Bob Stitt inherited one of college football’s proudest programs, a one-time juggernaut that won more games between 2000 and 2009 than any collegiate team in America.
When Stitt took over as Montana’s head coach in December of 2014 however, he inherited a program in a state of disarray, just like the university the football team represents. Missoula and the University of Montana have been an epicenter for controversy in athletics, academics and more over the last half decade thanks to a sexual assault scandal, an underachieving president, a Jon Krakauer novel and three head coaching changes for the once-dominant football program.
The former Colorado School of Mines head coach recognized quickly the advantages at Montana, from the crown jewel stadium of the Football Championship Subdivision to a picturesque college town nestled in the Rocky Mountains to a fervently dedicated fan base. But he also found a program that had strayed from its successful past.
Former Montana head coach Bobby Hauck/ contributed
In 2009 during the Grizzlies’ run to a second straight FCS championship game, feared yet revered head coach Bobby Hauck engaged in a spat with UM’s student newspaper, the Montana Kaimin. After repeated questioning from a Kaimin reporter and a subsequent article about an alleged assault by two of Hauck’s players, Hauck and the rest of the Griz boycotted the student publication.
The controversy that ensued — several nationally prominent sportswriters took Hauck to task in defense of the students — proved to be the final straw in Hauck’s decision to leave a job at which he seemed peerless. The Big Timber native won Big Sky Conference championships in all seven of his seasons at the helm, extending UM’s string of league titles to a college football record 12 straight. He posted an 80-17 overall record, including winning 47 of his 53 Big Sky Conference contests.
Hauck’s excellence simply extended Montana’s run of dominance through the league and the second tier of Division I football. UM won 15 Big Sky crowns in 17 years between 1993 and 2009, advancing to the playoffs 17 years in a row. The streak included seven national title game appearances, including three under Hauck (2004, 2008, 2009). The Grizzlies won the Division I-AA crown in 1995 and 2001. Between 2000 and 2009 — Joe Glenn coached Montana for the first three years of the 21st century, posting a 39-6 mark — Montana won a college football-best 119 games.
But controversy surrounded Hauck for most of his tenure. Repeated allegations and arrests ranging from drunken mischief to concerning violence against Hauck’s players stained the football team’s reputation. When Hauck left for the head coaching job at UNLV, controversy turned into a full fledged catastrophe at Montana’s largest university.
Former Montana quarterback Jordan Johnson/ by Brooks Nuanez
Shortly after Montana’s run to the semifinals of the 2011 FCS semifinals, allegations of Griz football players’ involvement in a brewing sexual assault scandal on campus provided the initial spark for what would burn into a raging fire that engulfed the Garden City.
In January of 2012, UM fullback Beau Donaldson was arrested on rape charges. That August, starting quarterback Jordan Johnson was also charged with sexual intercourse without consent, all while the UM dean of students was in the middle of an investigation of four football players who allegedly committed gang rape the previous fall.
Royce Engstrom’s shortcomings as a president contributed to UM’s enrollment plummeting after record growth in George Dennison’s final years as UM President in Missoula. The sexual assault scandal did nothing to help Montana’s national reputation.
Head football coach Robin Pflugrad, Hauck’s successor, tried to defend his players in the press, particularly Johnson, who ended up being acquitted. But his unwavering stance resulted in his firing, a dismissal that coincided with the firing of UM athletic director Jim O’Day.
Mick Delaney took over as Montana’s head coach in 2012, first on an interim basis. UM endured its first losing season in a generation with a 5-6 finish in 2012. Delaney got UM back to the playoffs in 2013 and 2014 before retiring.
Stitt took over a program awash in NCAA sanctions, namely the loss of four scholarships per year for 2014, 2015 and 2016. This season is the first Montana will be back to the full 63 scholarships allowed for FCS members.
In April of 2015 just months after Stitt’s hiring, popular non-fiction author Jon Krakauer published “Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town”, putting the national spotlight squarely on UM’s home city.
The book’s summary reads: Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, home to a highly regarded state university whose beloved football team inspires a passionately loyal fan base. Between January 2008 and May 2012, hundreds of students reported sexual assaults to the local police. Few of the cases were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.
In these pages, acclaimed journalist Jon Krakauer investigates a spate of campus rapes that occurred in Missoula over a four-year period. Taking the town as a case study for a crime that is sadly prevalent throughout the nation, Krakauer documents the experiences of five victims: their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the skepticism directed at them by police, prosecutors, and the public; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. These stories cut through abstract ideological debate about acquaintance rape to demonstrate that it does not happen because women are sending mixed signals or seeking attention. They are victims of a terrible crime, deserving of fairness from our justice system. Rigorously researched, rendered in incisive prose, Missoula stands as an essential call to action.
