MISSOULA, Montana — Montana’s “Mad Max” defense (TM Andrew Houghton) is built on aggression and chaos. But the 3-3-5 stack that Bobby Hauck brought with him for his second tenure leading his alma mater from San Diego State also requires plenty of aptitude to master its intricacies.
The Grizzlies looked stunning defensively throughout most of 2019 thanks in part to the execution of the high-pressure scheme and in part because of an elite set of talented players, namely Buck Buchanan Award winner Dante Olson along with future NFL talent Patrick O’Connell and future No. 37 Jace Lewis. That linebacker trio finished with a combined total of seven first-team All-Big Sky nods.
In 2021, despite losing Olson & O’Connell, the Griz cranked it up to a nationally elite notch and stayed there for most of the next three years. To hear former No. 37 Marcus Welnel say it, the cancelled season in 2020 did the Griz defense a world of good. A whole collection of veterans learned how to excecute the not so delicate dance.
The nuances of the mechanism got to be practiced 45 extra times between spring ball, fall camp and another spring ball between March of 2020 and April of 2021. A lull at the end of the season in 2022 cost Montana a realistic shot at a national title run, but a revamped Griz team led by virtuoso defensive coordinator Ronnie Bradford (now coaching in the NFL) took the Big Sky Conference and Football Championship Subdivision by storm.
The ultra-deep, synchronized unit paired perfectly with a powerful, brutish offense led by power run quarterback Clifton McDowell to ignite a Griz spark unseen since Hauck’s final season of his first tenure in 2009. Motnana won 10 straight games on the say to its first Big Sky title in 15 seasons and the eighth overall in Hauck’s 14 total seasons at the helm.
Ahead of last fall, Montana had to replace Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year Alex Gubner. Corbin Walker, a four-year starter at cornerback, Nash Fouch, a three-year starter at safety, Trajon Cotton, a three-year starter at nickel and Braxton Hill, a two-year starter and first-team all-conference performer at inside linebacker, all graduated.
Montana decided to fill most of those holes defensively with a collection of transfers that were vetted shortly given the NCAA transfer portal was only open for a week following UM’s 28-3 loss to South Dakota State in the FCS national championship game. Very few of those transfers “hit”.
The lack of continuity led to a lack of execution and Montana spiraled defensively like at no time in Hauck’s tenure. Weber State hung 55 points in a 55-48 overtime win in Missoula, a moment that proved to be a tipping point for last year’s defense.
Under the tutelage of first-year co-defensive coordinators Roger Cooper and Tim Hauck, UM tweaked its attack enough to not put its corners in as many man-to-man situations, in turn not bringing nearly the insane pressure the “heavy metal” attack had thrived on pretty much every season since Hauck’s return ahead of the 2018 campaign.
Those Grizzlies graduated 26 players defensively. Another 11 players who could’ve been seniors on this year’s team did not return. Another eight Griz entered the transfer portal, including starting defensive back Ronald Jackson and starting rush linebacker Riley Wilson, a two-time second-team All-Big Sky pick who totaled 13 sacks the last two seasons before transferring to Arizona.
Defensive end Hayden Harris, also a second-team all-league pick, now plays for the Buffalo Bills. Second-team all-league linebacker Ryan Tirrell, second-team all-league safety Ryder Meyer and second-team all-league corner Trevin Gradney, along with honorable mention all-league safety Jaxon Lee all graduated as well.
“I think Bo Schembechler said it 50 years ago: attrition is good. Sometimes it’s good for guys to move on. It’s fun to have new guys to work with,” Hauck said ahead of his team’s first day on the fall camp practice field on August 9. “We miss some guys that are gone, but the fact of the matter is there is no one here new as of last week. We’ve been working with these guys since May.”
The new guys who have been working with the Griz since May and the less-new guys who joined the Griz in January just weeks after UM’s 35-17 loss to South Dakota State in the second round of the FCS Playoffs. Those new guys total 28 in number and feature an array of players with FBS resumes.
And they are the key to the 2025 season if Montana is to reascend to its 2023 form rather than continued regression from 2024.
“There are personality traits we look for, and one of those is understanding there is one way to do things here, and that’s the Montana way,” said the 14th-year Grizzly mentor.
“I really like how energetic and locked in on doing things the way we do them all of our new guys are.”
Take into account the 22 incoming freshman and Montana has 50 new names on its roster since last season. Add in the 18 players coming off of redshirts last season and a huge percentage of the roster has never played in games for the Grizzlies.
“Coming off of next year, everyone is so hungry and all of us returners, we learned from the best at each position group,” said senior linebacker Geno Leonard, one of UM’s most veteran returners. “You go through each position, offense, defense, special teams, and you were watching a guy who you were following that example.
“That’s the story of this team. There’s a lot of new guys. A lot of guys who haven’t had a chance to start or be stars. But everyone wants it and the coaches are bringing that out of us. Everyone has a similar goal and we want to take it to the top level.”
Montana has exactly one player on its roster – sophomore rush linebacker Caleb Otlewski — who has started a single game defensively at UM. Otlewski started twice in relief of Wilson during the season’s first month.
Fifth-year senior safety T.J. Rausch, a Missoula native, played plenty last year within the safety/nickel rotation and should do so again this year. Leonard, a Sentinel alum like Rausch, appears finally healthy entering a season after playing solid snaps the last month of the year last fall. Jareb Ramos has gotten a fair number of reps backing up Gubner in 2023 and former Monmouth transfer Pat Hayden in 2024, but has never played starter snaps. He appears primed for a breakout year.
