Glacier kicker Rohrbach commits to Griz

Patrick Rohrbach maintains that years ago he told his parents, if he got football offers from Alabama and the Montana Grizzlies, he’d pick the Griz.

“Because that’s how diehard of a fan I was,” he said.

He still is, and he’s headed to Missoula to play football in 2022: The Glacier Wolfpack placekicker announced his decision via Twitter on Wednesday, not long after talking with Grizzlies’ assistant Timm Rosenbach.

“He laid it out real quick,” Rohrbach said. “He said we’re definitely interested in you and we’re going to offer you a scholarship. I’m just blown away because it’s always been a dream since I was a little kid, to play for the Griz. A day I’ll never forget.”

There was a time when Rohrbach was vying for time as a quarterback on Glacier’s freshman team, though he was always kicking. Grady Bennett pressed him into service in 2018, making Rohrbach the first freshman to letter for Wolfpack football.

“He had a pretty good arm and I thought that’s what he was going to play,” Bennett remembered. “But we were having a little trouble with our kicking game and he was just booming it as a freshman. We had a need and he obviously had the leg.”

Brought in for kickoff duties, Rohrbach was soon handling all the place kicking duties.

His sophomore year he was the Wolfpack punter. Rohrbach was honorable mention All-State at kicker in 2019, and earned the same honors at punter last season.

Rohrbach was already part of “the kicking community,” as he called it. In 2019 he attended the Lifetime Kicking Academy in Pocatello, Idaho at the behest of Helena High product and current Griz punter Brian Buschini.

He met Buschini at a Griz camp when he was a seventh grader.

“He and I were good buddies in high school, when he was at Helena,” Rohrbach said. “He has definitely played a big part in helping me figure out punting and kicking.”

Other influences: Glacier special teams coach Donny Tudahl, and former Flathead High and Carroll College kicker Dylan Torgerson.

It was roughly six weeks ago that Rohrbach attended a specialists camp at UM.

“I think it was at the end of June,” he said. “It went really well — I had a good camp. Punting went really well, and field goals were good. I think I hit a 65-yarder. So that was cool.

“They said they’d be in contact and then kind of out of the blue, Coach Rosenbach told me to call him,” he said.

The dream came true.

“We have a Griz room in our basement,” Rohrbach said. “I think the first game I went to was when I was 5 years old, and I don’t think I’ve missed a home game since.”

He’s the sixth commit for the Grizzlies for 2022, and fourth from Montana: Helena quarterback Kaden Huot and linebacker/running back Marcus Evans announced their commitments earlier, as did Hamilton standout Tyson Rostad.