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Recruiting Changes

I believe you are seeing this exactly as it is. NDSU and SDSU are significantly better at identifying and developing O line kids. My guess is Pawluk was added to the staff to address the gap.
NDSU, SDSU, AND MSU. I know it pains a lot of griz fans to realize that but it's the truth.
 
Disagree, leverage, is more important than anything. Having played on the line, played basketball and wrestled I’ll take five wrestlers over five basketball players on the o line every time. You are entitled to your opinion, even when wrong.
I agree that in general wrestling skills transfer well to football. But OL players at Big Sky level are generally 6'4 plus so they would have naturally been playing hoops at a young age. Just genetically speaking their parents were probably tall and both mom and dad probably played hoops. I had a conversation with Dennis Erickson once and he said as impressive a football player as Dwan Edwards was what really sold him was his footwork in the post in hoops. So he recruited him hard to Oregon St.
 
I agree that in general wrestling skills transfer well to football. But OL players at Big Sky level are generally 6'4 plus so they would have naturally been playing hoops at a young age. Just genetically speaking their parents were probably tall and both mom and dad probably played hoops. I had a conversation with Dennis Erickson once and he said as impressive a football player as Dwan Edwards was what really sold him was his footwork in the post in hoops. So he recruited him hard to Oregon St.
I played hoops against Dwan at a 3 on 3 tournament in Absarokee, when he was in 8th grade and I was in my early 30’s (not many teams signed up, so everybody played everybody). He was a helluva player by his early teens.
 
I think recruiting The Montana Player of The Year Merek Mihelish, the QB that led Helena Capital to the State AA Championship, is a feather in the cap of Justin Green. At 6-2, 170, give Merek a year in the weight room, 10-30 pounds of muscle, and he could be a star S in the GRIZ's near future !!!

And I don't agree that our O line is doomed !!!
We have 4 kids in The 2025 class that all stand 6-5 to 6-6 and already weigh from 250 to 340 lbs. Give them a year in the weight room to add muscle, a year for OL Coach Pawlak to coach them up, and we should be in good shape when they are added into the mix after their redshift freshman year. And 3 of these kids are from Washington, 1 from Hawaii. I think we should continue to recruit the Pacific NW--including Idaho, Hawaii, Arizona, and of course our biggest population state, California. The Midwest is already recruited hard by The Big 10, MAC, American and our own FCS Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley conferences. If a Midwest kid wants to come all the way west to Montana, we should recruit him--look at the Gilmans from Minnesota.

Finally, we have to trust our recruiting staff, and I do. We recruited Logan Knavelsrud, 6-4, 225 lbs. out of Snoqualmie, Washington--the only other school to offer Logan was Carroll College. But I trust that Justin Green and DL Coach Mike Linehan saw something special in Logan, and he will develop into a good-to-great GRIZ DE as well as an excellent UM student. Lest we forget, Tim Hauck and Colt Anderson, among other great GRIZ players, were walk-ons !!!
 
I agree that in general wrestling skills transfer well to football. But OL players at Big Sky level are generally 6'4 plus so they would have naturally been playing hoops at a young age. Just genetically speaking their parents were probably tall and both mom and dad probably played hoops. I had a conversation with Dennis Erickson once and he said as impressive a football player as Dwan Edwards was what really sold him was his footwork in the post in hoops. So he recruited him hard to Oregon St.
I get it, and we have a tight end who should be playing tackle, high school wrestler. I understand the footwork angle, and agree that not all of our o-line guys will be wrestlers. However, the understanding of leverage, physically dominating someone as big as you, continuing when you are physically and mentally exhausted, and just a general nastiness in attitude are all check marks in the please recruit some wrestlers to play on he lines.
 
Any changes in recruiting would require ONE MAJOR CHANGE. Bobby would have to admit his philosophy has failed to produce what was needed. That ain't gonna happen. I like the guy and his attitude, but...
 
Another big reason we should continue to heavily recruit The Pacific NW, is Seattle, the biggest city in the PNW with about 800,000 city residents and 3.5 million people in Seattle property and the Seattle metro area, is closer to Missoula, UM and WA-GRIZ, than Eastern Montana, specifically, Miles City, Baker, Glendive, Sidney, Plentywood, Glasgow, and Broadus, and since the entire state of Montana has about 1 2 million people, given the proximity and population, Seattle and the rest of the PNW will remain a focus of GRIZ recruiting, and not just for football !!!
 
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