Cornerback Kyon Loud was one of the only true freshmen to crack the defensive rotation last season. Corners Kenzel Lawler (Utah) and Prince Ford (Illinois) were brought in from the Power 4 but made a negligible impact, although both return this season.
That’s about it when it comes to returning players with experience within the Montana defense.
“It’s sort of crazy to think about, but at the same time, we are a really good team and a really good defense,” said Otlewski, a 6-foot-4, 245-pounder who transferred to Montana from San Diego State ahead of last season. “We lost some guys but we have a ton of returning guys who are young and talented and we have a lot of transfer guys who came in that are helping the defense and the team out. To be honest, even though we don’t have any starters back, I think we are going to be better than we were last year.”
Almost every single other player who’s been featured with the first and second team defensive units during fall camp are new to the squad. So far, the early returns are the new faces are meshing from both a chemistry and schematic mastery standpoint.
“This has been competitive every single day,” Leonard said the first day of fall camp. “We’ve been going against each other twice a week since May in the stadium with no pads, no coaches.
“I think our coaches do a fantastic job, our leaders do a good job. We have some new faces and we haven’t missed a step yet. I’ve only known some of these guys for two months but it feels like they have been here the whole five years with me. Nobody has missed a beat so far.
During Tuesday’s practice, an entire brigade of linebackers were rolling through all three spots on a 97-degree day where that sort of depth helps you continue to bring the heat. Eastern Illinois transfer Elijawah Tolbert looks like a pit bull biting at the chain to hit an opponent. Solomon Tuliaupupu looks like a prototype USC linebacker, which he spent the last six years being despite a slew of injuries. His physical prowess is hard to deny.
Leonard has been getting pushed as hard as anyone by Peyton Wing, a second-team all-conference player at Portland State last season before transferring in January. Clay Oven, Hayden Optiz and Cy Stevenson, a trio of upstart sophomores from Montana, are the trio that give the Griz the ability to play five to seven deep once their season opens September 6.
“We are all uniting as brothers out hear on this practice field, we are all taking each other under each other’s wings in the meeting rooms,” Otlewski said. “When a freshman needs help, we are going over plays. Like my boy ET (Elijiwah Tolbert), we are only as strong as our strongest link and our strongest link is really strong. That really spoke a lot to me and it shows how much everybody is dedicated to putting in work every single day during this camp to get ready for the season.”
Up front, Ramos has emerged and has done a good job of holding off Braydon Bailey, a 6-foot-2, 285-pound transfer from Utah State. Jake Mason, a tackle turned end who is weighing in at 265, is now leading the charge at defensive end. And Hunter Peck, a 6-foot-2, 255-pound grad transfer who was the Frontier Conference Player of the Year at Carroll College last season, is stalwarts like senior Kellen Detrick.
The safeties lost its top five producers, including Meyer, Lee, Big Sky interceptions leader Jace Klucewich and standout sophomore Tyson Rostad. That group still appears improved thanks to the addition of sophomore Diezel Wilkinson, a thumper from Idaho, and Micah Harper, a former Freshman All-American at BYU several years and a few knee injuries ago.
Tanner Huff’s switch from cornerback to safety and Kade Cutler’s renewed health gives UM a pair of Montana-made safeties to spell their talented transfers. And Kade Boyd, a former two-way star out of Billings Central who played a few snaps as a redshirt freshman last season, also has game experience.
It’s at cornerback where the Griz need to fortify their depth. Loud was a standout last season, notching 18 tackles and breaking up three passes. He appears to be an elite talent entering his sophomore year. The emergence of any combination of Lawler or Ford or University of Mary transfer Justus Breston or Elijah Brady could fortify the perimeter.
“When all the transfers got here, we sat down and we talked about what we wanted out of this season,” Loud said. “We helped them and they helped us. This summer, after runs, lifts, we just locked in and taught them about the scheme and the culture. That’s how the chemistry got so good.”
The loss of Bradford impacted the unit. Cooper is a Big Sky fixture yet he had growing pains in his first year as a play caller since 2019 at Idaho State. Still, he’s a renowned teacher, a former legendary player (2004 Big Sky Defensive POY at Montana State) who has considered one of the best linebackers coaches in the league for more than a decade.
His continued progression and the continued mentorship of Tim Hauck, a former 13-year NFL safety who has a Super Bowl ring from his days as a defensive assistant with the Philadelphia Eagles, can only help the new-look Griz defense come together quickly.
Kent Baer, the trigger man for a defense that applied pressure on more than 60 percent of its snaps between 2019 and 2022, is back as a defensive analyst after retiring for health reasons ahead of the 2023 year.
Montana’s defense looks the part. Several of its key transfers have already proven themselves in the FCS. Players like Wing have already proven themselves in the Big Sky. But can the unit remain on the same page and create the chaos that has been a trademark of Hauck 2.0? Only time will tell.
“For the entire team really, we want energy, we want focus and we certainly want urgency out here because we are counting the clock down to the first game for an opportunity to keep score,” Hauck said. “In terms of the defense, I want to make plays on the ball and tackle and control the line of scrimmage.
“You are not recruiting to a program anymore, you are assembling to a team. You have to put your team together and that’s what college football is today.”
