Over a nine-day period in late January 2016, more than two dozen Grizzly football recruits came to investigate what they had been told about the University of Montana during the recruiting process. With students back from a long winter break, the campus was buzzing as much as it does in early winter, but the crown jewel of the athletic department, Washington-Grizzly Stadium, sat completely empty.
Even with bleachers and sidelines vacant, its public address system silent and its JumboTron screen dark, Washington-Grizzly is one of the main stops on any official or unofficial visit for UM football recruits. That weekend it did its part in landing commitment from nine of the 11 recruits who had yet to pledge allegiance to a school.
A pretty good rate of success for any weekend to be sure. But if there was a way to give those recruits the full WSG experience? What if they could sit in the stands and watch the team run out of the tunnel? Or feel the electricity that runs through the stadium late in the fourth quarter of a close game in Missoula?
Turns out there is, and Montana has adjusted its recruiting strategy to take advantage of it.
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“There are Power 5 schools that don’t come close to our game day,” said Montana coach Bob Stitt, who along with his staff have secured 18 verbal commits for their 2017 class. “Unless you’re Ohio State or LSU or Alabama or something like that it’s not going to match us. There might be more people there, but the energy is not the same. That’s what we’ve got to sell to our guys.”
With that it mind, Montana invited many of its top targets to Missoula to take in the experience first hand during the 2016 season. Thus far it’s worked. Almost to a recruit, each of the Grizzlies’ eight out-of-state commits have mentioned the atmosphere as a primary reason they committed to the Griz staff shortly after leaving town.
R.J. Nelson, a defensive end out of Oregon who was the first out-of-state commit, received a front-row seat to Montana’s season-opening win over St. Francis. He said the atmosphere created by the 26,002 patrons who settled in during a late summer night was a leading reason for his commitment.
Carder Key, who came up from Oklahoma, echoed that sentiment when he committed. Caleb Hill, a Texas bred junior college quarterback who was looking for some of the football-drunk fans his state has become famous for, said he found exactly that at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in early November.
“It really felt like an SEC atmosphere except the stadium didn’t hold 100,000; it just holds around 28-30,000, that’s really the only difference,” said Hill, who signed his scholarship papers on Dec. 14 with fellow junior college transfer defensive ends Chris Favoroso and Dylan Gilfoy. “But it’s so much like Texas it’s not even funny.”
With the ability to pack in more than 26,000 fans into Washington-Grizzly Stadium, Montana has led the country in average and total attendance in each of the past two years and hasn’t finished any lower than third in the country in attendance dating back to 2005.
To some degree Stitt’s recruiting method is something new: Montana has never tried to get all of its top targets to town during the season. And to some degree it’s nothing new: Gavin Crow, now a redshirt freshman safety from Washington, was at Washington-Grizzly Stadium during the Grizzlies upset of then No. 1 North Dakota State to open the 2015 season. “How could anybody say no this atmosphere?” Crow tweeted with a 19-second video panning the record-setting crowd.
Apparently Crow couldn’t and neither could Samuel Akem, a redshirt freshman H-receiver who made an in-season official visit last season. Washington-Grizzly has always been a primary attraction for recruits, but before prospects starting making commits this year, Stitt wanted to make an adjustment.
“[When] I got here, most of the visits were done in January and I didn’t understand that,” Stitt said. “Why wouldn’t you sell your biggest asset, Washington-Grizzly Stadium? If we want to be able to compete with Mountain West type schools, the best that are available have to come see our game day.
“This is an awesome, awesome place in the fall and that should be what we’re selling.”
Because of that shift, much of Montana’s recruiting work is done. With 18 commits, at least half of whom will accept partial scholarships, Montana doesn’t have much scholarship money remaining in the coffers. Montana graduated 17 seniors and gained at least one scholarship through attrition, in addition to the four returned to the program after sanctions stemming from an NCAA violation expired this season. Stitt and recruiting coordinator Justin Green said some portion of those returned scholarships will be used on existing players, but some of the money could be handed out to incoming recruits.
There are still recruits out there Montana is attempting to swoon. In recent weeks, photos of in-home or in-school visits with James Brown, Marcus Lindsay, Miles Reed, Kendall Sweet and Micah Vanderpool have surfaced on the players’ respective Twitter accounts. Montana has also extended an offer to Dylan Weaver, a 6-foot-6, 300-pound offensive lineman in New Mexico who recently rescinded his commitment from Texas Tech.
Weaver will make his visit in late January, but Brown, a running back from Houston who came to town along with Hill, Nelson and commit Skyler Martin, said he needed to see Washington-Grizzly Stadium in person before he could take the video he watched on YouTube seriously.
He left impressed.
“If you blindfolded me in Washington-Grizzly Stadium and blindfolded me in Kyle Field, I wouldn’t have been able to tell a distinct difference between the two,” said Brown, who said he has visited a handful of major Power 5 stadiums and is still deciding among his four offers. “It was just as loud.”
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Photos by Brooks Nuanez and contributed. All Right Reserved.
