MISSOULA — As Ty Palmer stood on the sideline as an observer at Dornblaser Field, the former Montana wide receiver couldn’t help but notice how similar the action that played out in front of him appeared.
Although nearly a decade has passed since Bobby Hauck’s first tenure at UM, the way Hauck wants the Grizzlies to practice remains by and large the same. Palmer, a former Missoula Big Sky standout who was part of a group that won 31 of 32 Big Sky Conference games from 2006 until 2009, recognized most of what the first 90 minutes of the August 14 fall camp practice included, calling out what came next throughout the sweltering session.
The diligent repetition, the attention to detail and the demand for effort remain the same nearly 10 years later as Hauck and his staff close in on UM’s season-opener September 1 under the Washington-Grizzly Stadium lights against No. 13 Northern Iowa.
“These practices, it’s about detail, organization, be tough, play tough, run to the ball, effort, all the things you can control,” UM safeties coach Shann Schillinger, a two-time All-Big Sky safety for Hauck in 2008 and 2009, said following a practice in mid-August. “That’s what we are trying to build here right now.”
The differences in style between Hauck and former head coach Bob Stitt are vast. From the schematic philosophy to Hauck’s prioritization on playing with a physical and mental edge, it’s a stark contrast from the last three seasons. By and large, the players who made it through winter conditioning, off-season workouts, spring drills and summer player-run practices have acclimated quickly to the changes.
“Him and my high school coach (at Coeur d’Alene High Van Troxel) are very similar,” UM junior wide receiver Jerry Louie-McGee said in April following Montana’s spring football game. “(Troxel) was an ex-Montana player. What he expected and what he taught us was the same as what Coach Hauck is bringing back. I’m excited I’m getting the same thing. Coach Hauck is really tough, really hard on us and that’s exactly what we need in this program. And I think that’s what the fans want too.”
Part of the building process has been the obvious necessity of assembling a staff. First, Hauck decided to retain Schillinger, running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Justin Green and offensive line coach Chad Germer, forming a foundation on three players with deep ties to both Montana and the head coach.
Schillinger is in his third year working at his alma mater after playing four seasons for the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL. He began his coaching career at Dickinson State where his older brother, Jace (now UM’s tight ends coach), coached. Schillinger spent a season on Mike Riley’s staff at Nebraska before returning to UM before the 2016 season.
“I get to learn from Coach Hauck in a different aspect now,” Schillinger said. “As a player, you learn what a player needs to do. Now as a coach, I learn every day from him what to do and why he’s doing it. He does things for a reason.
“It’s nice to spend time with Coach,” Schillinger said. “I played for him for five years and then went seven or eight years without hardly seeing him. We’d talk on the phone. But to be around him every day has been pretty neat. Honored to work for him.”
Green is in his seventh season coaching at UM after playing five seasons in the NFL. The former NFL Draft pick took his first coaching job on Mick Delaney’s staff in 2012 and has remained at Montana ever since.
“No matter if you move places or people move, in this profession, it’s a moving profession,” Green said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to stay here and things move around me. But as far as the camaraderie of the guys, it’s a great group, great staff, great guys to be around. Funny – we are laughing in the offices more than anything else, which to me is providing a good atmosphere of somewhere you want to work.”
Germer, who spent a brief stint with the Cincinnati Bengals following an All-American senior season in 1991 at Montana, first coached UM’s offensive line on Mick Dennehy’s staff beginning in 1998. He retained the position for three seasons under Joe Glenn before moving with Glenn to Wyoming from 2003 until 2008. Germer first coached under Hauck in 2009 and then followed Hauck to UNLV for a stint that lasted until 2014. Germer returned to his alma mater for the third time as part of Stitt’s staff in 2015.
Those three coaches provide a bridge from a roster mostly recruited by Stitt navigating acclimating to Hauck’s direct, demanding style.
