, which presents its own challenges at this point of the season.
"It's a little easier when you're playing day games," said Hauck, with Saturday's game slated for 3 p.m. Mountain time. "You know, just the sleep deprivation is hard. The travel takes its toll a little bit like it does on everybody. It's a business trip. So business travelers will tell you it takes a toll, but day games make it a little bit easier."
Not to mention some of the advantages Cal Poly may have with the extra week to prepare for Montana during last week's bye.
"Depends on how they utilize their open date, but in terms ofjust the hours they have to study, the number of practices, they have the ability to have a little more complex game plan in all three phases, because they've got more practice time to implement it," Hauck said.
"I don't know how they approached it, but you can see a lot of new things and a lot more expansive plan in terms of what you have to deal with."
So the Griz hit the road once again, ranked eighth in the FCS and looking to win their third straight game before a pair of home games up next with November officially here.
"I think that we just kind of are finding ourselves a little bit and fitting where we need to and I think just kind of figuring out who we are and what we need to do in order to stop teams from putting up big numbers on us," Lee said.
