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Grading the 2022-23 Griz Athletic season

Griz til I die

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I did this last year and I thought it would be fun to do this again for this season. Here are all my grades in order from highest to lowest. Let me know if you agree or disagree:

Volleyball: B+. After years and years of frustration of constant .500 finishes or below, Volleyball had a banner year. I was starting to really question this coaching staff’s future and whether they should be retained or not, but they finally turned the corner and Allison Lawrence won Big Sky Coach of the Year, they swept the cats including beating them down on their home court in front of a record 6,500 crowd, and put themselves in a position to win the Big Sky title, and although that didn’t go their way, they made huge strides in a way I have not seen from Volleyball literally in my lifetime. With the majority of the team returning next season, I expect Griz Volleyball to be in the title discussion this Fall. They will have to replace a couple of good players including 5 year starter Libero Sarina Moreno and Outside Hitter Elise Jolly, but this team has the capability to do special things in the Fall. Should be exciting!

Track & Field: B. Doug Fraley deserves a ton of credit for turning the Track & Field program around in just his first season. I’m not gonna lie, I was a little bit skeptical about him when he got hired in August. It was a search process that took most of the Summer to conduct, which made me believe he was not the first choice. It felt a little underwhelming, but boy did he prove me wrong in a big way! The Indoor season saw a lot of injuries on both the Men’s and Women’s side which led to some pretty underwhelming results, but the teams were stellar in the Outdoor season. The men won the Griz-cat dual for the first time in a decade, and just this past weekend at the conference championships, 4 different athletes won Big Sky titles. 2 men and 2 women highlighted by Evan Todd winning the Javelin, Jaydon Green winning the 110-meter hurdles, Holly Sudol winning the 400-meter hurdles, and how about Erin Wilde? The Freshmen from Whitefish won the High Jump. Both the Men and Women finished 6th at the conference championships, but the men had the potential to finish much higher, but the unfortunate injury to Paul Johnstone in the men’s 400-meter kept him off the podium and potentially winning the event, and because of the injury was also scratched from the men’s relay team. Those are 2 events that could’ve scored the men’s team more points and without question would’ve put them in the top 5 and maybe higher. I’m very excited about the future of the program. Fraley has got this program headed in the right direction, and I’m excited to see how they progress next year as they will be the big beneficiaries of the new indoor practice facility.

Women’s Tennis: B-. For the first time in 10 years, Women’s Tennis qualified for the Big Sky tournament, which is a big win for them as this has historically been one of our weakest programs. They also beat the cats, so this was an all-around successful season for Steve Ascher’s program. I am expecting them to take a step back as he loses a lot of his top players to graduation including Olivia Oosterbaan, Maria Goheen, and Lauren Dunlap. Should be a re-building year for Women’s Tennis next season!

Men’s Tennis: C+. Men’s Tennis went through a big re-building year as they got hit hard by graduation last year, so it was not surprising to see them struggle as much as they did. The good news is that this was a really young team that had no Seniors and they should take a big step forward next season. There was some success though as this years team did surprisingly qualify for the conference tournament which was not expected, and they technically did win cat-Griz as the cats had to forfeit because of injuries. All in all, I’m not gonna dock Men’s Tennis too much because this result was expected and I would say they slightly exceeded expectations, but Jason Brown has to be excited about the future of this young team.

Soccer: C. This was a disappointing year for Chris Citowicki’s crew, and he has voiced displeasure on multiple occasions. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the Griz were the preseason favorites to win the league, and they finished 4th in the regular season. They did reach the semifinals of the conference tournament, but Citowicki was not happy with that result at all and has vowed that they will get it back on track. Scoring was a big issue for this season’s team. They did manage to win a game at the conference tournament so that salvaged their season a little bit, but it was still massively disappointing. They played a very difficult non-conference schedule that saw the likes of Pitt, Creighton, Gonzaga, and Fresno State all come to Missoula and I personally thought that brutal schedule affected them and set them up for failure. The bad news is this years schedule isn’t any easier. I have no idea how, but somehow the Griz convinced Ohio State to come play them in Missoula. Can you imagine if we could somehow convince Ohio State to come play us in Missoula in Football or Basketball? That’d be nuts. Griz Soccer also hosts Mountain West Colorado State, who they played last year and finished in a 0-0 tie, I like our chances at home, plus the defending sun Belt champions Georgia Southern in Missoula, and Miami Ohio. They also play Oklahoma in Spokane and play at Oregon State. So it’s another tough slate for Griz Soccer. All that said, I am expecting an improved team this season despite the fact that they have to replace star goalie Camelia Xu who was poached away by Minnesota for an NIL deal. Griz Soccer should get back on track this season!