The book graphically describes several rapes involving UM students, including the ultimately acquitted accusation levied at Johnson and the assault that sent Donaldson to prison for three years.
Stitt is the first head coach since Don Read in the mid-1980s to become UM’s head football coach without any previous ties to the university. Stitt spent 15 seasons at Colorado School of Mines before taking over at Montana. His first two seasons at the helm for the Griz have included some spectacular triumphs — namely, defeating four-time defending national champion North Dakota State in Missoula on national television for his win at UM in his debut — but also epic collapses, like last season’s 1-4 finish that kept UM out of the playoffs for just the third time since 1992.
Although Stitt has no relation to Montana’s previous troubles, the overwhelming championship expectations have not eased one bit despite the circumstances. Stitt is 14-10 in his first two years guiding the Grizzlies, the lowest winning percentage of any head coach at Montana in 30 years, meaning the 2017 season holds paramount importance for Stitt and his staff.
Former Montana head coach Mick Delaney/ by Brooks Nuanez
After Don Read poured the foundation and went out on top thanks to Montana’s first national championship, Mick Dennehy won 14 games and took UM to the national championship game his first year in 1996. Glenn advanced to the title game in each of his first two years after taking over for Dennehy, who left for Utah State following the 1999 season. Glenn left for Wyoming after the 2002 campaign, giving way to Hauck, who advanced to the title game in his second season as well.
Pflugrad helped the Griz to the FCS Final Four in his second season before his abrupt firing. Even Delany won a pair of playoff games, one in each of his second and third seasons, before his career came to an end. In short, Missoula has given new head coaches leeway in their first seasons but experienced nothing but success in the second, save for Stitt, magnifying the current situation even more.
Success has not eluded UM’s current head coach completely. Stitt guided Montana to the playoffs in 2015, punching its playoff ticket with wins over rivals Eastern Washington and Montana State before beating a talented South Dakota State in Missoula in the first round of the postseason. The Griz lost their rematch at North Dakota State in the second round of the 24-team tournament to finish off an 8-5 campaign.
Last season, Montana jolted to a 5-1 start and spent time in the Top 10 of the national polls before melting down. The Griz lost all four of its conference road games after earning an impressive non-conference win at Northern Iowa early on. UM lost to Northern Colorado for the first time since the Bears joined the league in 2006. The nightmare culminated when a 3-7 Bobcat team guided by 18-year-old freshman quarterback Chris Murray rushed for 368 yards in a 24-17 victory at Washington-Grizzly Stadium to stamp a disappointing 6-5 campaign.
Now Stitt and the Griz enter a paramount season. The current UM staff recruited all but 18 of the 95 players Stitt will bring to fall camp in August. The team will feature as many as four seniors starting on the offensive line along with an abundance of talented playmakers on both sides of the ball.
“It’s becoming our program and the way we do things is the only thing our team knows now,” Stitt said. “It was a tough transition. Sometimes, graduation is the only way you can get better.”
Montana head coach Bob Stitt before his first playoff game against South Dakota State in 2015/ by Brooks Nuanez
Montana’s implosion sparked an off-season filled with scrutiny for Stitt and his staff. In a press conference just days after the Montana State loss, Stitt took full blame for the way last season unraveled. During the Big Sky Kickoff media conference in Park City, Utah July 16 through July 18, Stitt did not shy away from the discontent within his program over the uncharacteristic collapse and acknowledged the pressure he is under entering the third and final year of his contract.
“(The way last year ended) was our sole focus,” Stitt said. “We’ve always had good players. When adversity does strike, how do you handle it? Our upper classmen have to rally the troops. We have to stick together.
“You have adversity all the time as a football team. You can’t point a finger, you can’t blame somebody else. It’s going to happen. It’s not ok but it is ok. We have to move to the next play. If our team will stick together and support each other in all facets — O, D, everything — we’ve got good players and we will win a bunch of games.”
The 2016 Griz went into Cedar Falls and stoned perennially tough UNI, beating the No. 3 team in the FCS 20-14 to climb to No. 6 in the polls. The following week, Montana lost 42-41 at Cal Poly. Montana’s next three games all came in the hostile confines of Washington-Griz.
