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It's Official: Roper coming to Montana

Are you guys crazy????! Roper decides to come here and your already proclaiming him the starter and are automatically looking for Selle to transfer? Roper only has less than 2 months to learn the offense. Selle or Larson will be the starter opening day and if they play well and win I find it hard to believe that they would be benched. If they don't perform, then yeah, we will probably switch to a simplified version of our offense starting Roper. It's not fair to anybody, including Roper, to call him the stud starter when he hasn't even thrown a pass on our practice field yet. Roper has to learn the offense first and he isn't going to be able to effective right away after only being in the program for a couple months. Glad Roper is here, but you guys that are proclaiming him the golden boy already are really putting chariot before the horse.
 
HighLineGRIZ said:
Are you guys crazy????! Roper decides to come here and your already proclaiming him the starter and are automatically looking for Selle to transfer? Roper only has less than 2 months to learn the offense. Selle or Larson will be the starter opening day and if they play well and win I find it hard to believe that they would be benched. If they don't perform, then yeah, we will probably switch to a simplified version of our offense starting Roper. It's not fair to anybody, including Roper, to call him the stud starter when he hasn't even thrown a pass on our practice field yet. Roper has to learn the offense first and he isn't going to be able to effective right away after only being in the program for a couple months. Glad Roper is here, but you guys that are proclaiming him the golden boy already are really putting chariot before the horse.
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Roper will start the home opener. For sure. Selle will get equal or more reps for the first few games.
 
Welcome, Roper. It just goes to show that no one gets ahead through attrition. FCS athletes really have to compete like some upper classman with a more stars next to his name could come in any time and vye for the job, something FBS don't have to worry about as much.

A question to the egrizzers who watched any spring practice. Did one of the three competing then seem to clearly edge out the others? Is this pickup a case of simply not saying no to a good athlete, or was there a clear need for a drop down QB? I'm not turning on "our guys" anymore than coach Hauck is. I'd just like to know what egrizzers observed.

Anyone think the Griz will pick up a dedicated QB coach like they did with Steve Axman when Swogger came in? There's a spot to fill. I wish we always had one dedicated to the guy who touches the ball on every offensive play, although we've done great the way things are.
 
HighLineGRIZ said:
Are you guys crazy????! Roper decides to come here and your already proclaiming him the starter and are automatically looking for Selle to transfer? Roper only has less than 2 months to learn the offense. Selle or Larson will be the starter opening day and if they play well and win I find it hard to believe that they would be benched. If they don't perform, then yeah, we will probably switch to a simplified version of our offense starting Roper. It's not fair to anybody, including Roper, to call him the stud starter when he hasn't even thrown a pass on our practice field yet. Roper has to learn the offense first and he isn't going to be able to effective right away after only being in the program for a couple months. Glad Roper is here, but you guys that are proclaiming him the golden boy already are really putting chariot before the horse.
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Highline, I really do not see anyone claiming Roper as a Golden Boy. As with any football thread it can be controversial and egrizzers be split. For those claiming as a starter and upgrade, fine. For those siding with our current qbs, fine. No matter the side you are on, questions arise around the issue. We all have our own opinion. I like reading all the opinions and thoughts of egrizzers. What is wrong with it anyway?

I normally would not bring something like this up, but we could view your opinion of Roper that of him not being good enough or smart enough to be our starter. Instead can we just let this play out and let the best man win? In the meantime let everyone believe what they believe, support who they want, and how they want, etc.

Roper being here is a good thing no matter how you look at it. Worse case scenario, we finally have something to get EGRIZ jumping in a rather uneventful offseason. Thanks Roper, we needed that!
 
I truthfully hope that this isn't a case where the hype is more than the reality. I not only can think of a few cases where it seems knee injuries have hampered post recovery performance (TBF, Troxel) and often it seems that it can take a few years for those players to get back to that pre-injury game play level.
 
mtgrizrule said:
Roper being here is a good thing no matter how you look at it. Worse case scenario, we finally have something to get EGRIZ jumping in a rather uneventful offseason. Thanks Roper, we needed that!
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Things could be as bad and boring as they are on bozo, wondering which sub50%er is going to start, destitude, idiot or kramp?
 
mtgrizrule said:
HighLineGRIZ said:
Are you guys crazy????! Roper decides to come here and your already proclaiming him the starter and are automatically looking for Selle to transfer? Roper only has less than 2 months to learn the offense. Selle or Larson will be the starter opening day and if they play well and win I find it hard to believe that they would be benched. If they don't perform, then yeah, we will probably switch to a simplified version of our offense starting Roper. It's not fair to anybody, including Roper, to call him the stud starter when he hasn't even thrown a pass on our practice field yet. Roper has to learn the offense first and he isn't going to be able to effective right away after only being in the program for a couple months. Glad Roper is here, but you guys that are proclaiming him the golden boy already are really putting chariot before the horse.
Click to expand...

