There is a good reason this one stands out early in Montana's season. No. 3 Montana is back at Washington-Grizzly Stadium for its second game, and Drake arrives with a passing number that forces attention: 535 yards through the air in its opener. That does not make Drake a finished product, especially after allowing 527 yards in a loss to South Dakota Mines, but it does make this a non-conference test worth taking seriously.
For Montana, the bigger story is not simply that it is expected to win. It is whether the Grizzlies can turn a messy opener into a sharper second performance and move to 2-0. Montana's season opener against Southern Utah featured self-inflicted mistakes that hurt the Griz, and Bobby Kennedy has made it clear that there is still plenty to clean up even after the result. That is the tension entering this game: a ranked team with higher standards, facing an opponent that showed real passing volume but also real defensive leakage.
What Drake showed in week one
Drake's opener said two things at once. The Bulldogs can throw the ball well enough to stress a secondary, but they also gave up far too much on the other side of the ball. A team that passes for 535 yards and still loses by giving up 527 is not arriving in Missoula with a spotless profile. Still, Montana knows that any opponent capable of generating that kind of aerial production deserves respect.
That is especially true in a game Bobby Kennedy expects to test his defensive backs. He said the Grizzlies will have to see how they hold up and added that his team has a lot to clean up after opening weekend. His point was simple: Montana can expect Drake to be sharper than it was in its first game, because teams usually improve when they have a week of film and a clear target.
Montana's chance to reset
For Montana, this is as much about its own growth as it is about scouting the opponent. Dyllan Drummond said the Grizzlies are taking the lessons from the opener and improving on them, while also stressing that it is a new opponent, a new week and a new day. That is the right mindset for a team that wants to separate one uneven performance from the bigger arc of a season.
The broader context matters too. Montana beat Drake 48-16 in Missoula in 2018, so there is recent history here, even if each team now arrives in a different place. Drake is a non-scholarship Pioneer League team, which gives Montana the deeper roster on paper. But Kennedy's warning about preparation is the more relevant note. In his view, anybody can beat anybody on any given day, and the job is to make sure the Grizzlies show up with energy, discipline and execution.
That is the real stakes of Saturday at 1 p.m. in Missoula. If Montana handles Drake cleanly, it will have done more than protect its ranking and move closer to 2-0. It will have shown that the opener's mistakes were just that — mistakes, not a pattern. If not, this early non-conference game could become a reminder that the margin between looking like a contender and playing like one is often smaller than the ranking suggests.