Montana posted a 43-20 win over reigning Big Sky champion Southern Utah to spark a three-game winning streak that also included 60-point wins over Mississippi Valley State (67-7) and Sacramento State (68-7). At that moment, teams around the league and country feared what Stitt’s high-powered offense paired with UM’s typically salty defense might mean for the future, immediate and long term.
UM played three of its final five on the road, losing at Northern Arizona (45-34), Eastern Washington (35-16) and Northern Colorado (28-25). The lone win during the second half of the season was a 62-44 victory over hapless Idaho State, another outing in which UM’s glaring defensive inconsistencies were glaring.
Montana State freshman quarterback Chris Murray quiets the Washington-Grizzly Stadium crowd following his go-ahead 48-yard touchdown in MSU’s 24-17 win on November 19/ by Blake Hempstead, for Skyline Sports
In the regular-season and home finales with a playoff berth on the line, Montana State’s simplified offense simply dominated the Griz at the line of scrimmage, allowing Murray to rush for 142 yards and two touchdowns in a 24-17 victory. The loss pushed Montana to 6-5, the team’s second-lowest win total in 25 years.
“We are definitely motivated to do way better this year,” Montana senior center Cooper Sprunk, UM’s representative at the Big Sky Kickoff, said on Tuesday. “We definitely should be able to do better but it’s kind of been in the back of our minds through spring and these summer workouts that we can’t let that happen again.
“The adversity we dealt with, we didn’t handle it the way we should have. I wouldn’t say the offense and the defense grew apart but we definitely didn’t encourage each other like we did early on in the season.”
Montana’s unsatisfactory finish spilled into an off-season filled with pointed conversations about the direction of the program. Stitt is in the third and final year of his contract, raising the gravity for an already pressure-packed season.
At the Big Sky Kickoff, the league unveiled the preseason polls. For the first time in more than three decades, Montana is not among the top five picks in the 13-team league by either the Big Sky’s head coaches or affiliated media. Both entities picked Montana to finish sixth.
“I hope it’s a motivating factor,” Stitt said after looking at the polls. “I don’t think we deserve to be higher than that. We didn’t play very good football toward the end and that’s what’s on everyone’s mind. We are a good football team now. We were a young team last year. We are going to be much more mentally tough this year when adversity strikes and not let things unravel like they did.”
Thirteen of the 18 players remaining on Montana’s roster not recruited by Stitt will be seniors this season. UM has the potential to start four seniors up front offensively, one under center and as many as six more on defense. Sprunk, who returns for his second year as a starter for an offense searching for quarterback Brady Gustafson’s replacement, said the players have made a concerted effort to grow closer together this summer.
Montana senior center Cooper Sprunk at the Big Sky Kickoff/ by Brooks Nuanez
“Our team chemistry is great right now,” the Portland, Oregon native said. “We have a lot of guys who are for the team. No one is really trying to do their own thing. I think our team chemistry has improved quite a bit and I think this summer has added on to it so I’m excited to see how this fall goes.”
Several members of Stitt’s staff experienced the heights the Grizzlies can attain during their playing days. Wide receivers coach Mike Ferriter was an All-Big Sky pass catcher who capped his career with a trip to the national championship game in 2008. Secondary coach Shann Schillinger played in two straight FCS title games before being selected in the NFL Draft in the spring of 2010. Quarterbacks coach Andrew Selle was UM’s starter during the 2009 run to the title game.
“I lean on those guys, ask them questions all the time, ‘How was it when you were playing?’” Stitt said. “It has helped me. They understand also that the program we took over is not the program they played in. They understand where they are going with this thing.
“I asked Selle one day, ‘How many freshmen did you start when you were playing?’ He said, ‘If a freshman was in the two-deep, it was a rarity.’ We started seven last year. It’s just a different time. But it’s going to pay off. The dividends are going to be huge down the road.”
Montana defensive coordinator Jason Semore/ by Brooks Nuanez
Stitt can only hope so if he wants to see his vision to fruition. It is a fact that’s not lost on him.
“We were hired to do a good job and to build a program the right way,” Stitt said emphatically. “To think that you are going to be where you need to be or want to be the second year, those expectations are unrealistic. We are going to stay the course and build this thing the right way.”
The magnitude of the upcoming season in Missoula is in the front of the Grizzly players’ minds as well.
“There’s definitely quite a bit of pressure,” Sprunk said. “We have to perform. If we do what we did last year, it’s going to be a huge disappointment. I expect to win the Big Sky. I think our team can do it. We have to play on the road better. I don’t think we won a game on the road last year. Winning on the road and sticking together as a team will be our biggest challenges.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