Highline, I really do not see anyone claiming Roper as a Golden Boy. As with any football thread it can be controversial and egrizzers be split. For those claiming as a starter and upgrade, fine. For those siding with our current qbs, fine. No matter the side you are on, questions arise around the issue. We all have our own opinion. I like reading all the opinions and thoughts of egrizzers. What is wrong with it anyway?

I normally would not bring something like this up, but we could view your opinion of Roper that of him not being good enough or smart enough to be our starter. Instead can we just let this play out and let the best man win? In the meantime let everyone believe what they believe, support who they want, and how they want, etc.

Roper being here is a good thing no matter how you look at it. Worse case scenario, we finally have something to get EGRIZ jumping in a rather uneventful offseason. Thanks Roper, we needed that!
Click to expand...

Never said he wasn't smart enough. He only has 2 months to learn the offense. That's not enough time to learn an offense and expect to start. At least, I'm hoping our offense is not that simple. If Roper is the best QB, I hope he does eventually emerge and increase the potentness of our offense. I just think its crazy for people to already assume that he's going to be able to be ready to start for our opener when he hasn't put in any work and probably just got handed a playbook. It's even crazier to presume that Selle would/should transfer. This is the University of Montana not Sacramento State. I'd like to think that our program is to the level where a backup QB from the PAC10 would have to fight and compete to win the job not just be given the job because he had some sucess in a "who gives a crap" bowl game.
 
So, what you really mean to say is, welcome to the Griz, Justin, and may the best man on the field strap on the helmet and lead us to victory.
 
He does have more experience against better defenses than any of our other qbs. Advantage to him there.

Advantage to the others when it comes to familiarity with personnel, coaches, and opponents.

Advantage to Kemp for athleticism.

Only Hauck knows what he wants from our qb. I give Roper just as good a chance as anyone.
 
TheBud said:
I like the fact that there are lots of options at the QB position.

Go Griz!
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Just to think, a few years back our choices were Bergquist as a Freshman, and an unproven transfer in Washington. We had to resort to unknown freshman and run the option at Idaho. I like our choices this year much better. However we can still the spring an option attack with a few guys if needed.
 
Exactly. I want all the quarterbacks on the roster to expect to be "the one." A quarterback has to have that mentality. And if he's not the one, he has to have a little chip on his shoulder, and be ready to step up when called upon, and show us he really is "the one."
 
General Disarray said:
What's with all the pity for Selle and Larson? Starting at QB for the Griz isn't a right. Just because you're on the roster and the guy ahead of you graduates doesn't mean you're handed the job. He had every opportunity to impress the coaches in practice, scrimmage, and substitute playing time and didn't do it. If you spend 3 years on a team showing the coaches what you can do and they still don't feel comfortable putting the game on your shoulders then you should expect to be benched.

Also, having 5 years of college tuition and living expenses paid for isn't such a bad consolation prize.
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this logic works for me. it would justify why we are in this position at looking at Roper as a qb. i would bet the coaches do not feel as competitive at qb as they would want given the talent of the rest of the team. so this was probably a blessing getting Justin on board to complete the competitive package to take on the FCS with a stronger finish. i still think we were out coached on the richmond game..............i see you with a team with alot of heart and raise you a savvy coach, gonna call?
 
there is a faction of griz fans that no matter what they say in public, don't care for out of state players that much...but this is college football and the best player should play, no matter where he was born. i've lived in mt all my life and as a longtime griz fan, i can safely say that many of the best-ever griz were from other states. scott gragg was beloved when i was at um, LV had a cultish following from the students, yo humphrey and etu were huge fan favs. lest we forget, dave dickenson didn't throw all those passes to himself. almost his entire WR crew was not home grown..gurns, matt wells, shalon baker, raul pacheco, mike erhardt and joe douglass. not only were all these aformentioned guys some of the greatest to ever suit up for the griz, but they also had something else in common, almost every one of em probably played in front of a mt kid...does that sour griz football for some of you? i obviously love homegrown players..marc, tuff, crebo, dd, edwards, lex, kroy.. the list could go on and on, but these guys are and were stars for the griz because they were the best available player at their position. they earned their spot just like the out of state guys do...not because they were born in havre or hardin or butte america..nothing is owed to anybody and roper is not screwing anyone over by coming here and neither is any other player who dons the GRIZ uni, who was not born in the 406.
 
griz4life said:
Welcome, Roper. It just goes to show that no one gets ahead through attrition. FCS athletes really have to compete like some upper classman with a more stars next to his name could come in any time and vye for the job, something FBS don't have to worry about as much.

