MISSOULA — Bob Stitt’s coaching tenure started out with a bang as his first anointed quarterback at Montana shredded the four-time national champions on national television. Since that impressive win over top-ranked North Dakota State, Stitt has spent almost as much time preparing his backup quarterbacks as grooming his starters.
Three games into Stitt’s tenure at UM, he had to prepare backup Chad Chalich to replace injured starter Brady Gustafson with Big Sky Conference play looming. By mid-October, the Griz turned to Makena Simis because Chalich too succumbed to the injury bug.
That up and down campaign ended with Gustafson returning to the fold, dicing rivals Eastern Washington and Montana State in consecutive weeks to complete UM’s playoff push. He then operated efficiently as Stitt earned a playoff victory in his first tumultuous season at the helm in Missoula.
Last season, the story remained the same. After a fast start — UM shot out to five wins in its first six games — the Griz wilted down the stretch. Montana lost four of five to finish last season. The one victory came with Chalich at the helm but the Griz also lost to Northern Colorado for the first time in nearly four decades with Gustafson on the sideline recovering from another injury.
Montana senior Reese Phillips warms up before Montana’s season opener /by Brooks Nuanez
As Montana gets set to open Big Sky play against defending conference co-champion EWU, Stitt and his staff find themselves in the situation once again. In UM’s non-conference finale, senior quarterback Reese Phillips suffered dislocated left ankle, a shattered left fibula and an array of burst tendons in his ankle and foot. He will miss the rest of the season.
At Monday’s press conference, Stitt told the story of losing his starting and backup quarterbacks at Colorado School of Mines early in the 2013 season. His ranks so thin, Stitt converted tight end Justin Dvorak, a high school quarterback in Tomball, Texas, back into a signal caller as a redshirt freshman. He ended up throwing for 902 yards and seven touchdowns.
In 2014, Stitt’s last of 15 seasons in Golden, Dvorak threw for 4,287 yards and 36 touchdowns to earn a nomination for the Harlon Hill Trophy. He won the Harlon Hill, the Division II Heisman, last season in his senior year.
While Stitt has plenty of experience preparing backup quarterbacks even before arriving at Montana in 2015, the current situation is different than the previous two seasons. Gustafson was the unwavering starter when healthy. Chalich both seasons and Phillips last year pushed the 6-foot-7 strong-armed Billings native but did not offer any real challenge to take his spot.
Since Gustafson left, the primary story line surrounding Griz football centered upon the quarterback battle between Phillips, redshirt freshman Gresch Jensen and junior college transfer Caleb Hill.
Montana redshirt freshman quarterback Gresch Jensen/ by Jason Bacaj
Because of his strong arm, confident demeanor, charismatic personality, natural leadership skills and seniority, Phillips won the job. He galvanized the team from a chemistry standpoint, becoming the rare transfer — he joined Montana last off-season after spending three years at Kentucky — to rise to a true leadership position.
That all went up in smoke in Saturday’s second quarter against Savannah State. As Phillips convulsed on the Washington-Grizzly Stadium turf, his body quivering from the pain of the violent injury and the spectators in the stadium sat silently on the edge of their seats, Jensen went about calmly warming up, ready to embrace his chance to lead the Griz.
“Not much changes for us,” Montana All-Big Sky left tackle David Reese said. “When Reese went down, I went up to Gresch and said, ‘This is your football team now.’”
“Gresch has taken reps with the 1s, not necessarily in games, but Gresch has a tempo, Gresch is assertive, Gresch will take shots. We believe in Gresch.”
The other big difference between replacing Gustafson multiple times and Jensen sliding in for Phillips is that Jensen was specifically recruited by Stitt to fit his up-tempo spread offense. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound redshirt freshman from Auburn, Washington has academic accolades as impressive as any player one might find.
In high school, he earned a Natioanl football Foundation scholar-athlete award. During his redshirt year at UM, Jensen was named a finalist for the National Football Foundation National High School Scholar-Athlete Award, recognizing the nation’s top academic college freshmen.
Montana redshirt freshman quarterback Gresch Jensen with QBs coach Andrew Selle/ by Brooks Nuanez
Even if Jensen is now getting his turn earlier than desired, Stitt is excited to see him work with a week to prepare as Montana’s starter. The two and a half quarters Jensen played against Savannah State — he threw for 178 yards and three touchdowns — showed glimpses of what Stitt hopes is to come.
“He has some stuff hidden in his brain that he’s been thinking about for a long time,” Stitt said on Monday. “There was one time Saturday that we’ve been trying to check it for four years and he goes in and checks it for a touchdown. Coming out on our own 1-yard line, most guys are just going to hand it off but he checks to a slant and go and then didn’t go for the first read, came off to the wheel rout (to Samori Toure for an 80-yard gain). That’s just not something that is normal for a freshman in his first game with serious reps. He’s different with his preparation. The confidence is there.
“His skill set and his mindset is what we want to recruit.We are excited to put him out there.”
The Montana athletic department did not make Jensen available to the media this week with his first career start on the horizon. The freshman signal caller did express confidence during Saturday’s post-game press conference.
“I felt pretty comfortable out there,” Jensen said. “Just go out there and play. This is what we prepare for, what we train all those months for, those late-night film sessions, this is what it’s for. Go out there, play execute our offense and it’s one game. Now we are moving on to conference play and it’s a big week for us. We just have to approach it the exact same way, be comfortable out there and have fun.”
Montana head coach Bob Stitt /by Brooks Nuanez
Stitt said after Saturday;s game that he has “never had a quarterback who is more prepared every single day, every single week” in his 32 years coaching college football. He sometimes worries Jensen is over-preparing but would rather that than have a quarterback not dedicated to the details of his craft. Now Jensen will have to prepare as the starter with league play approaching against an Eagles squad sure to be gunning for the Griz.
“We knew there was something about him when we were recruiting him, when we were asking him all the questions we were asking him, that he was different mentally,” Stitt said. “We feel like so far we are right”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