Men’s Basketball: C. This was a very disappointing season for Men’s Basketball and unfortunately something we’ve become accustomed to over the last few seasons. The team started off good going 7-6 through a tough non-conference schedule against opponents like Xavier and Gonzaga, that saw them deal with injuries to Mack Anderson and Aanen Moody taking a leave of absence from the team for the birth of his child. It was the first 9 games of conference play though that things got off the rails as they got off to a wretched 3-6 start to conference play. I will however give credit where credit is due as from there the guys turned it around and would win 7 of their final 8 games of the season to finish 10-7 in conference play and finish 4th. They shellacked Idaho State in the Quarterfinals of the conference tournament before running into red hot NAU in the semis and bowing out in a game that Aanen Moody played through injured. The 23-24 season will be a pivotal season for Decuire and his staff which will feature one new assistant and 3 new transfers to the team. We were not decimated by the portal like a lot of other teams in the conference (msu, EWU, Idaho, ISU, UNC, NAU) but Josh Bannan did decide to forego his final year of eligibility to begin his pro career in Australia and he leaves a huge hole for us to fill in the post. We did just bring in another Aussie transfer from George Mason who looks the part at 6’10, but does not have a ton of experience or playing time. There will be a ton of new faces to the conference next season and the Griz return a lot of experience and key pieces that I think they’ll be voted in the top 3 of the preseason polls, perhaps only behind Weber. I think next year we finally break through and put ourselves back in the conversation to win the league.

Football: C. I don’t need to re-iterate the fact that the 2022 season was a major disappointment for Griz Football. Everyone here knows that, and while I’m sure some of you will be quick to say that Football should get an F, let’s look at last season logically for a minute. We started off 5-0 which was great. We come out of the by week and lose at home to the Vandy’s in a game that we just didn’t show up for. Supposedly Johnson was sick, and if that’s the case, then we should’ve alleviated some of the pressure off of him in the run game or in other aspects and we didn’t. The following week we get Sac State on the road in primetime, and we were ready to play from the start, pissed off about how the Idaho game went, until Johnson got head hunted by the Sac State and the staff makes the decision to turn to Kris Brown. Give KB some credit, I thought he did a good job of righting the ship and continuing to give us a chance to win the game, until the most controversial call in all of FCS Football was made by the refs at the end of regulation when Sac State had to go for it on 4th down. The receiver was ruled in bounds, but would go to replay where you would think the correct call was made right? Wrong! The replay officials completely botched the call by either not having the right angles, or just being flat out incompetent. Instead, that setup Sac State inside the 5 where they would tie up the game forcing OT rather then it being a turnover on downs and the Griz win leading to a gut punch loss because of the refs. If that call is made correctly, does that alter the course of our entire season? Maybe. Hard to say. The next week the offense is completely ineffective with KB at QB, we lose in embarrassing fashion, before finally returning home and getting Johnson back, only for him to get hurt yet again against Eastern. Now we have a hobbled QB going into cat-Griz in Bozeman in what’s already gonna be an uphill battle with the cats playing for a conference title and college gameday in town, while we’re fighting for our playoff lives, and we all know what happened there. Whether you agree with it or not, the committee takes a chance on us and puts us in the playoffs and we beat SEMO at home in epic come from behind fashion and then go to NDSU where we were leading in the 3rd quarter before it all started to unwind and we ran out of gas. Despite everything that went against us last season, we still manage to make the second round of the playoffs and salvage our season a bit, which in my mind does not warrant an F grade, and we finally got the coaching changes we wanted and now have 2 new QB’s that I think we are all really excited about. I think 2023 is gonna be a much better season for us. Don’t be surprised if we’re contending for the league title when the cats come to town in November.

