With the exception of a late departure by Bryce Erickson last month that left an opening coaching wide receivers, Bobby Hauck’s staff at the University of Montana has seen solid stability as the veteran head coach enters his 15th year and 14th season leading his alma mater.
The roster, however, is a different story. The Griz graduated 17 players from their 2023 Big Sky Conference championship team and another 26 from last year’s 9-5 squad.
Players that could have returned for a senior season but elected to walk away from football include safety Jace Klucewich, offensive linemen Journey Grimsrud and Declan McCabe, defensive linemen Hank Nuce and Noah Kaschmitter. When healthy, all were in the rotation the last few years for the Griz. Others that will not play a final season after playing sparingly included defensive linemen Dylan Smith and Sloan McPherson, wide receivers Brady Lang and Dayton Toney, and safeties Padraig Lang and Gabe Longin.
The Griz roster also was impacted by the transfer portal. Quarterback Logan Fife, who split time last season with Keali’i Ah Yat, is now the starter at New Mexico State. Ronald Jackson Jr., a starter in the Griz secondary, transferred first to Old Dominion before landing at Ohio. Riley Wilson, a two-time All-Big Sky selection at rush linebacker, now plays for Arizona after receiving a substantial payday in Name, Image & Likeness money according to a source.
Sawyer Racanelli, who was slated to be UM’s top returning receiver following the graduations of Junior Bergen, Keelan White, Aaron Fontes and Ryan Simpson, instead transferred to Wake Forest. Other transfers included quarterback Kaden Huot (Carroll College), linebacker Cooper Walton (unknown), defensive lineman Tyson Simmons (unknown), and kicker Grant Glasgow (New Mexico).
As Montana gets set to open fall camp later this week, the roster features 18 incoming freshmen and 18 players who redshirted a year ago. A total of 22 players who joined the team either at the mid-year break or after spring ball currently appear on the roster and will be expected to contribute in some form this fall.
That’s a total of 58 players on Montana’s fall camp roster who have never played a down for Montana. Welcome to college football in 2025.
“That’s the essence of college football right now,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck said at the Big Sky Kickoff media conference in Spokane in July. “We are going to go back to putting tape on guys’ helmets and writing in Sharpie to start fall camp so you know who everyone is (laughs).
“It’s like the preseason polls: it’s an exercise in futility and nonsense because we don’t even know what our own teams have, let alone what other teams have.”
Thursday, on the day Montana opened fall camp officially, UM sports information announced another 15 new additions to the roster, which, paired with the 22 off-season additions prior, gives Montana more than three dozen new players on its roster not including incoming freshmen.
From a staff perspective, Brent Pease enters his third season as the offensive play-caller while Roger Cooper and Tim Hauck are back as a defensive coordinator tandem for the second straight year. Running backs coach Justin Green has been coaching at his alma mater since retiring from the NFL in 2011. Tight ends coach Rob Phenicie, Montana’s OC from 2003-2009, has been back at UM since 2022 and is in his third year working with his group.
Joe Pawlak lasted a single season at Montana as the offensive line coach after taking over for longtime assistant Chad Germer ahead of the 2024 season. Pawlak departed for a job at Western Michigan, giving way to Cameron Norcross, a 20-plus year coaching veteran who spent last season as the offensive line coach at Kennesaw State.
Defensively, Cooper calls the plays and coaches the linebackers while Tim Hauck is heavily involved with the defensive scheme and also coaches the safeties. Mike Linehan is back for his third season coaching the Griz defensive line. Kim McCloud enters his third year coaching Montana’s cornerbacks.
Kent Baer, UM’s defensive coordinator from 2018 until 2022, is back on staff as the senior analyst. Alex Gubner, the 2023 Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year as a game-wrecking defensive tackle for the Griz, is also a defensive analyst. Eric Price, a 30-year coaching veteran with NFL credentials who most recently coached in the UFL, is the offensive analyst.
Bryce Erickson, a member of the staff since 2019 and UM’s wide receivers coach the last two seasons, resigned last month for personal reasons.
