The Montana and Montana State football teams put winning streaks on the line when they play home football games on Saturday.

No. 5 Montana (9-1, 5-1 Big Sky) takes a five-game winning streak in its game against Idaho State (0-10, 0-6) while Montana State (6-4, 4-2) has a three-game winning streak going into its game against Portland State (3-6, 2-4). Both games kick off at 12:05 p.m.

The Grizzlies continue to improve behind the rushing of sophomore Chase Reynolds, who has rushed for three touchdowns in each of the past two games.

"Early in the year he showed signs of what we're seeing in the last month," coach Bobby Hauck said. "As he's gotten more playing time and more carries, he's gotten better and better.

"Once we get to November, we've let our starter get the majority of the carries," he said.

While the Grizzlies have won 30 of their past 31 regular-season games, Idaho State is trying to shake a 14-game losing streak. But that doesn't have the Grizzlies' focus wandering to next weekend's Cat-Griz game.

"We don't have a real tendency to overlook anybody," Hauck said. "We prepare the same every week, it doesn't matter who we're playing."

Hauck said his team is getting ready for two Idaho State quarterbacks after coach John Zamberlin said Kyle Blum would start Saturday in place of Russell Hill.

"At this point, you're evaluating different things because we're looking toward next season," Zamberlin said. "We need to give Kyle an opportunity to show was he can do."

Zamberlin said his team hasn't folded despite losing all 10 of its games this season.

"When you're at this point you could be laying down and throwing in the towel and they're not," he said. "They're going out and playing hard. They're playing hurt. They're doing what you ask of them, so that's encouraging."

In Bozeman, the Bobcats will be starting their third different quarterback in as many weeks after starter Cody Kempt and backup Mark Iddins suffered season-ending injuries.

Mark Desin gets the nod Saturday against Portland State.

"We all have great confidence, great belief in Mark Desin," said coach Rob Ash. "He's a very competitive young man. He's a great leader. He's excited about his opportunity and the team will rally around him. That's making it a lot easier to have a guy with his type of personality coming into the situation."

The Bobcats also learned this week that receiver DeSean Thomas and linebacker Dane Fletcher are also out for the year with injuries suffered in a 25-23 win at Northern Arizona last week.

"I'm sensing on my team a tremendous resolve to keep this going," Ash said. "If anything, it's going to make us stronger as a group."

The injuries mean the Bobcats will be relying even more on running back Demetrius Crawford, who averages 92 yards rushing per game. He rushed for 160 against NAU.

"I thought the line being able to open up some holes and Demetrius being able to get the yardage that he got was absolutely vital," Ash said.

Ash said he can't remember a worse run of injuries since he was the head coach at NCAA Division III Juniata College and a mononucleosis outbreak sidelined 19 players for about six weeks.

"It's not quite to that stage yet, but this is second," he said.

Portland State comes to Bozeman after a 29-12 loss to Montana.

"I don't like playing them both back-to-back," coach Jerry Glanville said. "Montana drains all the emotion away from us. Win or lose or whatever happens you have a very hard time coming to that level two weeks in a row."