Stitt hopes second class gets Griz back on track
KYLE SAMPLE
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Hours after Joey Counts crossed the goal line to upset top-ranked and four-time defending champion North Dakota State, causing an electric atmosphere at Washington-Grizzly Stadium to register its most super-charged outburst, the Griz received the third commitment of Bob Stitt's second recruiting class.
One day later, the Griz added another. And two days after that, Stitt sat at his weekly news conference and spoke about how the nationally televised season-opening win had given the program a level of exposure it hadn't had in years.
But almost four months down the road, Montana was on a plane headed back to Missoula on the short side of a 37-6 second-round playoff loss that appeared even more lopsided after a quick one-over of the stat sheet.
Though neither game shaped Montana's overall recruiting strategy, they gave the program's first-year staff first-hand experiences of the type of team it was going to need to build if it wanted to relabel the Grizzlies as the most feared program in the FCS. So that's what the coaches set out to do – and that's what they hope they accomplished when the class was unveiled Wednesday afternoon.
"We want to be not good, but a great football team next year," said Stitt, standing at a podium at the Canyon Club atop Washington-Grizzly on Wednesday.
"If you play against a team like North Dakota State you see that all you need is a bunch of good, hardworking kids that will play together and you can do some great things," he added later that afternoon. "Definitely North Dakota State is where we want to be as far as physical football goes. That game showed us we need to continue to recruit on both sides of the ball and make us stronger."
Through the 8-5 campaign that ended Stitt's first season as head coach, the offensive line was often maligned and struggled to allow the Griz to build a rushing attack that threatened opposing defenses. And its defensive line, thinned by graduation and a shortage of scholarships, was battered in losses to Cal Poly, Portland State and Weber State.
But it wasn't until December and the second round of the playoffs that Montana's shortcoming in the trenches revealed how far the lines had regressed since the program went to back to back title games in the late 2000's.
In its second game against the Bison, Montana's offensive line failed to open holes for backs John Ngyuen and Jeremy Calhoun and the ground game produced just six yards and was all but abandoned in the second half. On the other side of the ball, the line was gashed for more than 250 yards, most of during the first half when the Bison blew the game open.
To its credit, the staff had already identified the lines as an area it knew it needed to upgrade. By the time of the Grizzlies' playoff defeat, they had already received commits from two prep offensive linemen – Arizona's Dylan Eickmeyer and Colorado's Ashton Torres – who were getting rave reviews in their home states, and were days away from adding another from a 6-foot-5 tackle who earned the nickname "Yeti" in Thayne Jackson.
Though the work to rectify the offensive line on the recruiting trail was mostly complete, the loss to NDSU reaffirmed Montana's recruiting mission.
"It just kind of backed up our plan that we are definitely looking in the right direction to fix this," Stitt said.
While the staff was able to scour the prep ranks for offensive linemen and will likely have the luxury of redshirting those it signed Wednesday, it had to quickly find help for a defensive line that lost its two starting ends – one a national player of the year – and a starting tackle. So it added junior college transfers Miles McKee-Osibodu and Brandt Davidson and is almost certain to add another transfer to add to the middle.
Montana also added Arizona residents Randy Rodriguez and Noah Gerald and Montanans Trace Bradshaw and Cole Rosling. While Gerald primarily played end at Williams Field, he was described as a dynamic pass rusher. And its not mistake that Rodriguez and Bradshaw were targeted because of the athleticism they bring.
The hope is the seven additions will add a level of depth and versatility to the trenches that will enhance the philosophy brought by new defensive coordinator Jason Semore.
"We needed some help there," Stitt said. "We struggled against the run and we struggle with depth with the inside guys.
Days after the loss to North Dakota State, Stitt was back in the Adams Center at his weekly news conference. In addition to a host of other topics Stitt said the program had to shed itself of players who took their scholarship as a right to coast through their time on campus – he wanted players to dedicate themselves to the team in anyway necessary to win.
In his second class the Griz found a couple handfuls of prospects with high academic standing. It put the recruits in a position to earn more academic aid, allowing Montana to trim the athletic funds that were doled and thus creating room for the program, which was devoid of four scholarship from past transgressions and strapped for cash, to free up aid for some late discoveries who "fell into our laps," as Stitt put it.
"All of these recruits have bought in to winning and supporting each other," Stitt said. "When we talked to these recruits we said this a way we could bring in a better recruiting class, a bigger recruiting class and they were more than willing to work out.
"I really feel like these kinds of kids could take it to another new level."