On Wednesday, Skyline Sports confirmed that Bobby Kennedy is expected to be hired as Erickson’s replacement. Kennedy, who most recently coached at Rice, was on hand during Montana’s spring drills, according to a source.
Griz players report for fall camp on Thursday, with the first official practice set for Saturday at Dornblaser Field.
Here are five story lines to monitor for this year’s Griz team.
1. With seven senior offensive linemen on the roster, can the front be the dominant unit on the team?
Senior Liam Brown (6-foot-5, 317 pounds) is entering his third season as a starter up front and will make his 30th career start during Montana’s season opener against Central Washington on September 6.
Senior Dillon Botner (6-6, 290), a Whitefish product, decided to delay going to medical school in favor of returning for a 7th season and is expected to compete for the starting center job after serving as the starting left tackle for three games in relief duty last season.
Senior Cannon Panfiloff (6-6, 293) has been the utility man on the offensive line, playing guard and tackle and starting 15 total games, including 11 last season at left tackle before giving way to Botner because of injury.
Cade Klimczak, a former transfer from Central Michigan, started 14 games last season, including 12 at center. Brown began the season at center before the two flip-flopped. Klimczak, like Botner, received a special NCAA eligibility waiver to return for his seventh season.
Those four are the main reasons why the offensive line is the most veteran unit on the team.
Everett Johnson, a 6-foot-7, 301-pound senior, is back for his second season as a Griz after transferring to Montana from Cal before last season. He played in 13 games as a backup and on special teams last season.
Lucas Freitas is the most talented underclassmen on Montana’s roster. The 6-foot-6, 312-pound redshirt sophomore has played in 21 games so far as a Grizzly.
Following the Griz spring game in April, Hauck was asked what his top priorities were for the off-season. The first thing he talked about was hitting the transfer portal on the hunt for offensive linemen. The following month, Montana announced the signing of Cal transfer Dylan Jemtegaard and NC State transfer Patrick Matan. Jemtegaard, a 6-foot-4, 295-pounder from Yelm, Washington, played in just six games during his four years in Berkeley. The 6-foot-4, 303-pound Matan played 135 snaps for the Wolfpack last year.
Montana was long known for mean, dominant, attitude-driven offensive lines that helped the Grizzlies steam roll their way to Big Sky Conference titles and national championship runs. Other than Brandon Casey last season, the Griz have only had three All-American offensive linemen (Jon Opperud in 2011, Danny Kistler in 2013 and David Reese in 2017) since Hauck’s first tenure ended in 2009. And Casey is the only one Hauck 2.0 has produced.
Brown, Panfiloff, Klimczak and Botner were part of an offensive line that helped Montana average 196 yards rushing per game and score 35 rushing TDs (the second-most in the Big Sky Conference) last season. UM totaled 2,741 rushing yards and moved the chains 305 times, helping create the fourth-best first down offense in the FCS. But that unit loses Casey, a two-time first-team All-Conference selection, to graduation and Grimsrud, a two-year starter at guard, to early retirement.
It will become clear over the next month if the Power 4 transfers Jemtegaard and Matan will anchor the unit, fit into the rotation or provide depth. Regardless of their contributions, having seven senior offensive linemen is a luxury few FCS programs have. Capitalizing on that advantage will be a huge key to Montana’s success this fall.
“We’ve got five spots. I don’t like to rotate linemen much, but I always tell my guys ‘You eat what you kill.’ If you’ve earned playing time, you’re going to get playing time,” Norcross said in a UM press release. “We’re going to have guys that are going to push each other, and I think we’ve got eight to 10 guys who are going to have a chance to help us accomplish what we want to accomplish.”
2. Will Keali’i Ah Yat come of age in his third year in the program?
Ah Yat created a significant buzz when he showed flashes of his talent and potential as a true freshman during the 2023 season. But those moments were in limited snaps and he was never asked to be “the guy” under center for the Montana offense.
