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Portal Success, 2024

T

thirdandlong

Well-known member
Kudos to Bobby and his staff for the excellent job of recruiting the portal this year. This is by far his best job recruiting the portal, at least on paper. But I feel confident that his portal players will be excellent on the field too.

He seems to have filled several needs with this class. But I still believe we have lots of unknowns in our QB room. When we are unable to even chose a starter at QB following spring ball, it creates questions as to us having the answer at this position.

If I were Bobby, I would go hard after former NAU quarterback R. J. Martinez with some NIL money. He sits the bench at Baylor, and might be tempted to come to Missoula for an opportunity to start. He is from Austin, and might want to stay closer to home. But who knows, if he is not given the opportunity.

For those of you who have seen him play in person, he is a stud at the FCS level. Very accurate. Very good decision-making. Mobile enough to escape pressure. He is only 5'11", so he is a bit short for big time FBS football. They tend to like 'em tall there. He would be awesome throwing to our stable of great receivers.

This kid could be the missing piece to take us to the promise land.
 
I’m fine not knowing after Spring ball about the QB. But we won’t have the luxury of not finding “the guy” until after game 4 like last year. Better have a real solid answer before the end of fall camp.

Is there some rumor that Martinez is looking for greener pastures?
 
AZGrizFan said:
I’m fine not knowing after Spring ball about the QB. But we won’t have the luxury of not finding “the guy” until after game 4 like last year. Better have a real solid answer before the end of fall camp.

Is there some rumor that Martinez is looking for greener pastures?
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Not aware of any, but he is not going to start at Baylor. As I said, he may not be interested, but he knows all about the Griz, and knows that they played in Frisco last year. No harm in exploring it with him. Probably take some NIL money to pry him away. Do we have any laying around for that purpose?
 
thirdandlong said:
Not aware of any, but he is not going to start at Baylor. As I said, he may not be interested, but he knows all about the Griz, and knows that they played in Frisco last year. No harm in exploring it with him. Probably take some NIL money to pry him away. Do we have any laying around for that purpose?
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Isn't it too late for this season?
 
thirdandlong said:
Not aware of any, but he is not going to start at Baylor. As I said, he may not be interested, but he knows all about the Griz, and knows that they played in Frisco last year. No harm in exploring it with him. Probably take some NIL money to pry him away. Do we have any laying around for that purpose?
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More importantly, isn’t that considered tampering when he’s not “officially” in the portal?
 
AZGrizFan said:
More importantly, isn’t that considered tampering when he’s not “officially” in the portal?
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Technically yes. In reality, no. Mark Gronowski has talked about getting huge offers when he was weighing whether to stay at SDSU for his senior year and he was never in the portal. The rules are really only for the ones stupid enough to think they apply to them.
 
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At this point in time the staff may be satisfied with the current collection of QBs. The one thing that I like is that we may have good depth at the position. I believe Bobby knows exactly what he doing at the position. We have a championship type of roster. He understands we need a player at QB and will make sure we find the right situation in leading the offense.
 
The Griz qb's are better than Martinez.

One reason UM didn't know who it's qb would be coming out of spring ball this year, is because there are several good options. Last year, UM didn't have the qb coming out of spring ball, because the qb was not yet on the roster and in Missoula.

UM has done well with transfers and in the portal for the past several years. The number of transfers on the two-deep last season was very large. I think over 20 players.

Martinez went to Baylor because his girlfriend was from there and he was from Texas, I believe.

Great idea to go after players after the Portal is closed.

Someone needs to try to get this poster 3d more up to speed on the Griz. He's about 20 or 25 years behind what is happening in Missoula. Maybe we should buy him a Griz tee shirt.

On the other hand, I agree with the OP that it's very important that the Griz find a good, or very good, qb or two. UM is in much better shape on qb than it was last year at this time.
 