“Every coach is looking to find new ways to do things but I know that Coach Hauck has some core philosophies and values that will never change,” Germer said in the spring. “We are always looking to tweak and find different wants to do things as far as structure and so forth. As far as the nuts and bolts, Coach Hauck has some real strong ideas on what he wants accomplished and we are all aware of that.
“Coach Hauck and I have worked together a lot. I know what he expects from me.”
Although the rest of the staff is new in the same sense that Hauck is new, most of them have ties to Montana as well. Assistant head coach and wide receivers coach Brent Pease led the nation in total offense as a Montana senior quarterback in 1986 before being selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the following year’s NFL Draft. He also coached under Don Read between 1991 and 1995 and served as Dennehy’s offensive coordinator for three years before a rapid rise through the coaching ranks landed him coordinator jobs at Baylor, Boise State and Florida.
It’s taken Barry Sacks nearly 40 years to get back to Montana but the former UM linebacker (class of 1979) finally has returned to the Garden City as Hauck’s defensive line coach. A branch off Pokey Allen’s coaching tree, Sacks worked under Allen at Portland State and Boise State before Allen’s death in 1996. Sacks worked for Chris Ault for five seasons at Nevada, Sonny Dykes at Cal in 2013, Bob Davie for two years at New Mexico before coaching for a year each at San Jose State and Humbodt State.
Offensive coordinator Timm Rosenbach has seen his path lead him through Missoula several times, first when his father, Lynn was an assistant at UM in the early 1980s. Rosenbach played two years of high school football at Hellgate High before moving to Pullman, earning the starting quarterback job at Washington State and finishing seventh in the 1988 Heisman Trophy voting.
Before returning for the 2012 season as Delaney’s offensive coordinator, Rosenbach made stops at Eastern Washington, Washington State and New Mexico State. He was Weber State’s OC in 2013 and worked for Hauck as offensive coordinator at UNLV in 2013 and 2014.
Tight ends coach Jace Schillinger has no direct ties to UM other than he is Shann Schillinger’s older brother. But the Baker native’s Montana roots run deep, as do his ties to the coaching ranks. Don Schillinger, Jace and Shann’s uncle, is the second-winningest coach in Montana prep history with 318 victories over his 37-year career.
The only two coaches from outside the Montana family on Hauck’s staff each have ties to Hauck and to each other. Defensive coordinator Kent Baer took over as UNLV’s defensive coordinator in 2015, the season after Hauck resigned. There, he first crossed paths with UM cornerbacks coach C.J. Cox, at the time a graduate assistant in Las Vegas.
Cox came to UM in what amounted to a trade of cornerbacks coaches. J.B. Hall is now at Sacramento State while Cox has a tall task to prepare Montana’s inexperienced corners in Missoula.
Baer had a brush with the Big Sky in 1986 as Keith Gilbertson’s defensive coordinator at Idaho, his second stop after beginning his career in 1977 at his alma mater, Utah State. After leaving Moscow, he climbed the ladder, coaching at Cal, Arizona State, Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington. He spent three seasons at San Jose State to begin the decade, two more as the defensive coordinator at Colorado and the last three seasons at UNLV.
“I enjoy all of them, the entire staff,” Baer said in an interview in March. “Really good coaches, very thorough. They are all really good guys to get along with. We haven’t played a game so sometimes that changes but I think they are all really attentive, great guys to be with and to work with.”
After Stitt’s first season and former defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak’s subsequent exodus to rival Montana State, most of UM’s staff was made up of young coaches. Germer was the elder statesman while linebackers’ coach Travis Niekamp was the only other Stitt assistant over the age of 40.
Baer is 67, Sacks is 61, Hauck is 54, Pease is 53 and Rosenbach is 51. Aside from age, the staff carries with it 185 cumulative seasons of coaching experience, something that has carried weight with the current Griz.
“Having such an experienced staff is really awesome,” UM senior defensive end Reggie Tilleman said. “The key difference is that Montana tough brand of football we have. Coach Hauck is really good at getting guys to buy into the system and he’s really good at making you want to play for him and to run through walls for him.”
Andrew Houghton contributed to the reporting of this story. Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