Last season, he battled Logan Fife for the starting job, appearing to take control of the competition during the first month of the season. Ah Yat set Montana’s single-game record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with four against Weber State. But he also suffered an injury on the last of those four TDs that derailed the rest of his season.
Ah Yat played in six games following the injury, starting one (UM’s second round playoff loss at South Dakota State), but neither he nor Fife fully assumed the role as “the man” for the Griz offense. Now Fife is in Las Cruces at New Mexico State and Ah Yat is trying to fend off Jake Jensen, a senior transfer who joined the Griz in January after spending the last three seasons at USC.
Ah Yat has thrown for 1,392 yards and eight touchdowns while rushing for 144 yards and seven more scores during his Griz career. He did not participate in Montana’s spring drills, meaning Jensen had time to catch up in the competition.
But Ah Yat’s physical skills and natural savvy are apparent. He has all the tools to be a good – or possibly great – Big Sky Conference quarterback. He simply needs to take the bull by the horns, prove to Hauck he can be a leader and a steadying presence under center to win the job for good in his third year in the program. If he does, the legacy QB could be the rare high school recruit who blossoms into a multi-year starting quarterback for the Griz.
3. Can a collection of defensive transfers expected to perform at a high level learn UM’s scheme quickly?
Defensive end Hayden Harris now plays for the Buffalo Bills. Defensive tackle Patrick Hayden graduated, as did Nuce and Kashmitter. Riley Wilson plays in the Big XII, while fellow linebackers Vai Kaho and Ryan Tirrell exhausted their eligibility. Cornerback Trevin Gradney departed after an All-American career, while Jackson transferred. And Montana’s top safeties – Klucewich, Ryder Meyer, Jaxon Lee and junior-to-be Tyson Rostad – are all no longer with the program.
Caleb Otlewski, a third-year sophomore who transferred to UM from San Diego State ahead of last season, is the only defensive player on the roster who started a game last season. He made two starts and is Montana’s leading returning tackler with 33 stops. He also had 3.5 tackles for loss and two sacks.
T.J. Rausch, a fifth-year senior who’s been an All-Big Sky selection on special teams each of the last two seasons, played in 14 games and notched 29 tackles last season. He’s expected to play an elevated role in the secondary.
Jareb Ramos, UM’s backup nose tackle the last two seasons, had 19 tackles last fall and is expected to be a leading man on the inside of the Griz defensive line.
Kyon Loud made noise as a true freshman cornerback last season, rolling up 18 tackles and breaking up three passes in his rookie campaign.
Senior linebacker Geno Leonard, who’s battled injuries his entire career, leads a group that also features third-year sophomores Clay Oven, Hayden Opitz and Cy Stevenson.
Other than those eight names, most of the rest of the players expected to make big impacts on Montana’s defense are transfers.
Up front, Solomon Tuliaupupu is a former high school National Defensive Player of the Year. But that was seven years ago. And he’s spent the last five-plus seasons at USC hardly playing because of a plague of injuries.
Hayden Schwartz, a 6-foot-4, 250-pound defensive end transfer from Minnesota, is also expected to make an impact, as is Braydon Bailey, a 6-foot-2, 305-pound nose guard who transferred to Montana from Utah State.
Ramos, Bailey and Jake Mason, a third-year sophomore who transferred to Montana from Washington before last season, are expected to anchor the interior. Schwartz, senior Kellen Detrick and junior college transfer Giovanni Pifferini are expected to be the primary defensive ends.
At linebacker, those four aforementioned Montana-made products should all play a role at the inside spots flanked by Otlewski. Elijawah Tolbert, a 6-foot-1, 230-pound senior who was an All-American at Eastern Illinois last season, was one of the standouts of fall camp. He will almost certainly start next to whoever emerges among Leonard, Oven, Stevenson and Opitz.
At Wilson’s vacated rush linebacker spot, Portland State transfer Peyton Wing enters the program with high expectations. He was a second-team all-league selection last season and landed on the preseason All-Big Sky list this summer, along with several All-American squads.
