CMR Football takes on Belgrade Panthers

Broadcaster Baker Bob alongside Coach Mac cover local AA Football for the Central MT Radio Network.  This week Baker Bob talked to CMR head coach Dennis Morris as he prepares for Belgrade on Friday night.  Here is the interview:

Baker Bob: talking with Coach Morris here of CMR. Coach, you finished your home and away non conference games now, down to business with Conference foes 1-1 so far, but your offense looks like a big bright spot.

Coach Morris: I'll tell you what, you know, it sure has. We have kids all over the place that are just explosive kids, starting with Cole Taylor at the quarterback position who is off to a dynamite season, but he's got guys all around him. AJ LaFurge at the running back spot, Gus Nunez, Tanner Grove, River Washington played really well, but kids that are just very good athletes and very explosive kids and we've been able to connect and move the ball very well. So offensively, it has been our bright spot. We are still working through the newer offensive line with not too many returning starters left. They're working and they're still making a lot of mistakes too. But I tell you what, when that comes together, that our offense is pretty powerful and it's going to have to carry us a little bit.

Baker Bob: Your defensive line seems to be holding the line too defense usually gels first thing, well before the offense, but what we saw two weeks ago, the defense did have a real good game against Hellgate.

Coach Morris: Yeah, they sure did. And our defense, I'll tell you what, this week gets a heck of a lot better too, but just by dumb luck, we end up losing a couple of guys off of our defensive line to a concussion and then a broken hand that's now casted up and able to play. And defensively we had to take a couple of young kids that we didn't think were going to play a lot of our varsity football, that we thought we're going to play JV football, and those guys did an excellent job for what they did for our team, and we were able to develop some depth. But I'll tell you what, if you take a couple of studs out of that defense that was playing so well together, it kind of changed things a little bit. But again, I'm super proud of those young guys that had to step in and get their job done. So you saw a couple of struggles there that we hope are working their way out as we have some of our older guys, more experienced guys back in that game and ready to play. Our defensive line has been a strong point. We have good players right there too and our linebackers have played very well as well. We've been able to shut down the run pretty dang well and it's been kind of left on our secondary's back right there, but we see improvement in our secondary each and every day and it's just taking time for them to come together as well. But again, we're back to our original unit for this game and I'm excited to watch them play,

Baker Bob: you're going to get them out there on the field with Belgrade Panthers, a scary team they're 0-2. They lost a heart breaker this last week to Missoula Hellgate. So, they're hungry. They want to get out there and compete.

Coach Morris: They're hungry. Yeah. They got a brand-new head coach. Stephen Hunter is an EX-CMR guy, and he's doing a heck of a job in his first season right there. And there's a lot of heart out on that field right there and a lot of hustle out on that field right there. I'll tell you what, the advantage that we have at CMR over them right now is we have three years into a weights program, and our guys are big and physical, and that's the way that we're going to have to win this football game. We told it to the guys on Monday that there's a reason we work so hard in the weight room, and that's to physically dominate the field on Friday night. So if we go out there and do exactly that and physically dominate this team, I don't think they can hang with us.

Baker Bob: Thank you, Coach. Have a good game.

The game can be heard on Kool 92.9 with a 6:50 pre-game