New Griz coach touts first recruits
The old familiar “Voice of the Grizzlies,” Mick Holien, said what everyone in the room was probably thinking.
“We’ll put his feet to the fire. He’s being handed the keys to the Cadillac.”
And with that, the new face of Griz football was introduced into a world of great expectations.
“I’m fired up to be here,” new Montana head coach Robin Pflugrad told a maroon-shaded crowd of roughly 230 Griz Nation gatherers at the Hilton Garden Inn and Convention Center in Kalispell on Thursday evening.
The 34th head football coach at UM is taking over one of the most successful programs in the nation and has had to hit the ground running since replacing seven-year coach Bobby Hauck, who left for UNLV with an 80-17 record, on Jan. 1. Pflugrad, who was the wide receivers coach on last year’s 14-1 team that lost in the national championship, explained the painstaking process that the incoming coaching staff has had to go through to gather their first recruiting class, which was announced on Wednesday.
“We started from ground zero, we went from scratch,” the 52-year-old coach said. “We looked at every single video that we had. We scoured everything, we really did.”
With only three weeks of official recruitment time, Pflugrad was able to wrangle 20 commitments, including two valley products as well as a latest out-of-state signee on Thursday. Former Oregon defensive lineman Tonio Celotto will be joining the Griz after two seasons in Eugene, Pflugrad announced.
“Now the question is did we bring in the right players? I don’t think you can ever answer that for a year, year in a half, maybe two years sometimes,” Pflugrad said.
The coach emphasized numerous times that grading a prospect carries over into that person’s traits off the field, an issue that holds a high tune among Griz fans who remember off-the-field troubles that have plagued the program in recent years.
“As far as this recruiting class, we were really faced with some challenges of really bringing guys in, and we’d never been in their living rooms. We didn’t know some of these players very well and to me that’s concerning at times,” he added. “We’re very involved in the entire element of that student athlete. How is he academically? How is he as a citizen? ... We had to make decisions on campus if they would fit the Griz profile and fit the chemistry of the program. I think we made some tough choices and I believe we made the right choices.”
Pflugrad said replacing offensive linemen and wide receivers were the top priorities, and the incoming players that were landed for those positions will likely have an immediate chance at playing time.
“We were blatantly honest with them in recruiting that we weren’t going to bring them to Missoula unless they said ‘Hey I’m ready to go,’” he said.
Pflugrad said getting local players like Glacier quarterback Shay Smithwick-Hann and Whitefish standout Derek Crittendon was an added bonus because of their Montana roots.
“No question (it’s important having local players). It’s been the foundation,” Pflugrad said. “We’re already working hard on what I think are going to be some outstanding walk-ons ... There’s been some great walk-ons at The University of Montana that have gone on and done some great things.”
Pflugrad said fans next season can expect to see an offense similar to the 1990’s teams, including the high-powered Griz squad that won the national championship in 1995.
“There’s going to be a lot of foundation of what we did from 1986 to 1995 and 1996. Even 1997; those formidable years of the Grizzlies spreading the field out, a lot of screen game,” Pflugrad said. “We’ll definitely go back to some of that and we actually did that this fall, and it was a lot of fun.”
Regarding Smithwick-Hann’s possibility of becoming a quarterback for the Griz in the future:
“We’re going to give Shay a great opportunity to play quarterback. We are,” he said. “We hope we brought good players in to help Shay be an excellent quarterback, and I think him and (recruit) Jordan (Johnson) are going to have a great battle.”
Regarding Crittendon, who will likely play defensive line: “He’s got great passion. In his video he gets by people, he attacks the quarterback, he finishes plays.”
Reporter Dillon Tabish can be reached at 758-4463 or by e-mail at dtabish@dailyinterlake.com