Big Sky Conference

Stitt’s Griz debut comes with lofty expectations

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As Joe Glenn walked off the field after his first game coaching the Grizzlies, boos from the home fans reigned down on the new University of Montana head coach.

“This clown is going to bring our program down. Get rid of him,” former Montana athletic director Jim O’Day, a Grizzly Scholarship Association fundraiser at the time, remembers someone yelling after UM fell to Hofstra 10-9 to begin the 2000 season.

The next morning, Glenn woke up with “For Sale” signs littering his yard.

Sky-high expectations are the norm at Montana, a program that has experienced almost unrivaled success over the last 25 years. In Glenn’s first season, the Griz rallied to win 13 straight and earn a berth in the national title game. The next season, Montana claimed its second national championship.

Bob Stitt with Jason Semore

Bob Stitt with Jason Semore

Montana has had four head coaches since Glenn, including current first-year head coach Bob Stitt, a former graduate assistant under Glenn at Northern Colorado who will make his UM coaching debut on Saturday. Like Glenn, Stitt comes from a Division II school in Colorado (Colorado School of Mines) and he takes the reigns of a program looking to reaffirm itself as one of the nation’s elite. Unlike in 2000 against Hofstra, Stitt’s Grizzlies are the decided underdog with four-time defending national champion North Dakota State coming to Washington-Grizzly Stadium for Stitt’s Division I head coaching debut.

“Our house is definitely not for sale,” Stitt said with a laugh in an interview conducted in July. “I haven’t even gotten all the stuff out of the boxes yet. It’s something I wanted in my career is to be some place that has passion and pressure and the fans don’t put any more pressure on me than I put on myself.”

Montana may be an FCS program but the expectations both internally and externally rival any program in the country. Between 1993 and 2009, Montana won 15 Big Sky Conference titles, advanced to the playoffs in all 17 seasons, earned berths in seven national championship games and claimed national titles in 1995 and 2001.

Josh Dennard, Jeremiah Kose, & Matt Hermanson celebrate

Josh Dennard, Jeremiah Kose, & Matt Hermanson by Brooks Nuanez

Stitt has made stops as the offensive coordinator at NAIA Doane College for four seasons, Division III Austin College for five and FCS Harvard for a year before spending the last 15 as the head coach at Mines. It didn’t take long for Stitt to grasp the passion held by the Montana faithful. Saturday’s debut at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in front of a predicted record-setting crowd against the FCS’ current reigning titan should reaffirm the notion 10-fold.

“If they didn’t get what all this means before, they know now,” Montana senior defensive end Tyrone Holmes. “The standard is you are supposed to win the conference and you are supposed to win the national championship every year. Nothing less. There’s no rebuilding. There’s none of that. Montana has never been known in my life to have a rebuilding year so that’s not an option.”

Stitt coached Harvard’s offense in “The Game” against rival Yale back in 1999, a game the Crimson lost 24-21. After reviving football in 2008, Colorado State-Pueblo became Mines’ rival; Stitt posted a 3-4 record against the Thunderwolves, including four straight losses before coming to UM. In 2004, Stitt led Mines to 12 straight wins, including his lone playoff victory. In the second round, the Orediggers had to travel to top-ranked Pittsburgh State, a game Stitt still remembers as one of the most pressure-packed of his career.

“In 2004, we played Pittsburgh State in the D-II playoffs and they were No. 1 and we were No. 5 and it’s a small stadium similar to Washington-Griz but so loud, you couldn’t hear anyone talk to you right next to you,” Stitt said earlier this week. “It was amazing because it only had 12,000 and it was so loud. People talk about this stadium, only 25 or 26,000 and it’s so much louder than stadiums with 80,000 in it.”

Ty Gregorak

Ty Gregorak

Ty Gregorak has been a part of every Montana team since 2003 save the 2010 Grizzlies. He has coached 26 All-Big Sky linebackers, three of whom made NFL rosters. He was a part of six straight Big Sky championships and coached in three national title games while mentoring linebackers on Bobby Hauck’s staff. He’s been Montana’s defensive coordinator since 2012 and he’s been on the sidelines for some of the signature Montana home wins of the last decade.

“Our first game collectively for the new coaches will be eye-opening,” Gregorak said earlier this month. “Almost all of us have seen a big-time atmosphere, sure. But until you get to coach, play or be a fan in this place, you have no idea. Unless you see this place first-hand, you have no idea. I grew up 200 miles away (in Spokane). I got to go play in the Big XII (Colorado). I had no idea what this place had to offer on game day until I got here in 2003. It will be eye opening. These guys have been places that are big and I’m still fired up for them to see this atmosphere because I would put this atmosphere in the top 25 in the entire country, FBS included, no doubt. It will be interesting to see how they react.”

Gregorak, fifth-year defensive line coach Legi Suiaunoa and fifth-year running backs coach Justin Green are holdovers from Mick Delaney’s staff. Offensive line coach Chad Germer was an All-America center in the early 1990s for the Griz and 2015 will mark his third stint coaching the Grizzlies, a tenure that totals six seasons. Green, first-year inside wide receivers coach Mike Ferriter and assistant quarterbacks coach Andrew Selle all played for Hauck.

By Brooks Nuanez

By Brooks Nuanez

Saturday will make the first time coaching in Washington-Grizzly Stadium for cornerbacks coach J.B. Hall, defensive ends coach Brian Hendricks, secondary coach Jason Semore and passing game coordinator/outside receivers coach Nolan Swett.

“They understand, they know Montana has a tradition of winning and what they are having to do is get back to that,” UM senior captain wide receiver Jamaal Jones said. “They want to win championships. That’s what Montana is known for and that’s what these coaches are trying to accomplish here.”

Kent Haslam selected Stitt as the top candidate from a group of four finalists that included Hauck, Gregorak, former Montana quarterback and current Washington assistant Brent Pease and current Eastern Washington head coach Beau Baldwin. Stitt is the least proven of the four by a long measure, but Haslam remains cautiously optimistic about Stitt’s Montana debut against a team that is 58-3 since the beginning of 2011.

“I don’t know if worry is the right word, but you do want him to get off to a good start,” Haslam said. “In just the little time I’ve worked with him, he is not the person to shy away from anything. While certainly facing the four-time defending national champions is a daunting task, for him I think he relishes that opportunity to be on that big stage and say, ‘This is what we are going to do. We might as well start with the best.’ But certainly, there’s that concern of taking it one day at a time, get through this and keep working hard. It’s a long season and he’ll have a great career here but let’s start it off with a bang.”

 

Photos courtesy of University of Montana Athletics. Noted photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.

About Colter Nuanez

Colter Nuanez is the co-founder and senior writer for Skyline Sports. After spending six years in the newspaper industry with stops at the Missoulian, the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the former Washington Newspaper Association Sportswriter of the Year and University of Montana Journalism School graduate ('09) has cultivated a deep passion for sports journalism during his 13-year career covering the Big Sky Conference. In August of 2014, Colter and brother Brooks merged their passions of writing and art to found Skyline Sports.

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