It’s a given that Grizzly football coach Bobby Hauck hasn’t had a recruiting period quite like this.Just eight players used up their eligibility on last fall’s 12-2 Montana Grizzly squad, which is a small class for any Division I Football Championship Subdivision program. Montana has 63 scholarships to offer, so you figure a normal class is 15-18 players.
Not this time. This recruiting class could’ve reached double figures but another three Griz that would’ve have their final seasons last fall - running back Lex Hilliard, punter Tyson Johnson and quarterback Jason Washington - missed the year with injuries. They took medical redshirts, and will be back in 2007.
“In a class this size, there’s not a lot of leeway,” he said Friday. “You have to be real exact, because you don’t have that elasticity to who shows up in August. You have to be pretty dead on.”
Recruiting being an inexact science, Hauck would like a few more spots on which to take chances. Then again, his first recruiting class for the Griz, in 2003, has a retention rate of 92 percent: Of 13 signees, 12 have either finished or will close their careers with the Griz.
The fifth-year coach of the Grizzlies would love to bat a thousand on a class that already has some punch. Among the signees Hauck will announce on Wednesday are J.D. Quinn, the offensive lineman who transferred in from Oklahoma, and Jeremy Pate, an athletic cornerback from Las Vegas who impressed in practice last fall.
“He was essentially a recruited walk-on,” Hauck said of Pate. “We heavily recruited him with him knowing we didn’t have a scholarship for him last fall, and that we’d have one for him next year if he took care of business in the classroom. Which he has done. He’s a good player.”
The 2007 class will also have a quarterback: Jeff Larson, the Cut Bank standout who came to UM last fall as a greyshirt.
Hauck said Washington, who started four games at QB in 2005, will play either receiver or defensive back, but that he’ll be on scholarship.
“We bring a guy here, we believe in seeing him through to graduation as best we can,” said Hauck, who saw the Bowling Green transfer miss one-and-a-half seasons with a shoulder injury. “If guys are actively participating, doing the things they’re supposed to do, taking care of business, we’re going to do everything we can to see them through.”
Montana lost players on the defensive line, and Matt Hustad, a 250-pound recruit from Helena High, reneged on his verbal commitment to UM and is now committed to Arizona State. That leaves Hustad’s Helena teammate, Ryan Fetherston, as the lone verbal for the Griz thus far.
Hauck was out recruiting early last week, specifically for a cornerback. Quinn’s addition bolsters an offensive line that lost only senior Jeff Marshall. Fetherston is a linebacker.
One upside of the small recruiting class is that the Griz, who lost in the FCS semifinals 19-17 to Massachusetts, are well stocked for ’07. That includes running back, where Hilliard has been working back from a torn Achilles tendon.
“He’s rehabbing and doing well - that’s the essence of it,” Hauck said. “He’s doing a great job, and he looks great.”
Hilliard will be one point of interest when spring ball opens March 12, and concludes with a final scrimmage at Daylis Stadium in Billings on April 14. Another is how Cole Bergquist, Clint Stapp, Andrew Selle or Larson shape up in the race to replace quarterback Josh Swogger, a senior last fall.
Before then, Hauck has a recruiting class to wrap up, small as it is.
“It’s going to be six or seven players, depending on how things go this weekend,” he said. “We have a couple guys visiting and hopefully they’ll make a decision to come our way through the weekend.”
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