Editor’s Note: Attributed quotes that reference Bobby Hauck in Spokane come from an interview conducted by Ryan Tootell of ESPN Missoula radio at the Big Sky Kickoff. Other Hauck and player quotes come from interviews conducted by Skyline Sports during Montana’s spring football practices.
MISSOULA — Bobby Hauck has not shied away from acknowledging directly the weaknesses of his Grizzlies.
The man who led Montana to 80 wins, seven straight Big Sky Conference championships and three FCS title games between 2003 and 2009 took over for his second stint at his alma mater in December of 2017.
When he first earned the UM job as a 38-year-old in 2003, Hauck inherited a team that won 39 of 45 games and won the 2001 national championship. Now he takes over a team that is in the midst of a two-year playoff drought for the first time since the early 1990s.
Since Montana opened spring practices in March, Hauck has been straightforward about pinpointing the areas he thinks his team is short-handed.
“I think there’s issues,” Hauck said at the Big Sky Kickoff in Spokane on July 16. “We’ve talked about it and it’s not like this is some revelation here. Things don’t change overnight. It will take years of recruiting classes to evolve to be a complete football team.
“That, to me, is the most different from maybe our last four teams (between 2006 and 2009, Montana won 31 of 32 Big Sky games) here, last time to now is different. Those were complete football teams.
“We had good depth and those were good players. And I really like our guys but we are short-handed in certain positions.; in the secondary in particularly, at linebacker and on the offensive line. We’ll be ok but if we start getting injured at any of those positions, we become really young and really inexperienced in a hurry and that’s a major concern.”
Montana is slated to start two fourth-year juniors and likely three third-year sophomores on it’s offensive line. But only junior left guard Angel Villanueva returns from a unit that loses four seniors. The Griz graduated their top three safeties as well as top cornerback Ryan McKinley, while also losing starter Markell Sanders after he left the program in the off-season.
Although UM graduates the prolific tackling duo of inside linebackers Connor Strahm and James Banks, Hauck and defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Kent Baer still moved junior Vika Fa’atuiese from the spot to fullback during the spring.
During the 15 spring practices, fifth-year senior Shayne Cochran and fourth-year junior Dante Olson took the majority of the snaps at the two inside linebacker spots. The Griz defense usually lined up in a 4-2-5 but it’s hard to say that will be Montana’s go-to scheme during the 2018 season. All-American senior linebacker Josh Buss missed all of spring football after having off-season shoulder surgery.
Without much solicitation, Hauck acknowledged Buss’s continued questionable health. He said the Griz are unsure of the Rush linebacker’s availability for the 2018 season. That will put even more pressure on Cochran, Olson and a young core led by redshirt freshmen Marcus Welnel, Carder Key and Michael Matthews to prepare for their turns this fall.
“They better be ready,” Hauck told Skyline Sports in an interview March. “We have to play with some. This spring has been vital.
“I think they have done a fine job of competing on a daily basis. I haven’t seen really any cave in at all when it comes to guys getting promoted or demoted. I think guys are competing hard.”
Defensive coordinator Kent Baer has more than four decades of play-calling experience. It remains to be seen the schemes Montana employs on either side of the ball. And Buss could return in September or could not return at all.
Regardless the players Baer will choose from, it’s a common mentality he hopes the Griz defense employs.
“We want to play as hard as we can freakin’ play, fanatical effort all the time and be a physical football team,” Baer said in an interview with Skyline Sports in April. “We will get them going in the right direction Xs and Os wise, get them in the right spots but we need to learn how to play extremely hard all the time.”
Baer is doubling at the linebackers coach. Hauck retained offensive line coach Chad Germer, safeties coach and newly-anointed special teams coordinator Shann Schillinger and running backs coach/recruiting coordinator Justin Green after Bob Stitt’s head coaching contract was not renewed. Former linebackers coach Travis Niekamp is now the defensive coordinator at Southern Illinois.
“Fit the run, drop on pass,” Baer said when asked about his expectations of his inside linebackers. “Read your keys. This defense, they can be aggressive and they need to be aggressive.
“It’s just like baseball. If you are solid up the middle and you work from inside out, you have a chance to be solid. Same thing here. We have to be solid at inside linebacker.”
At the Big Sky Kickoff, wide receiver Keenan Curran and defensive tackle Reggie Tilleman, Montana’s senior player representatives, each talked about the experience of truly learning Hauck’s interpretation of “Montana toughness”. It’s a sentiment many of their teammates stated in the midst of their first experience with their new coach in March and April.
“Intensity,” Cochran said when asked about the biggest difference in UM’s practices in an interview in April. “Nothing against the last ones, they were great. But these guys are just preaching intensity, effort, attitude.
“A lot more contact, a ton more running; we are getting in so much better shape. It also helps us work on all the stuff we have struggled on. We are using our hands a lot more, our footwork, all the little things.
Cochran is one of five fifth-year seniors on this year’s Griz roster. The Culbertson native was one of just 10 scholarship recruits signed in former head coach Mick Delaney’s final recruiting class leading up to the 2014 season. The 6-foot-1, 220-pounder makes up for his lack of mass with an aggressive motor, toughness and a mean streak.
He enters his final year with the Griz with 28 tackles and four tackles for loss, including 20 tackles and three tackles for loss last season. His forced fumble on a hit of Idaho State quarterback Tanner Gueller helped lift the Griz to a 39-31 win at Pocatello.
“I’m just trying to embrace any role they think I deserve,” Cochran said. “I put all my trust into the coaching staff. Whatever they think is best, I’m going to roll with it.”
Cochran took most of the first-team reps during spring practices, receiving good returns from his coaches during the session.
“I love his toughness,” Baer said. “He’s my kind of guy. I’ll put my arm around him and walk with him forever. I love that about linebackers. You have to have your hair on fire, you have to have a mean streak. The game is a violent game. He plays it like that.”
“I think Shayne has the right attitude, mentality and fits in with what we want,” Hauck said. “We are going to have some heated competition to get on the field at that spot.”
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Cochran and his remaining classmates hold a unique perspective amongst their fellow Griz. Delaney coached running backs for Hauck in 2009 before taking over as the head coach in 2012, navigating UM through a dark era that included scandal and NCAA scholarship penalties and sanctions but also a pair of playoff berths. Cochran and his classmates signed with a program fresh off its 19th playoff appearances in 21 years. During their redshirt season, the Griz again advanced to the playoffs before Delaney retired and Stitt was hired.
Montana posted a 21-14 record under Stitt, earning a playoff berth in 2015 before suddenly struggling to win on the road and losing consecutive games to rival Montana State. The return of Hauck has injected the Griz with optimism.
“These last couple of years, missing the playoffs, we have definitely had our ups and downs,” Cochran said. “But we have a good shot of rolling through and having a really good season.
“Potential I think the sky is the limit. I think as long as we buy in and keep taking the coaching, we can be as good as we want to be.”
Photos by Jason Bacaj, Brooks Nuanez and Lacey Young. All Rights Reserved.