Lady Griz: C-. In year 2 of the Brian Holsinger regime, we kind of started to see signs of what this team was capable of becoming. We saw huge performances from a pair of freshmen in Mack Konig and Dani Bartsch that gave fans a lot to be optimistic for in the future. There’s no doubt that Holsinger was/is building this team for the future by putting a high emphasis on recruiting high caliber High School kids, and now you can tell he’s got his sights set on next season. He returns a wealth of talent and experience with the only major loss to the team being Sammy Fatkin. I would say based on the makeup of this team and the rest of the league that right now it’s a 2 horse race between the Lady Griz and NAU to win the league next year. I’m very high on next season’s Lady Griz! In terms of this season though, they were 4-7 in non-conference, 10-8 in conference and for a while were in the race for the title, and once again lost in their first game of the tournament. That’s been a major monkey on their back pretty much since we moved to a neutral site tournament, so they need to figure that out. In the end, they finished 14-16 overall, but there’s no question that next year is the quote on quote “year” for the Lady Griz, and if it’s not then maybe Holsinger was never the right guy for the job. He’s been very active in the portal by bringing in some girls with some serious size, including 2 girls that are over 6’1. Get excited about next season for the Lady Griz, cause you should be!

Golf: D+. Disappointing year for Kris Nord's crew. He did lose a bunch of good players from last seasons team, but I thought there was the potential for this team to still do decent with the likes of Tricia Joyce, Emmy Sundby, and Jessica Ponce. This team was extremely inconsistent. One minute they looked great, the next minute they looked terrible. They were sitting in 5th after day one of the conference tournament, and by day 3 they fell all the way down to 8th. That needs to be cleaned up in the future. Nord does lose Joyce and Sundby to graduation who were 2 of his top golfers, so he'll have his work cut out for him replacing those 2, but there are some promising younger players still in the program and Nord is no stranger when it comes to the portal. He's been known to bring in 1-2 transfers a year and I would not be shocked in the least if he goes that route again this Summer.

Cross Country: D-. It’s hard to give Cross Country a fair grade considering Doug Fraley wasn’t hired until August, and he had no time to hire a Cross Country/Distance coach or do any kind of recruiting. They finished 8th at the Conference championships on both the men’s and women’s sides which is pretty lackluster but has been about par for the course my whole life. That’s the one area where Doug Fraley greatly needs to improve his program is with the distance runners. He’s got good sprinters, good field athletes, we’re good in jumps, but we badly need to figure out the distance runners, and I’m sure he will overtime.

Softball: F++++++. Softball was downright terrible this year. In fact, for those of you who do not follow Griz Softball, it was the worst season in program history at a whopping 10-37. This is the only program where I am openly asking for a coaching change. The Melanie Meuchel era has been average-below average after she was handed the keys to a Cadillac and proceeded to crash the Cadillac off the cliff. She’s a nice lady and I thank her for everything she’s done, but she just has not gotten the job done as the head coach. The pitching was awful, the hitting was awful, and considering Softball has the best resources and facilities of any program in the Big Sky (and will get even better with the IPF), there’s absolutely zero excuse for why this team should not be contending for championships every year. Especially when there are only 6 Big Sky teams that play Softball. Haslam has yet to make a change at head coach, but there is still time. I will be deeply disappointed if he does not make a change.

Overall: C. This was a disappointing year for the athletic department, and Haslam said exactly that on the Inside the Den Podcast with Riley earlier this week. We underachieved and it was especially disappointing in the Big 3 sports. That said, I don’t think there’s any reason to panic. These years happen from time to time, and I am seeing a lot of encouraging signs for next season in most of our programs. Next year has the potential to be a return to glory for the Big 3 teams and Griz fans should be excited about that, barring any major setbacks over the last few months. I’m gonna chalk this up to a down year and a blip on the radar and move on the 2023-24 season and continue to be a supportive fan of all our programs and our University. Here’s to a better year in 23-24. Go Griz!
 