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GrizSpartan said:
At this point in time the staff may be satisfied with the current collection of QBs. The one thing that I like is that we may have good depth at the position. I believe Bobby knows exactly what he doing at the position. We have a championship type of roster. He understands we need a player at QB and will make sure we find the right situation in leading the offense.
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Do you think that Bobby brought Fife in to be the starter? Do you think Fife would have signed here if he didn't expect to be the starter? I'm being told that he is currently third on the depth chart. Does that mean that Huot and Ah Yat are just so good, or has Fife not lived up to expectations? Since I didn't see the spring game, I have to go on comments posted here, or from people I know who attended that game and have connections within the program. Seems that there is little consensus about who should be the starter.
 
thirdandlong said:
Do you think that Bobby brought Fife in to be the starter? Do you think Fife would have signed here if he didn't expect to be the starter? I'm being told that he is currently third on the depth chart. Does that mean that Huot and Ah Yat are just so good, or has Fife not lived up to expectations? Since I didn't see the spring game, I have to go on comments posted here, or from people I know who attended that game and have connections within the program. Seems that there is little consensus about who should be the starter.
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Fife isn't 3d on the depth chart.
 
thirdandlong said:
But a coach can release a player allowing him to transfer. Up to the coach, but many will honor that request from a player. I think Bobby would honor a request like that.
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It would be a violation of NCAA rules for us to contact Martinez like that, and would end up with us losing scholarships and vacating wins. I'm not just being disagreeable, you really cannot do that.

I feel good about our QBs, but we absolutely cannot go contacting other players now unless we want to roll some very risky dice.
 
Da Boyz Mom said:
Technically yes. In reality, no. Mark Gronowski has talked about getting huge offers when he was weighing whether to stay at SDSU for his senior year and he was never in the portal. The rules are really only for the ones stupid enough to think they apply to them.
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Touche.
 
ElrodGrizzly said:
It would be a violation of NCAA rules for us to contact Martinez like that, and would end up with us losing scholarships and vacating wins. I'm not just being disagreeable, you really cannot do that.

I feel good about our QBs, but we absolutely cannot go contacting other players now unless we want to roll some very risky dice.
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There's ways to do it without technically breaking the rules - the coach and school just need to have some go-betweens so that they can have plausible deniability. It's happening all the time. I'm not condoning it at all because it actually bothers me but it is what it is.
 
Da Boyz Mom said:
There's ways to do it without technically breaking the rules - the coach and school just need to have some go-betweens so that they can have plausible deniability. It's happening all the time. I'm not condoning it at all because it actually bothers me but it is what it is.
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I hope we are not one of those teams rolling the dice like that, but I'm sure that is to rosy-glassed vision on my part. You're probably right.

I'm genuinely good with what we have, though. I won't keep repeating my Fife thoughts, but I think he is a damn good QB and if he gets beat out by one of the younger guys then in says a LOT of good about them.
 
thirdandlong said:
Do you think that Bobby brought Fife in to be the starter? Do you think Fife would have signed here if he didn't expect to be the starter? I'm being told that he is currently third on the depth chart. Does that mean that Huot and Ah Yat are just so good, or has Fife not lived up to expectations? Since I didn't see the spring game, I have to go on comments posted here, or from people I know who attended that game and have connections within the program. Seems that there is little consensus about who should be the starter.
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Bobby brought Sneed in to challenge the same way Fife has come in. They were both here for spring ball and showed flashes. Sneed developed over the summer and fall camp, why are you assuming that Fife can't, or won't be able take that next step?
 
Toff said:
Bobby brought Sneed in to challenge the same way Fife has come in. They were both here for spring ball and showed flashes. Sneed developed over the summer and fall camp, why are you assuming that Fife can't, or won't be able take that next step?
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Come on, everyone knew that Sneed would be the starter as soon as Bobby brought him in. You can't remember the big controversy involving Jensen not getting a real chance to be the starter after starting games the previous year, causing him to transfer?

I never said that Fife won't be a good QB. I only said that he did not stand-out over his fellow QBs in the spring like Sneed did. I'm sure most will agree that the book is still out on him going into the season. And I think most would agree that we felt elation about Sneed after spring ball. Big difference in my mind.
 
thirdandlong said:
Come on, everyone knew that Sneed would be the starter as soon as Bobby brought him in. You can't remember the big controversy involving Jensen not getting a real chance to be the starter after starting games the previous year, causing him to transfer?

I never said that Fife won't be a good QB. I only said that he did not stand-out over his fellow QBs in the spring like Sneed did. I'm sure most will agree that the book is still out on him going into the season. And I think most would agree that we felt elation about Sneed after spring ball. Big difference in my mind.
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I agree that he did not stand out over others in the spring game. But whoever is telling you that he is "third on the depth chart" is either lying to you or just talking out their ass. It will be an open competition, and Fife was brought in to compete with an expectation that he has a great chance of winning that competition. None of the coaching staff's opinion was changed by the spring game. He needs time to get the system down, and the summer will provide that.
 
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