A question to the egrizzers who watched any spring practice. Did one of the three competing then seem to clearly edge out the others? Is this pickup a case of simply not saying no to a good athlete, or was there a clear need for a drop down QB? I'm not turning on "our guys" anymore than coach Hauck is. I'd just like to know what egrizzers observed.

Anyone think the Griz will pick up a dedicated QB coach like they did with Steve Axman when Swogger came in? There's a spot to fill. I wish we always had one dedicated to the guy who touches the ball on every offensive play, although we've done great the way things are.
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I watched 1 scrimmage and drove to Corvalis for the spring game. Our QB play was god awfull. I think Selle completed 2 passes for negative yards..... and thats it. I came away hoping that we would get another guy. I think Selle can still be a good QB but he showed nothing to me this spring. You never know with spring games, our D could be "that good", but am I the only one who went to the spring game and walked away very concerned about our QB's????
 
mtgrizrule said:
TheBud said:
I like the fact that there are lots of options at the QB position.

Go Griz!
Click to expand...

Just to think, a few years back our choices were Bergquist as a Freshman, and an unproven transfer in Washington. We had to resort to unknown freshman and run the option at Idaho. I like our choices this year much better. However we can still the spring an option attack with a few guys if needed.
Click to expand...

Your point is well taken, but I think you're mixing up your years.

When the Griz had the transfer (Washington) and the freshman (Bergquist), that was 2005.

When the Griz had to run the option against Idaho, it was 2003 (the last time we played Idaho--and smoked 'em, by the way!), and the option quarterback was Sampson.

You're right in that in both years the Griz were hard pressed to find a top QB, in 2003 because of injuries to Ochs and Disney and in 2005 because of inexperience and/or lack of talent.
 
Archived Story
Griz land former Oregon QB
By BILL SPELTZ of the Missoulian

Exerpt from the Missoulian:

Justin Roper, Oregon's starting quarterback last season until a knee injury in Week 3, will play football for the Montana Griz in 2009.

He confirmed his decision on Saturday, choosing UM over UMass and Towson. Roper will move to the Garden City this week to begin summer school and get acquainted with his new teammates.

“Montana is very popular around this area, known for having a great program,” Roper said in a phone interview with the Missoulian. “It's a great atmosphere to play college football. A great college football state really.


“They win. That's very important to me. There's good team chemistry, and it looks like I'll have the opportunity to get to the NFL through them, too.”

Okay is this just me? I know he says "opportunity" to get to the NFL but isn't he jumping the gun a bit? I would think in an interview a player coming in should be focussing on telling us about how he wants to get the job done for the Griz not that we are the turnstile team to the NFL. At least winning is important to him..if it wasn't I would be really worried!! I'll probably get grief for being critical of the kid but I just thought they were unusual comments.
 
A few observations: Roper coming to UM is a good thing -competition makes good players great; there isn't a FCS coach around who would not have welcomed a drop down QB from an FBS school; it doesn't mean the coaches do not have confidence in the QBs that are already on the roster; perhaps UM picked up a guy who slipped through the FBS cracks in Selle, Larson, or Kemp - Kemp in particular was heavily recruited as a QB by Coach Schram at Utah and it was Coach Schram that put Kemp on UM's radar - had Coach Schram been the OC at Utah at the time it's a safe bet Kemp would have been a Ute and not a Grizzly; I'm very happy Kemp is a Griz - he has a big future there; how good UM QBs are cannot be determined by the Spring game - they had to deal with multiple bad snaps (Larson especially since he was with the 2s) and breakdowns in OL protection that definitely affected their opportunities for success; perhaps Roper will do better under the same circumstances, perhaps not, only time will tell; those of you declaring Roper the starter need to stop demanding UM to move up to FBS because by saying Roper should automatically be declared the starter you are saying UM does not currently have or recruit FBS caliber QBs - if you don't recruit FBS caliber QBs then you should not try to move up; a QB will only perform as well as his line (or scrambling abilities if his line is weak) will allow and since Roper has had a pretty good line at Oregon it will be interesting to see how he handles playing behind UM's OL; Imho UM should focus more on strengthening that part of the offense especially after what I saw at the spring game.

A few concerns: I don't think its a good thing to declare yourself an NFL prospect before you put up NFL caliber numbers at the collegiate level - looks like his completion rate is about 50% (with an FBS OL and FBS receivers) based on his numbers right now so he will need to work on that; also at 6'6" and 205lbs he is a little on the thin side for his height and if he does not possess a lot of speed he will need to put on about 30 lbs of muscle at least before he heads to the NFL; current team chemistry seems great but that can be disrupted by a player coming in thinking of himself first and the team second (Roper should be speaking of how he can help the Griz win games and not how the Griz can help him get to the NFL).

Just my two cents.
 
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