I looked only at the football blurb. Good summary. I wouldn't give the season a C, but whatever. It's your blurb. Note that Johnson hurt his ICL at some point in the middle of the season, Burt kept sucking it up. That's why he kept getting hurt in what seemed like mystery leg injuries. Until a player told me recently, I had never heard or known that Johnson had had this injury.
 
mthoopsfan said:
I looked only at the football blurb. Good summary. I wouldn't give the season a C, but whatever. It's your blurb. Note that Johnson hurt his ICL at some point in the middle of the season, Burt kept sucking it up. That's why he kept getting hurt in what seemed like mystery leg injuries. Until a player told me recently, I had never heard or known that Johnson had had this injury.
What grade would you have given Football? I thought that was appropriate considering how high the preseason expectations were
 
Really nice analysis of all sports here GTID. Thanks for putting it together

And I’d have to agree. Top to bottom maybe one of the worst overall seasons in the last 30 years or so. Which, frankly, shows how spoiled we are at UM.
 
Griz til I die said:
mthoopsfan said:
I looked only at the football blurb. Good summary. I wouldn't give the season a C, but whatever. It's your blurb. Note that Johnson hurt his ICL at some point in the middle of the season, Burt kept sucking it up. That's why he kept getting hurt in what seemed like mystery leg injuries. Until a player told me recently, I had never heard or known that Johnson had had this injury.
What grade would you have given Football? I thought that was appropriate considering how high the preseason expectations were

D+.
 
mthoopsfan said:
Griz til I die said:
What grade would you have given Football? I thought that was appropriate considering how high the preseason expectations were

D+.

I’m surprised you went that low. Given the pre-season hype
And the mid-season letdown, only to get into the playoffs and win a game, I’d say C+. Undone by scheme and an inability to keep the starting QB healthy.
 
PDXGrizzly said:
mthoopsfan said:

I’m surprised you went that low. Given the pre-season hype
And the mid-season letdown, only to get into the playoffs and win a game, I’d say C+. Undone by scheme and an inability to keep the starting QB healthy.

It was a joke. The season was a B or better, but also disappointing. With a healthy Johnson, the Griz go to the semifinals.
 
I'd go with a somewhere in between a B- and a C+ for griz football. Wasn't quite a b- but, wasn't quite a c+. If Johnson was 100% all year, I'm sure I would have gave them an A+

Even with him injured he was 20x better than any other qb on the roster.
 
mthoopsfan said:
I looked only at the football blurb. Good summary. I wouldn't give the season a C, but whatever. It's your blurb. Note that Johnson hurt his ICL at some point in the middle of the season, Burt kept sucking it up. That's why he kept getting hurt in what seemed like mystery leg injuries. Until a player told me recently, I had never heard or known that Johnson had had this injury.

I think I had someone explain it to me that after that injury, his leg would just randomly go numb or if it got hit in the right spot it would do it as well. Sort of explains the random spats of inconsistency he had throwing on occasion.
 
Football season was a failure and they underachieved at all levels. They were picked to win the conference and finished 6th. If you've heard Haslem speak about the athletic department's performance this past year you know he isn't going to accept it again. The inability of the coaching staff to adjust and the lack of development at the QB position had nothing to do with Johnson.
 
Results are not improving the resumes of anyone in the Athletic Department.

I know Haslem hired FB, MBB, and WBB head coaches. How many more current HCs did he hire?
 
Not to :fuel: but the football team was one of the last 16 teams playing out of 128 FCS teams which I think puts them in the top 87.5% (if not, I blame the calculator). That's a solid B! Right? :lol:

If based off expectations then is the scale something like:
A = National Championship
B = NC Runner-up
C = Semifinals
F = Didn't make Semifinals/Final Four
 
uptopgriz said:
Football season was a failure and they underachieved at all levels. They were picked to win the conference and finished 6th. If you've heard Haslem speak about the athletic department's performance this past year you know he isn't going to accept it again. The inability of the coaching staff to adjust and the lack of development at the QB position had nothing to do with Johnson.

