Say What? Montana Grizzly Quarterback Loses Voice Saturday

The Montana Grizzly football team has dealt with a lot of injuries to starting players so far this season.

Some are on the mend and starting to see action on the field again. But there was an odd situation this past Saturday during Montana's dominant 35-0 victory at Northern Colorado.  And while you could argue that it could be included in the most recent injury report, its temporary impact could also easily be left unsaid.

While senior quarterback Cam Humphrey did return to the lineup at home against Southern Utah October 30, the coaching staff kept his participation limited, in anticipation of a full return last Saturday. And he did indeed play a very impressive and complete game, throwing three touchdown passes and running for another score.

Since the Griz were already ahead 35-0 late in the third quarter, Cam got to take the rest of the game off, yielding to backup Kris Brown, who had been Montana's starter for several games since Humphrey's injury at Eastern Washington on October 2.

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At his Coach's Show Wednesday night, Bobby Hauck, in a lighthearted manner, described Kris Brown's time in the game as "six plays of hell." The coach tells it this way:

"So, when Kris was in there, we had two false starts, and two plays where the ball got snapped and the offensive linemen were still in their stances. What happened was Kris got up on Saturday morning, and he had lost his voice. So we had no snap cadence. So we tried to go with the silent snap count, which we hadn't worked on since the week before the Washington game (a 13-7 Montana win September 4). And we had a new center who really hadn't worked on it at all. So, we're trying to do it without any practice and we couldn't get the play off."

Winning 35-0 adds a lot of levity to a predicament like that. It's pretty tough to be the signal caller when you can't call the signals! Hopefully Kris Brown is on the mend, as are other Griz players that we'd really like to see on the field again soon.

Good luck at Northern Arizona this Saturday, guys.