After his team lost to the Montana Grizzlies 39-7 Saturday, Cal Poly coach Beau Baldwin talked about how he had screen plays dialed up to beat some Griz blitzes, but that they didn’t quite work out.

Attitude and effort, Baldwin said, made the difference for the Montana defense.

Meanwhile the Griz had at least one play to perfection: The kickoff return to begin the second half.

Malik Flowers’ school-record fourth career TD — the awesomely named Jefferson Heidelberger had the old record of three — covered 95 yards and included a cut through 3-4 Mustangs that seemed too tightly bunched for it to happen.

Enter Gabe Sulser, a sophomore burner who led Flowers through a tiny gap, executing a pair of blocks in the process.

“Sort of perfectly to a T,” Flowers, still just a junior, said of the record-setting return. “Watching it in the game, it was perfect. From me catching it. … Everything opened perfectly. It could not have been blocked any better. The guys up front did their thing. ... And I just hit the hole like how we had been all during practice.”

Eastern Washington’s excellently named LaMont Brightful holds the Big Sky Conference record for kick return TDs, with five from 1997-2001. Hampton’s Jerome Mathis (2001-04) holds the FCS record with six.

Streaks and more streaks

Of course Eastern Washington is the next opponent for the Grizzlies. The kickoff is set for 8:30 p.m. Mountain on the red turf of Roos Field.

Montana snapped an odd streak with its homecoming win over Cal Poly, having lost five straight games coming off a bye week. Now comes another streak: Since former NFL standout Michael Roos paid for that turf in 2010, the Griz have yet to win in Cheney.

The list starts with a 36-27 loss in 2010 in which Cooper Kupp helped the Eagles recover an onside kick during a wild comeback,and a 35-16 loss in Bob Stitt’s final season at UM.

Counting a playoff loss in 2014, it’s a 5-game skid.

It’s more about talent than turf, obviously. Eastern won the 2010 FCS title — under Baldwin —and has been the biggest thorn not named Montana State among the Grizzlies’ Big Sky opponents.

“Their offensive numbers are very impressive, almost video-game-like,” Griz coach Bobby Hauck said Monday, during the team’s weekly press conference. “Their quarterback, Eric Barriere, is a good kid — he’s the preseason pick for offensive player of the year for the conference, and he hasn’t disappointed certainly anyone that’s paying attention.”

Players of the Week

Barriere is once against the Big Sky’s offensive player of the week, after throwing for 518 yards and four touchdowns in Eastern’s 50-21 win over Southern Utah Saturday.

The senior, who went over 10,000 career passing yards in the win, has won the award three times this year and eight times in his career.

Northern Colorado’s Xander Gagnon, who had 12 tackles in the Bears’ 17-10 overtime win over Northern Arizona, won the defensive honor. Sacramento State’s Kyle Sentkowski hit three second-half field goals and scored 11 points in a 23-21 win at Idaho State to take the special teams honors.

Others nominated included Montana’s Samuel Akem and MSU running back Isiah Ifanse on offense; Glacier High product Patrick O’Connell and MSU’s Daniel Hardy on defense; and Montana’s Levi Janacaro on special teams.

Janacaro blocked and recovered a punt for a touchdown against Cal Poly.

O’Connell had a sack and 3.5 tackles for loss against Cal Poly and leads the Football Championship Subdivision in both categories with 5.5 sacks and 10 TFLs.