The results of the season had everything to do with Johnson's injuries. I call BS on your saying Haslam is not going to "accept it again." Just not true. There is little or nothing Haslam can do, other than to try to provide more financial support (and that won't be easy). Good coaches appear to be in place and that's what Haslam will have to ride with. You probably don't even know Haslam. Let me guess, Haslam is your long lost son.
 
DoubleNicks said:
Not to :fuel: but the football team was one of the last 16 teams playing out of 128 FCS teams which I think puts them in the top 87.5% (if not, I blame the calculator). That's a solid B! Right? :lol:

If based off expectations then is the scale something like:
A = National Championship
B = NC Runner-up
C = Semifinals
F = Didn't make Semifinals/Final Four

Correct. No team that goes to the playoffs, wins a game, and then loses to NDSU on the road, and loses only to playoff teams, is a C.
 
uptopgriz said:
"The inability of the coaching staff to adjust and the lack of development at the QB position..."

THAT, in a nutshell, is the crux of the problem, IMO. Now, with a new OC, new QB coach, maybe, just MAYBE there is hope. We'll know for sure six months and four hours from now. Brawl will be just about over. Will it be cheers :clap: or torches and pitchforks? :protesst:
 
mthoopsfan said:
DoubleNicks said:
Not to :fuel: but the football team was one of the last 16 teams playing out of 128 FCS teams which I think puts them in the top 87.5% (if not, I blame the calculator). That's a solid B! Right? :lol:

If based off expectations then is the scale something like:
A = National Championship
B = NC Runner-up
C = Semifinals
F = Didn't make Semifinals/Final Four

Correct. No team that goes to the playoffs, wins a game, and then loses to NDSU on the road, and loses only to playoff teams, is a C.

I’d say final 8 would be a B. Final 4 or better would be an A-. Natty game is an A, Natty is an A+.
 
mthoopsfan said:
uptopgriz said:
Football season was a failure and they underachieved at all levels. They were picked to win the conference and finished 6th. If you've heard Haslem speak about the athletic department's performance this past year you know he isn't going to accept it again. The inability of the coaching staff to adjust and the lack of development at the QB position had nothing to do with Johnson.

The results of the season had everything to do with Johnson's injuries. I call BS on your saying Haslam is not going to "accept it again." Just not true. There is little or nothing Haslam can do, other than to try to provide more financial support (and that won't be easy). Good coaches appear to be in place and that's what Haslam will have to ride with. You probably don't even know Haslam. Let me guess, Haslam is your long lost son.

The football coaches were horrible last season at making adjustments and have been even worse at developing qbs. The good thing is that Haslam hasn't extended any of these coaches to longer-term deals. Hoops told everyone that BH's contract was going to be extended last fall and that never happened. BH made a lame statement that he didn't even know his contract was expiring. That's how self-centered he is--the head coach getting their contract renewed is important to the assistance coaches and their families so they have some stability.
 
AZGrizFan said:
mthoopsfan said:
Correct. No team that goes to the playoffs, wins a game, and then loses to NDSU on the road, and loses only to playoff teams, is a C.

I’d say final 8 would be a B. Final 4 or better would be an A-. Natty game is an A, Natty is an A+.

That’s one hell of a bell curve.
 
AZGrizFan said:
mthoopsfan said:
Correct. No team that goes to the playoffs, wins a game, and then loses to NDSU on the road, and loses only to playoff teams, is a C.

I’d say final 8 would be a B. Final 4 or better would be an A-. Natty game is an A, Natty is an A+.

I'd probably grade it on a curve given recent train wrecks. Semi appearance would get a strong A from me.

Limping into playoffs and a single, home game win therein is well below a C. That is below average performance for a team with the best FCS fans, facilities etc...
 
SoldierGriz said:
AZGrizFan said:
I’d say final 8 would be a B. Final 4 or better would be an A-. Natty game is an A, Natty is an A+.

I'd probably grade it on a curve given recent train wrecks. Semi appearance would get a strong A from me.

Limping into playoffs and a single, home game win therein is well below a C. That is below average performance for a team with the best FCS fans, facilities etc...

You are, of course, welcome to your opinion, but this also shows how little you know about football and Griz football. In my view.
 
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