Bobby Hauck is the winningest coach in Montana and Big Sky Conference history. Steph Chambers / Getty Images

It definitely wasn’t on the Joe Piscarcik level, but the result was the same nonetheless.

While trying to stop the clock with only seconds remaining, Eastern Washington quarterback Jake Schakel fumbled the ball on a spike attempt with his team at the Montana 5-yard line. A scrum ensued, with players from both teams trying to pounce on the ball. EWU’s Marcus Lloyd ultimately wound up with it at the 10, but the clock had run out.

The Grizzlies’ 29-24 win improved their record to 10-0 overall and 6-0 in the Big Sky. Montana came into the game ranked No. 3 in the committee rankings and No. 2 in the FCS coaches poll. Eastern Washington dropped to 4-6 overall and 3-3 in the Big Sky.

THE SPIKE IS FUMBLED 🤯@MontanaGrizFB holds on pic.twitter.com/n9qm9bjxap

— Big Sky Conference (@BigSkyConf) November 8, 2025

Schakel, a redshirt freshman making his first start, was trending toward being the hero. Moments earlier, Schakel, a redshirt freshman making his first start, threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Cole Pruett with 1:01 to play. Eastern Washington then recovered the onside kick, and Schakel led the Eagles to the Montana 9 with 25 seconds to go.

Four Schakel pass completions and a 15-yard penalty pushed Eastern Washington to the Montana 5. On third-and-1 with seven seconds left — and with no timeouts — Schakel grabbed the snap and tried to spike the ball, which would have stopped the clock and given his team one final play to go for the win. But he didn’t get a good grasp of the ball, and it slipped out of his hands and onto the ground. Game over.

Despite the game-ending gaffe, Schakel had a fairly monster day, completing 43 of 63 passes for 451 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.

“[Jake] stood in there and made a ton of plays, over and over again. He stood the test of all the pressures and situations,” head coach Aaron Best said. “That was a memorable one, and our guys fought. They gave everything they had, and that’s all we asked. We’ll bounce back and we’ll be better for it knowing we just took the number two team in the country toe-to-toe and five yards away from winning the game.”

Nov 9, 2025

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Alex Valdes is a trending news reporter for The Athletic. Alex was previously a writer at CNET and MoneyTalksNews, a web content manager at Tipico, a sports editor at NBC Sports and MSNBC, and had various content roles at Microsoft.