\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/a\/ad\/Montana.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/f\/fb\/Northern_Iowa.png\")
\nMontana 48, Northern Iowa 10<\/a><\/strong>
\nat Washington-Grizzly Stadium, Missoula MT; attendance 23,049<\/p>\n
A balanced offense, shutdown defense, and a 21-point second quarter lifted the Grizzlies to a rout over the visiting Panthers. Northern Iowa simply could not get anything going due to continual harassment of QB Tirrell Rennie, while Montana piled up 267 rushing yards to go along with a three TD day from QB Jordan Johnson.<\/p>\n
My pre-game prediction<\/span>: First things first: you have to see this Elvis Akpla catch<\/a> in the second quarter. Alas, that was one of the few highlights for Montana State, as they were held to two field goals in the first half while the Bearkats exploded for 35 points in the second and third quarters. Sam Houston State ripped the Bobcat defense for 424 net rushing yards, and that tells the tale of the game in itself.<\/p>\n My pre-game prediction<\/span>: Jon’s Prediction<\/span>: Georgia Southern’s triple offense racked up 360 yards on the ground, and the defense held Maine to only 66. The Eagles ran nearly twice as many plays, and chewed the clock effectively. Maine did not go home quietly, mounting a couple of late drives. Still, it was too little, too late, and the Eagles move on to the semis.<\/p>\n My pre-game prediction<\/span>: Jake Drwal stepped in and picked up some of the slack from Ryan Spadola’s Twitter-driven suspension, hauling in 10 catches for 111 yards. Unfortunately, North Dakota State’s defense wasn’t in the mood to actually let Lehigh into the red zone, much less score any points; Lehigh’s only trip into the red zone all day ended with an interception in the Bison end zone near the end of the third quarter, and NDSU followed that with a soul-crushing 8:38 touchdown drive to seal the win.<\/p>\n My pre-game prediction<\/span>: Next up<\/span>:<\/strong> Jon’s Prediction<\/span>: Brief recaps of the quarterfinal games and previews of the semifinals after the jump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-division-news-and-notes","category-fcs","tag-fcs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p185sV-o8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMontana 24, Northern Iowa 20. Montana was simply too overpowering on defense, and UNI wilted both late in the second quarter and in the fourth.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/0\/0a\/Sam_Houston_State.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/a\/a8\/Montana_State.png\")
\nSam Houston State 49, Montana State 13<\/a><\/strong>
\nat Bowers Stadium, Huntsville TX; attendance 9,077<\/p>\n
\nSam Houston State 30, Montana State 24. Again, the favorite came out determined and wrecked the pointspread. Montana State simply could not stop the Bearkat running game.
\nNext up<\/span>:<\/strong>
\n
\nMontana (11-2) at Sam Houston State (13-0)<\/strong><\/span>
\nBowers Stadium, Huntsville TX, FRIDAY, 8pm ET
\nAirs on ESPN. Video available via ESPN3. Audio available via Montana<\/a>. Live Stats available via NCAA<\/a>.
\nSeries: 3-1 Montana (last: 2004 playoffs, 47-17 Montana)<\/p>\n
\nSam Houston State 30, Montana 24. Sam Houston State showed that they can put points on anyone last week. Montana does not have the advantage of playing in the unfriendly confines of Washington-Grizzly Stadium Friday night, and that’s going to make the difference here.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/9\/9d\/Georgia_Southern.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/e\/e9\/Maine.png\")
\nGeorgia Southern 35, Maine 23<\/a><\/strong>
\nat Paulson Stadium, Statesboro GA; attendance 12,886<\/p>\n
\nGeorgia Southern 32, Maine 24. That was a good call on my part, wasn’t it? Everything pretty much worked out as I expected, though the Eagles were a little more efficient defensively than I figured they’d be; the Black Bears required a 91-yard kickoff return to get the necessary points to make my prediction look good.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/2\/2c\/North_Dakota_State.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jonfmorse.com\/wiki\/images\/5\/53\/Lehigh.png\")
\nNorth Dakota State 24, Lehigh 0<\/a><\/strong>
\nat Fargodome, Fargo ND; attendance 18,111<\/p>\n
\nNorth Dakota State 31, Lehigh 18. I gave Lehigh’s offense too much credit in Spanola’s absence, though Chris Lum didn’t have a horrible day.<\/p>\n
\n
\nGeorgia Southern (12-1) at North Dakota State (12-1)<\/strong><\/span>
\nFargodome, Fargo ND, SATURDAY, 2:30pm ET
\nAirs on ESPNU. Video available via ESPN3. Audio available via Georgia Southern<\/a> and KFGO<\/a>. Live Stats available via NCAA<\/a>.
\nSeries: 1-0 North Dakota State (34-14 at Georgia Southern, 2006)<\/p>\n
\nNorth Dakota State 24, Georgia Southern 20. The Eagles are not a defensive monstrosity, so the Bison will be able to score. North Dakota State is<\/em>, but the triple option should still result in enough offense to keep this close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"