CHENEY, Wa. — There was a lot of speculation surrounding No. 8 Montana’s opening game at Eastern Washington, with these two teams putting up big offensive numbers. However, few could have imagined a total of over 100 points scored and over 1,000 yards of total offense, but here we are.

After a rare three and out to start the game, Eastern Washington tried to take advantage, but Sorren Mckee’s 40-yard field goal goes wide, remember those three points.

Montana makes a field goal of his own on the corresponding drive to go up three.

From there, the two teams traded touchdowns on four consecutive drives. On Montana’s side of the ball, Logan Fife couldn’t miss, hitting Erik Barker for a 29-yard touchdown and leading the Griz to the promised land on their next drive, capped off by an 8-yard Nick Ostmo touchdown.

The problem is that Montana’s defense couldn’t get off the field. Kekoa Vesparas hit Efton Chism III for his first of three scores on the day.

With 1:47 left in the first half, Fife drove the team onto the field again and hit Barker for his second score of the half, which went up 31-14 at halftime.

Safe guidance, right? Not quite. In Week 2, Montana held a 17-point lead in North Dakota and then fell in Grand Forks.

After trading punts, Eastern’s Jared Taylor weaved his way through several players and scored a 48-yard touchdown to beat the Eagles by ten.

That’s when Eli Gillman happened. For the fifth time in as many games this season, the second-year running back scored a rushing touchdown of more than 30 yards, but this was well over 30. Gillman broke loose on the second play of the responding drive for a 69-yard score, allowing the Griz up 38-21 in the 3rd quarter.

The two teams traded drives that allowed EWU to turn it over on downs, and Montana missed a 46-yard field goal.

Que the madness. Visperas throws for 65 yards in two plays before finding Chism III on a 6-yard touchdown to bring the score back to a ten-point game.

The Eagles recover the onside kick and score again as Visperas puts it in himself to make it a 38-35 Montana lead.

However, this was Logan Fife’s night, the Griz responded with an 11-play drive that took five minutes off the clock and was capped off when Fife found Ostmo in the end zone to go back up by 10.

Just when it looked like the Griz was stopping the comeback, Chism III broke loose in the secondary and caught a 50-yard touchdown with about five minutes left in the 4th quarter.

Montana looked to the ground attack to respond, and Nick Ostmo answered the call to break free for a 62-yard run. EWU used their three timeouts and got the Griz to a 4th and 2 at the goal line. Montana opted to go for it when Fife found Jake Olson on the side of the end zone to go up ten again.

Eastern needed a miracle. The Eagles got step one done when they scored another touchdown to cut the score to 52-49 in Montana’s favor, but the onside kick was recovered by the Griz who were finally able to catch their breath, take a knee and end the game was able to win 52- 49 behind 600 yards of total offense.

Logan Fife finished the day with 364 passing yards and five touchdowns.