Montana

Numbers crunch: Home dominance the new trend in Cat-Griz rivalry. Will it hold true again?

Published

1 year ago

November 17, 2024

Numbers crunch: Home dominance the new trend in Cat-Griz rivalry. Will it hold true again?

BILLINGS — Last season’s football clash between Montana and Montana State was perhaps the highest-stakes Brawl of them all, with the winner taking home the outright Big Sky Conference title and the league’s automatic bid to the playoffs.

The Grizzlies’ 37-7 blowout victory set them on a course to the FCS national championship game, while the Bobcats dropped their postseason opener at home to North Dakota State.

This year’s matchup doesn’t have quite the same surrounding drama. But it matters. Every year. Always. Regardless of the windfall.

The Cats and Griz — ranked No. 2 and No. 10 respectively entering last week — will kick off the 123rd Brawl of the Wild on Saturday at 12 p.m. at Bobcat Stadium in Bozeman.

Coming in, Montana State (11-0, 7-0 Big Sky) has already wrapped up the league’s automatic bid to the playoffs and clinched at least a share of the conference title thanks to a 30-28 road win at UC Davis. A victory over the Griz this week and MSU will be outright Big Sky champs.

The Bobcats want to stay in position to have the best chance to go where the Grizzlies went last year — Frisco, Texas.

Meanwhile, Montana (8-3, 5-2) has surely played its way into an at-large playoff berth, but a victory in Bozeman would enhance its credentials for positioning within the 24-team bracket, which will be released by the FCS selection committee on Sunday.

When last year’s game ended, Griz coach Bobby Hauck called it an “a** kicking” on live television. He wasn’t wrong. But that’s been the trend in this rivalry for the past five years on both sides.

Montana State dismantled the Griz at home in 2019 (48-14) and 2022 (55-21), an average margin of victory of 34 points in those wins. Montana, meanwhile, blew past the Cats 29-10 in 2021 in Missoula, a game that didn’t seem as close as the score indicated, then dominated last year’s game in Missoula, as Hauck not-so-subtly alluded to.

The Bobcats’ Brent Vigen has put together a glowing resume in four years as MSU’s coach. He’s 43-9 overall (.827) and 28-3 in the Big Sky with two league titles. He has yet to lose a home game to a conference opponent, and has not lost a regular-season home game period.

Vigen is looking to even his record against the Grizzlies at 2-2 on Saturday.

Hauck obviously has a much longer history against the Bobcats — “the neighbors,” as he calls them — in his two separate tenures at Montana.

Hauck is 7-5 all-time versus MSU. Overall, he is 137-39 (.778), 82-21 in Big Sky games and has taken the Grizzlies to four national championship game appearances, including last year’s.

But he doesn’t want to fall to 2-4 against the Bobcats since returning as coach prior to the 2018 season.

From a historical standpoint, Montana has the upper hand in the rivalry with a 74-42-5 series lead, a fact that’s not lost on the Grizzlies or their fans. The primary reasons for that were UM’s 36-3-4 record over the Bobcats from 1909-1955 and a 16-game Griz winning streak from 1986-2001.

But from a more modern perspective, the series sits at 34-32 in favor of UM since 1956. If you drill it down even further, it’s all square at 10-10 since the Bobcats finally got back on the winning side after 16 long seasons in 2002.

That’s what has made this conflict even better in recent years — the fact that both teams are keeping pace with each other head-to-head. That only enhances what is one of the best college football rivalries in the country.

Now it’s a matter of whether the recent trend of home-field advantage rings true again this year. And we’re about to find out.

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Montana

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Published

3 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.

Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:

The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….

There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:

While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.

The Missoulan article includes this response:

In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”

As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.

Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.

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Montana

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

Published

15 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

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Montana

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.

“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.

It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.

(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”

But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.

“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.

Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.

“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.

The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.

The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.

“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.

While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.

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