Hunter Peck, a former Frontier Conference Defensive Player of the Year who is a graduate transfer from Carroll College, is also expected to provide pressure off the edge. D.J. Peevy, a former 4-star recruit who played previously at USC, is no longer coming to the Griz; he decided to retire from football in the off-season.
The most experienced corners are Loud, former Utah transfer Kenzel Lawler and former Illinois transfer Prince Ford. Lawler and Ford joined the team before last season. UM still elected to bring in transfer help after Jackson bailed, adding University of Mary transfer Justus Breston.
At safety, BYU transfer Micah Harper, a former Freshman All-American who had his last few seasons in Provo derailed by injury, and Diezel Wilkinson, who stood out during his true freshman season at Idaho, ended the spring as the front runners to start at safety. Rausch, third-year sophomore Kade Boyd and redshirt freshman Kash Goicoechea should all also be in the mix.
Regardless of who rises to the top of the depth chart, new starters and rotation players abound for the Griz defense. The 3-3-5 scheme that Baer is the architect of and former DC Ronnie Bradford mastered during UM’s 2023 run to the national title game is an intricate scheme that takes teamwork and fluidity. Last season, many of the plug-and-play transfers the Griz brought in did not pick up the nuances of the scheme at a high enough level for UM to maintain its elite standard.
Quick acclimation and superior talent to last year’s transfer group could help the Griz defense take a big jump – if things go according to Hauck’s plans.
4. Is this the year Eli Gillman becomes one of the undeniably best players in the country?
Gillman was the national Freshman of the Year two years ago. Last season, he ran for more than 1,100 yards and 15 touchdowns. Yet it feels like the former Minnesota prep Player of the Year is just scratching the surface of his formidable potential.
The Griz had to fend off FBS suitors who wanted Gillman to hit the transfer portal this last off-season. Instead, he chose to stay in Missoula, where he has a chance to impact – if not rewrite entirely – the record books for the Grizzlies. He enters his junior season with 2,137 rushing yards and 28 rushing touchdowns, each already the 7th-best career totals in program history.
The 5-foot-11, 206-pounder has only carried the ball 19 or more times in a game three times and only 20 times once — for 136 yards in UM’s playoff win over Tennessee State last fall.
He has 369 carries in 31 games, meaning he is averaging 11.9 carries per game so far in his career. Add in his 38 career catches and he’s still getting just 13.1 touches per game, a number that will likely need to go up if Montana is to make a deep playoff run like it did in 2023. Gillman was a redshirt freshman that year, and won the Jerry Rice Award. If the Griz are to make a similar run in 2025, it will likely be because their star running back is in contention for an even more prestigious award – the Walter Payton.
5. What sort of an impact can Michael Wortham have?
Wing isn’t the only preseason All-Big Sky player on Montana’s roster that played at another league institution last season. Michael Wortham was one of the most dangerous kick returners in the FCS at Eastern Washington, averaging nearly 29 yards per return and taking a kick to the house against Idaho last season. He managed seven total touchdowns, scoring five on the ground and also catching one. The former Eagle also served as EWU’s “Wildcat” quarterback, completing 7-of-9 passes for 88 yards and throwing two scores, running for 313 yards and averaged 8.7 yards per carry and catching 25 passes for 209 more yards.
Hauck has had versatile, play-making returners before. But he’s almost always favored keeping those players primarily on special teams, dodging them from the wear and tear of constant touches within the offense. Malik Flowers, the FCS all-time leader in kick return touchdowns, comes to mind. The burner from Fontana, California, had just 51 catches in four seasons.
Last season, Junior Bergen had 49 touches from scrimmage, averaging 3.7 touches per game outside of his electrifying returns.
Wortham had 70 offensive touches between rushes, passes and receptions last year, averaging 5.3 per game for EWU. Can he expect that many this season? It will be a crucial question for Montana’s offense throughout 2025.
The Griz first take the practice field at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at Dornblaser Field. Practices are open to the public.
