Jeff Choate likens the new football signing period to having two Christmas days this holiday season instead of one. The new celebratory day for college football coaches has also meant a more vigorous sprint to the first of two finish lines this off-season.
On Wednesday, a new 72-hour signing period for Division I football will open up. Prospects will be able to sign before the New Year for the first time ever. Football is now more like college basketball with two signing periods, although football signing days are just six weeks apart. National Signing Day is the first Wednesday of February each year and falls on February 7 this year.
“I’m hoping it’s a positive that provides a lot of clarity,” Choate, Montana State’s third-year head coach, said earlier this month. “I’m hoping on December 21 when the smoke clears that you can go, ‘These guys are signed here, here and here, now we can go to these guys and put our focus on them.
“You have two signing periods within in a month and a half of each other. So I don’t know if that provides that much clarity. If you were doing it in June and that kid who has been committed for six months already, now that’s off the table and you can move forward in a different direction. There will be a ton of discussion on it and I don’t think we will have many answers this year. We will probably operate the same way until we see what the problems are.”
While Choate and his staff anticipate signing all 13 committed scholarship prep prospects this week and at least three mid-year transfers as well, nothing is guaranteed. Choate said he and his staff have tried to “coach kids up” on the value of signing early.
That early signature then allows programs to hone in on more specific needs and fill the remaining allotment of scholarships available. Football is one of the last Division I sports to add a second signing period. Men’s and women’s basketball have signing periods in the fall and in the spring, as does softball.
“We are treating the new signing period like basketball or softball does and sign as many as you can that first signing period,” University of Montana recruiting coordinator Justin Green said on ESPN 102.9 FM Missoula last week. “Then you look at your roster and see what holes you may need to fill and be able to recruit, have a couple of scholarship opportunities that second signing day.”
While Montana State is trying to assemble its third recruiting class under Choate, Montana is trying to evaluate a class that included 15 verbally committed prep players when Bobby Hauck took over on December 1. Green, an All-Big Sky Conference running back and NFL Draft pick during his playing days during Hauck’s first tenure, has been retained to help solidify the recruiting class. Green has already worked under Robin Pflugrad, Mick Delaney, Bob Stitt and now Hauck at Montana.
Longtime offensive line coach Chad Germer and safeties coach Shann Schillinger, also an All-Big Sky performer as a player under Hauck, were also retained and have been on the road recruiting most of December.
Since Hauck’s hiring, the Griz have received verbal commitments from Missoula Big Sky fullback Levi Janacaro and Kalispell Glacier tight end Max Morris. UM will also sign defensive lineman Eli Alford, a transfer from Air Force, on Wednesday. The Griz have gotten reaffirmed commitments from 14 other prep prospects, including in-state headliner Gabe Sulser of Billings Senior, the recently named Montana Gatorade Player of the Year.
RELATED: Committed Montana recruits impressed by Hauck
“It’s extremely hard because you are going to be fitting a different offense and a different defense and a different mindset,” Green said of recruiting during the coaching transition. “Coach Hauck has his work cut out for him to be able to evaluate the guys all over again. Sometimes, that’s a hard process.
The only de-committment came when JSerra (California) High quarterback Matt Robinson opened his recruitment back up.
“With the last staff, we recruited good enough football players, successful enough football players that no matter what staff came in that they would want the guys who are committed,” Green said. “First of all, we had quite a few guys from Montana committed and those guys wanted to stay and be Griz. Then we had to take a real good look at our out of state commits and see if they are going to fit the program moving forward.”
Montana out of state commits offensive linemen Sean Anderson (Buckeye, Arizona) and Tyler Ganoung (Vancouver, Washington), defensive end Lorenzo Brown (Las Vegas) and safety Nash Fouch (Woodinville, Washington) all confirmed that their offers stand and they remain committed. Anderson, Ganoung and Fouch all said they will sign Wednesday.
Defensive back Alex Johnson (Los Angeles) said Hauck has reached out ot him but “I’m under the impression everything is still up in the air. They said my offer still stands but it could all change so I have no clue.”
Running back Teshawn White (Inglewood, California) said he would remain committed to Montana no matter who the coach was. After Hauck’s hiring, he said he has spoken to Green, who indicated he still wants White to be a Griz. But it’s unknown if he still has an offer.
