If you chose a player to make one of the most important plays of the Montana Grizzlies’ season, it would be hard to come up with a more symbolically appropriate avatar than Ryan Tirrell.
Tirrell grew up in Missoula. Heck, he’s Bobby Hauck’s nephew. And when he broke through the line to block an Eastern Washington punt with the Griz down 21-13 in the second quarter of a second-round FCS playoffs game at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, he helped UM swing momentum, blitz the Eagles and advance to the national quarterfinals for the second year in a row.
Levi Janacaro eventually scooped up the bouncing ball after Tirrell’s block at the Eastern Washington 17-yard line. The Griz scored 37 of the next 44 points in their eventual 57-41 win.
Tirrell and Janacaro were two members of a unit that was at the heart of the Grizzlies’ success this year. The offense was inconsistent. The defense got the headlines. But Montana’s special teams, led by a dominant coverage unit stocked with players who grew up in the Treasure State, embodied this Griz season – and the program’s upward trend since Hauck returned as head coach in before the 2018 season.
“We will center our recruiting around the state of Montana,” Hauck said at his introductory press conference back in December 2017.
In the five years between 2013 and 2017, the Griz didn’t have more than 32 Montanans on the roster in any given year. That shot up to 42 in 2018, Hauck’s first year back, and 53 in 2021.
In 2021, the resurgence was most visible on special teams.
Tirrell and backup safety David Koppang went to Missoula Loyola. Janacaro and hard-hitting reserve linebacker Tyler Flink matriculated from Missoula Big Sky. Trevin Gradney, who was named first-team all-Big Sky Conference on special teams after playing gunner on the punt team, was a state champion at Billings West. Carson Rostad was a quarterback at Class A Hamilton, and linebacker Braxton Hill was a football and basketball legend in Anaconda.
None of those players had more tackles this year than Hill’s 19, most of which came in his role as backup linebacker. Tirrell, in fact, didn’t have a tackle all season. But together, they made up the backbone of the unit that best represented the ethos of Hauck’s Grizzlies.
“Coach Hauck takes a lot of pride in his special teams, and he gets his players to take a lot of pride in it,” said Bryce Carver, who played under Hauck in 2009 and coached Rostad at Hamilton. “It’s a pretty detailed and specific job you have when you’re on special teams and so you take it very, very seriously and have a lot of pride in it.”
Montana led the Big Sky Conference in net kickoff average by three yards, with the swarming, hunting, hitting kick coverage teams being a huge part of that.
They were so good that they influenced other teams’ strategies. In the playoff game against Eastern Washington, the Eagles tried to run back just one kickoff, instead waving for fair catches and taking the ball at the 25. After opponents returned 15 kicks against the Griz in the first five games of the year, they attempted just nine in the final eight contests.
The Grizzlies’ punt coverage was equally dominant, leading the conference in net punting average by a yard-and-a-half and giving up just 83 yards on 26 attempted returns. That was nearly 400 yards fewer than Montana’s own total of 482 yards on punt returns, an enormous hidden advantage. Gradney was usually the first player downfield on punts, and if he missed, there were relentless waves of Grizzlies coming right behind him to clean up.
“When those kids go off to college, that’s another goal,” said Rob Stanton, Gradney’s coach at Billings West. “If you can be on those special teams after your redshirt year, I think that’s a really good role to have. You can be starting on a bunch of different special teams. The next step would to hopefully be a position player in a year or two as well. So it’s a significant role.”
At Loyola, Tirrell fretted when he was even just a couple minutes late for weight-lifting sessions with Rams coach Todd Hughes.
This wasn’t when he was in high school, mind you, but when he was just getting out of seventh grade.
“His mom was a teacher at the school,” Hughes said. “She wouldn’t get out in time, and he would be so upset when he’d get there because Mom made him, you know, three-and-a-half minutes late for a workout with Coach Hughes.
“He was tenacious, hard-working. Just an incredible kid.”
The Grizzlies’ other core special teamers drew similar rave reviews from their high school coaches.
“He’s a loyal guy and a great teammate and very coachable,” Carver said about Rostad.
“He’s probably not the fastest guy on the team, or the biggest guy, but he’s always there making plays,” Stanton said about Gradney.
In their freshman years at Big Sky, Flink was a wisp of a linebacker – “5-foot-3, about 130 pounds,” Eagles coach Matt Johnson remembered – while Janacaro was the preternaturally developed quarterback of the freshman team.
“He gets under center and his big deep voice goes ‘Ready,’” Johnson said, drawing out the word, “and I swear I could see all the eyes of the opposing team, their eyes open huge and wide like, who’s this guy, man? Because I think he had a pretty good beard going back then.”
They matured into a competitively matched duo who led the Eagles to an 8-3 record as seniors in 2017, the team’s best year since at least 2004.
Before practices, they would laser the ball at each other from 10 yards away. In games, Flink never came off the field, while Janacaro used special teams as a break from serving as the Eagles’ battering-ram quarterback who carried the ball 30 times a game.
“They knew the hard work had to be done,” Johnson said. “Those guys loved playing football. It was, ‘Whatever you need us to do, coach.’ You love that, and I think that’s part of the reason they’re at where they’re at.”
It’s hard to think of a more anonymous and dangerous role on the football field than hurtling downfield to cover a punt or a kickoff. As it turns out, that makes the role perfect for Montana kids who grew up dreaming of playing for the Griz.
“I don’t really want to use a word like sacrifice, but they’re willing to go down there on the punt team and make a hit,” Stanton said. “And it can look kind of cool, but it can also be kind of painful. So I think that’s something that shows a lot about them as people and just their grit and determination.”
Janacaro blocked and recovered a punt for a touchdown against Cal Poly, one of two special teams TDs for the Griz in that game along with Malik Flowers’ kick return. Marcus Welnel, from Helena Capital, saved UM against Southern Utah with a fourth-quarter field-goal block. Jace Lewis, from Townsend, put Montana State away by breaking through the line on a fake field goal attempt, forcing a fumble that Justin Ford returned for a touchdown.
Montana’s ability to create momentum on special teams, without a big play on offense or a takeaway on defense, was the most unique and defining feature of this year’s Grizzlies team. It allowed the Griz to turn games around, build big runs out of nothing and mitigate the struggles of an offense that had a stretch of three straight home games without scoring a first-half touchdown.
Just think back to Tirrell’s block in the playoff win. Before the snap, Eastern Washington was in control of the game and lining up for one of the most routine plays in football. Thirty seconds later, the Griz were in the red zone, the home fans were going crazy…and the rest was history.
“They’re Montana born and raised there,” Hughes said. “They’re gritty kids. … Every time Bobby breaks a huddle and sends them out on the field, he’s telling them to change the game, change the momentum, bring it back to us. This one play gives you a chance to do something special and change the dynamic of a football game. And those guys believe in it, you can tell by the way they play that they believe in it.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez, Blake Hempstead and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
