Out of the last 23 games Northern Arizona played against Big Sky Conference rival Montana, the Grizzlies have won 22 -- including the last 13.

The Lumberjacks' last win came when most of NAU's players were still in elementary school and Jacks' head coach Jerome Souers was calling plays in his last year as the defensive coordinator for, you guessed it, Montana.

As much history as there is between these two teams, Souers claims that history plays no part in football.

"Every team every year is different and 40 percent of our team is new guys and there's not that much carry over," Souers said. "The game will be played by the players and past history will play a very little part in what happens in the game.

"It's going to come down to who's going to block, tackle and execute their scheme for four quarters of play."

Souers sees the game more as a matter of opportunity for his team to beat the No. 12-ranked team in the nation -- Montana is the second-straight ranked team on NAU's schedule -- rather than another page in a chapter of history.

"Montana offers us an excellent opportunity at our place during Homecoming to get a win," Souers said. "This team looks forward to challenges and has a strong resolve."

After demoralizing losses to Montana State last week and Eastern Washington a week before that, the Lumberjacks' optimism shows the kind of character the team is built around.

"It's always tough and frustrating when the game doesn't end the way you want it to," Souers said. "Our guys have spent a lot of time (this week) soul-searching, and we've spent a lot of time trying to find the balance between preparation and performance to get a better outcome."

Against Montana -- which enters the game with a 5-2 overall record and three straight wins -- a little optimism could go a long way.

Junior quarterback Cary Grossart said a group of guys acting as a sort of team council met with Souers about wanting to turn the season around for the team.

"We got in the team's ear and said, 'Follow us and rally around us,' and it's gone great so far," Grossart said.

Leading the team to a midseason fresh start all began with Grossart's own preparations in the week leading up to today.

"Last week I struggled with some looks and that'll come with experience," Grossart said. "We feel good, we had a different energy about us in practice and we're ready for this opportunity against Montana. We need to be more prepared."

Grossart said he had to re-evaluate how he was going about preparations, and made the choice to return to how he got ready against teams like Arizona.

For Souers, a big part of being ready for Montana is something the defense will be responsible for.

"They're going to run a lot of plays at us very quickly, they spread the field to stretch you out and put you in isolated situations, so we have to be gap-conscious and play excellent defensive football," Souers said.

The way the defense will have to play will leave a lot of one-on-one situations, so Souers added his team will have to be ready to have a good tackling day.

Montana's offense runs multiple quarterbacks, and Jordan Johnson, Nate Montana and Gerald Kemp will prove difficult to contain once they get into the option running game. The Grizzlies have a couple of fast receivers as well in Jabin Sambrano and Antwon Moutra.

On offense, Souers said the Jacks need to find the balance that they lost against Montana State if they want to put points on the board.

"Montana State ran a lot of numbers at the line of scrimmage and we should have thrown the ball sooner," he said. "That really took away a lot of opportunities for production and we have to do a better job as a team of staying out of a predictable situation: When you're behind, it's easy to predict you're going to have to throw."

The Montana State defense held NAU's running game to just 49 yards -- 37 for starting tailback Zach Bauman -- and that's something the Jacks can't afford against the Grizzlies.

"We need to be balanced and make sure if they take away the run game that we can attack through the air, which we're very capable of doing," Souers said.

When NAU does go to the air, Grossart shouldn't have any trouble finding targets like Khalil Paden. Paden has come on as of late, and is the second-leading scorer on the team behind Bauman.

"Cary's been doing a great job of throwing some great balls," Paden said. "He does a good job of making his reads and throwing the ball to the guy he's supposed to throw it to, to who's open.

"We have a lot of guys who can make plays and we all work together."

But for the Jacks to find success with the pass, first the run has to do its job. Paden said he'll be looking for the running backs to recover from last week's game and perform strong today.

"It's always great when you have two great running backs who make the defense come up and load up on the running game; that gives us a better chance to make plays on the outside because it leaves holes in the defense," Paden said.

The Homecoming game kicks off at 3:05 p.m. at the Walkup Skydome. The game will be broadcast on 105.1 FM, the Big Talker, and can be seen online at www.bigskytv.org.

Bill Harris can be reached at bharris@azdailysun.com or 556-2251.