In-state commits Sulser, Janacaro, Morris, quarterback Garrett Graves (Eureka), running back Drew Turner (Kalispell Glacier), wide receiver Nick Germer (Missoula Sentinel), tight end Colten Curry (Valier), offensive lineman Conor Quick (Helena Capital), safety Jackson Pepe (Glacier) and safety David Koppang (Missoula Loyola) all confirmed they will sign on Wednesday as well.
During his hiring press conference, Hauck said he spent the night before officially becoming Montana’s 37th head football coach looking at the recruiting budget and analyzing scholarship money available. He said he’s decently familiar with the roster he inherits from watching Griz games on television but he won’t have a true evaluation of his team until spring football begins in March.
“One thing I do believe in terms of early tenure recruiting is we will take a quarterback in every class,” Hauck said during his open interview with the media during his introduction press conference. “We will take a running back in every class. We will center our recruiting around the state of Montana.
“Beyond that, I really believe you can never have enough big guys. Offensive and defensive linemen, tight ends, those are the guys who are hard to find. From Pop Warner to the Philadelphia Eagles are starved for big guys. We have to go out and search high and low for someone with stature.”
Two days after his hiring, Hauck went through the Flathead Valley, making in-home visits with Morris, Turner, Graves and Curry. As he made his way back to San Diego — Hauck is there this week helping San Diego State prepare for Saturday’s U.S. Army Bowl — he stopped in to see several out of state commits, including Anderson.
He also extended offers to several potential prospects, receiving a commitment from Alford. Robby Hauck, a redshirt freshman at Northern Arizona and Bobby Hauck’s son, is also expected to join Montana as a mid-year transfer.
“Transitioning from the last staff, most of these guys have already tripped already and we have quite a few commits,” Green said. “Most of those guys were committed to the school. The University of Montana sells itself as far as what is has both academically and athletically. Keeping the guys was not a real task because they want to go to the University of Montana.”
Following Montana State’s 31-23 win over Montana, Choate and his staff wasted no time celebrating. Coaches trying to snap a three-year playoff drought hit the road almost instantly, touching base with current commits as well as recruiting five potential mid-year transfers, each who visited Bozeman in the last two weeks.
RELATED: Montana State hosts four potential mid-year transfers
Rather than taking a bulk of recruits willing to commit to the Bobcats like the staff has the past two years, now Choate wants his coaches to be more detailed and specific in their recruiting efforts. The Bobcats have lost verbal commitments from Texas recruits wide receiver Zacori Alexander and defensive tackle James Williams along with Minnesota linebacker Onte Burns and Los Angeles cornerback Aaron Howard. All four were mutual splits.
MSU will sign Coffeyville JC kicker Tristan Bailey and could land as many as four other mid-year transfers that will join the team in January : quarterback Travis Jonsen (Riverside CC, Oregon), running back Tyler Natee (Indiana), defensive end Bryce Sterk (Washington) and slot back Zion Echols (Cal).
Out of state commitments running backs Justin Cauley (Los Angeles) and Sherod White (Los Angeles), tight end Derryk Snell (Eagle River, Alaska), twin defensive backs Ty’Rhae and Ty’Rese Gibson (Paramount, California) and Nooksack Valley, Washington quarterback Casey Bauman have all indicated they will sign with MSU on Wednesday. Montana products Bozeman wide receiver Logan Kleinhans, Huntley Project running back Lane Sumner, Kalispell Glacier athlete Mark Estes, Billings Senior linebacker Nolan Askelson, Helena safety Kaleb Winterburn and Missoula Loyola lineman Joe McElroy are all expected to sign as well. MSU will extend a preferred walk-on agreement to Jory Choate, a first-team Class AA all-state defensive end and Jeff Choate’s son.
“We are really now in a place where we have to make tough decisions for the first time since I’ve been here,” Choate said. “In the past, we’d just say, ‘Let’s take them all’ because we know we are going to have attrition. This will be the first team we will coach here that I think will get to a full roster and a full compliment of scholarships.
“We played with 59 scholarship players and a lot of those guys weren’t playing, whether it was injuries or suspensions or whatever. This coming fall, we will for the first time play with 85 guys on scholarship and using 63. We are very, very close to that. That speaks to the health of the program and us moving in the right direction. I’m excited to see how that all comes together.”
