Glacier's Keim commits to Griz football

The Montana Grizzlies picked up another verbal commitment from a Glacier Wolfpack gridder Thursday, with Isaac Keim announcing that he’s headed to UM.

“I’m super excited to announce my commitment to (Montana) after a great conversation with (Griz director of recruiting Keaton Johnson),” Keim tweeted. “I would like to thank family, friends and everyone else that has helped me with this journey!”

Keim would join fellow Glacier player Kash Goicoechea at UM in 2024: Goicoechea, whose dad Sean played safety for the Grizzlies, announced his commitment on June 29.

Reached by phone Thursday, Keim said his choices came down to Montana and Montana State. The Griz won out, he said, for “tons of reasons.”

He noted he and Goicoechea took a recent tour of the campus, after which they joined fellow 2024 recruits Grady Walker and Danny Sirmon — both of them Griz legacies — for lunch.

“We all kind of connected,” Keim said. “It’s close to home. Two hours away isn’t too bad. Good program, good community. The night that I committed I had a bunch of people text me and I had no idea who they were. It was pretty fun.”

Both he and Goicoechea are coming off junior seasons interrupted by injury. Keim, a 6-foot-4, 238-pound tight end and defensive end, played in six games and caught six passes for 85 yards. Goicoechea, 6-0 and 190, plays safety and running back and rushed for 250 yards on 32 carries (7.8 average) in nine games. He is a dangerous return man and scored one of his six touchdowns last fall came via a pick-6.

Legacies aside, both players took advantage of a fairly recent trend in recruiting: the post-junior year summer camp tour.

Glacier coach Grady Bennett worries that the camps overextend players, but the good news is a lot of them are getting recruited.

“That’s when these kids are starting to get offers now,” Bennett said.

Wolfpack offensive lineman Henry Sellards, who recently committed to North Dakota State, is another example. Keim went to camps at Montana and Montana State, then decided against a trip to NDSU.

“What I’m so excited for both Kash and Isaac, is really as sophomores we saw what kind of talent they had,” Bennett said. “And then they fought so many injuries (as juniors). For them to get these offers takes the pressure of this fall, as in ‘I have to perform now to get recruited.’ It makes for a great senior season.”