With National Signing Day fast approaching, Bobby Hauck and the football coaching staff for the Montana Grizzlies will host four potential mid-year transfers on official visits this weekend.
Hauck, hired as UM’s 37th head football coach on December 1, and the UM staff signed 16 players during the first-ever early signing period December 20 to December 22. Among the early signees were two mid-year transfers, including former UNLV quarterback Dalton Sneed who will make his official visit this weekend.
The traditional National Signing Day still lands on the first Wednesday in February and is February 7 this winter. Hauck said on January 5 despite the good number who signed early, his first recruiting class to begin his second stint at Montana is far from finished.
“To put a number on it is hard but I’d say probably 10 is our number,” Hauck said earlier this month. “We will have to see how that all goes the first week in February. But we’ve got some real interest from some guys, some players targeted. We really don’t have a bunch of spots open unless somebody tells us no at this point. We are working away at it and we will see when the dust settles in February what we come up with.”
The dead period that accompanies the American Football Coaches Association convention, which occurred last weekend in Charlotte, ended at midnight on January 11. Montana and other Division I schools now have three weeks to finish their recruiting classes. Hauck spent through December 24 coaching San Diego State leading up to the Aztecs’ bowl game. After Christmas, he hit got to work on all aspects to begin his second stint at UM.
“We had a chance to get organized because as we were scrambling during December, the disorganization grows,” Hauck said. “There’s a lot of things that get let undone. We get a chance to nip away at the stacks of things to do at our desks and get ourselves lined out. As we get out of this dead period around Christmas break and the AFCA convetion, we will hit the ground running again and it will be a mad scramble to get to signing day.”
Sneed is among two future Grizzlies on this weekend’s visit, along with Robby Hauck, a transfer safety from Northern Arizona who is Bobby Hauck’s oldest son. Robby is committed to Montana and will begin classes at UM on January 22 before signing on National Signing Day. His transfer paper work had not cleared in time for him to sign during the early period.
RELATED: Former UNLV QB Sneed transferring to Montana
The other two potential transfers visiting Montana this weekend are San Diego State fullback Adam Eastwood and University of Arizona transfer safety Gavin Robertson. A source confirms Eastwood has already given his verbal commitment to Hauck and Eastwood’s Twitter profile says “University of Montana football.” Robertson has narrowed his recruiting choices to Montana and Montana State. He will visit MSU in Bozeman later this month.
Robertson is a 6-foot-1, 220-pound third-year sophomore from Auburn, Washington. He prepped at Mountainview High, the same school that produced Montana third-year sophomore Gresch Jensen. Robertson earned a three-star rating by Scout.com and Rivals.com as a prep senior. He was rated as the No. 52 safety in the country after earning first team all-state, first team All-South Puget Sound League honors as a wide receiver and defensive back.
At Arizona, Robertson redshirted in 2016 before moving to Will linebacker in 2017. He saw “significant reps” with the first and second units during spring drills but played in just three games last season, notching two tackles. UA head coach Rich Rodriguez was fired in the off-season.
Robby Hauck is a 5-foot-10, 170-pound safety who prepped at Del Norte High in San Diego his final two seasons while his dad served as the special teams coordinator on Rocky Long’s staff at SDSU. The younger Hauck spent his first two seasons at Coronado High in San Diego. He set school records for tackles and led his league and division in the statistic. He finished third in the state of California in total tackles and was a four-time team MVP.
Hauck redshirted at Northern Arizona last season.
Eastwood is a 6-foot-1, 215-pound fullback and tailback from Del Mar, California. His senior year at Cathedral Catholic High in 2016, Eastwood rushed for 894 yards and 13 touchdowns. He finished his career with 2,015 yards and 25 touchdowns in three years on the varsity.
Bobby Hauck said he’s spent a good amount of time the first few weeks of January watching film and brainstorming with new offensive coordinator Timm Rosenbach the specifics of Montana’s scheme next season. Hauck said he won’t have a full evaluation of his roster until the completion of spring football but commented that his still growing knowledge of his roster wouldn’t have much impact on recruiting.
“You aren’t going to go out and recruit guys to play next September very much,” Hauck said. “There will be a few of those but the predominance of players that will be taking the first snap on offense, defense, special teams next September are guys who are in the locker room right now. They aren’t guys who are coming in. There will be a handful of guys that are new recruits that play next fall and maybe some guys who start right out of the gate. But the vast majority will be guys who are here already.”
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