I didn’t record the exact phrasing of the question at Monday’s “presser” in the corner of the Washington-Grizzly Stadium end zone, but it was along the lines of:

Isn’t this a chance to get a lot of younger players reps against Central Washington?

“Are they keeping score?” Montana coach Bobby Hauck asked back, not for the first time. When it was reaffirmed that yes, this would be a game Saturday at 11 a.m., Hauck smiled. “We’re playing to win,” he said.

Small crowd aside, it’s going to be cool to see a football game at Wa-Griz for the first time in 16 months, and not just for the game day-starved media.

“I think everybody involved is pretty excited to play somebody else,” Hauck said. “After last week with players trying to kill each other and coaches killing each other, it’s nice to have a common opponent.”

That would be Division II CWU out of Ellensburg, Washington. The Wildcats don’t have UM’s Football Championship Subdivision pedigree but they aren’t from the RMAC, either. They went 7-4 in 2019, including a 41-31 loss at Big Sky Conference program Idaho, won their league (the GNAC) and made the D2 playoffs.

“In ‘08 they came in here and could have beat us,” Hauck added, referring to a 38-35 Montana win over a team quarterbacked by Flathead grad Mike Reilly. “And that was a Griz team that won 14 and went to the national championship. We’ll have our hands full.”

Central played two quarterbacks in 2019 and one of them, Canon Racanelli, has since moved over to safety. The holdover, junior Christian Moore, is 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds.

He threw for 28 touchdowns and helped his team average 505 yards a game last year (also helping: 1,500-yard rusher MIchael Roots).

The Griz have won 16 straight home openers, which is we guess what this is — why not, since they didn’t get one last fall? Montana also went 7-0 at home in 2019 after a 4-3 home record in 2018, culminating in that last-second loss to the Bobcats.

The Grizzlies’ two-deep is an interesting mix of holdovers — hello, Glacier product Patrick O’Connell — and eight guys getting their first starts, including a fullback named Trase le Texier.

Missing is touchdown machine Marcus Knight; Nick Ostmo, a bruising 221-pounder out of Bozeman, will get his first start at tailback.

Knight’s absence is less of a concern because it’s a few more months until the fall season. It’s more of one because your first thought might be, “transfer portal.” That’s not it.

Secrecy around UM’s football program is higher than in Hauck’s first tenure, partly because of the pandemic. All but Monday’s practices are closed, and those are open for only around 40 minutes. The two-deep came out Tuesday.

Oh well. It’s nice to see Eureka’s Garrett Graves on there, at the nickel defensive back. It’s nice to see Central Washington on the docket — here’s hoping the Wildcats stick around.

Last year the Great Northwest Athletic Conference saw another school, Azusa Pacific, announce it was ending its football program.

That leaves the league with three teams, all of them wondering about their futures. So count the Wildcats as equally excited to be back playing a real game. You know, where they keep score.

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or [email protected]