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The University of Montana Grizzly football team begins its 2012 spring practice sessions on Monday, and third-year head coach Robin Pflugrad and his staff will be scrutinizing their players more than ever, as the Griz need to replace 16 starters from their outstanding team of a season ago.
Montana, which is coming off an outstanding 11-3 season in which they won the Big Sky Conference regular-season championship, and won nine games in a row en route to advancing to the Football Championship Subdivision semi-final game, returns just two starters on defense and six starters on offense, along with 40 lettermen.
"When you look at the other Big Sky teams a lot of them have in the neighborhood of 18, 19 starters back, and usually it's one of those teams that finishes in the top, two, three, four and wins the conference title," Pflugrad said. "Unfortunately we are not there. We need to find out who those players are going to be. We had a somewhat similar situation our first year in the spring of 2010, however we did not have this many vacant spots as far as starters are concerned, and even depth."
The Grizzlies will practice March 19, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, and 30. They will take spring break off from April 2-6. The final portion of spring drills will be April 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 21. Practices on Monday and Wednesday will be held in Washington-Grizzly Stadium, while Friday's session will be at the Riverbowl practice site (weather permitting). Practice session will be from approximately 3:15-5:30 p.m.
There will be three scrimmages this spring, highlighted by the "Saturday Night Under the Lights" one on Saturday, April 14, in which the new lights at Washington-Grizzly Stadium will make their debut, with a 6:00 p.m. scrim slated that day.
The other two scrimmages are Saturday, March 24 and Saturday, April 21. Those scrimmage start times will be announced in the future. Montana opens its 2012 season hosting the Joe Glenn-coached South Dakota Coyotes on Saturday, Sept. 1.
Montana's returning starters on offense are senior tight end Greg Hardy, senior wide receiver Sam Gratton, junior guards Danny Kistler and Kjelby Oiland, junior quarterback Jordan Johnson, while senior running backs Dan Moore and Peter Nguyen shared the starting job.
Gratton tied for the team lead with 36 receptions last season, while Hardy had 22 grabs. Hardy was a first team all-league pick, while Kistler was a second team selection, and Gratton was tabbed honorable mention. Nguyen rushed for a team-best 835 yards, while Moore picked up 430.
Johnson was 205-of-343-9 (59.8%) passing for 2,400 yards and 21 touchdowns, and also rushed for four scores. Both Johnson and Nguyen received honorable mention all-league recognition.
On defense, there are just two starters back from last season in junior linebacker John Kanongata'a and junior safety Bo Tully. Junior linebacker Jordan Tripp was a starter two seasons ago, but missed last year due to an injury. Kanongota'a, who replaced Tripp as a starter when he was injured, was a second team all-league pick, and UM's second leading tackler with 93 stops.
"With expectations the way they are at The University of Montana, it's quite a challenging situation to try to identify eight or nine new starters on defense," Pflugrad said. "All we can do is just keep taking steps forward at every single practice, every single meeting, and every single scrimmage, and come out with who we come out with. That's who we have. We have a couple of spots that we will probably go out and recruit one, two or three more players, but it's not like the calvary coming right after spring football. That is not going to happen."
The Griz need to replace some of the most prolific players in school history on both sides of the football.
Key losses on defense include a pair of All-Americans in cornerback Trumaine Johnson and linebacker Caleb McSurdy, as well as all-league selections Bryan Waldhauser at tackle, and defensive backs Houston Roots and Mike McCord.
McSurdy was tabbed the Big Sky's "Defensive Player of the Year" last season, and had a team-high 131 tackles. Johnson, a four-year starter, set a school record with 35 career pass deflections, and his 15 career interceptions tie him for the third most in school history.
Other starters lost on defense were tackle Bobby Alt, end Ryan Fetherston, linebacker Alex Shaw, and tackles Ben Hughes and Tyrone Duncan, who shared a starting berth.
The Griz also lost record-setting kicker/punter Brody McKnight to graduation.
On offense, UM must replace prolific wide receiver/returner Jabin Sambrano and All-American tackle Jon Opperud. Sambrano led the Griz with 36 catches for 632 yards and 10 touchdowns a year ago, and finished ranked among UM's career leaders in several receiving and return categories. Another key loss is wide receive Antwon Moutra, who had 36 catches for 459 yards and three TDs. Also gone are tackle Charles Burton and center Steve Sabin.
"I like how we did in recruiting," Pflugrad said. "We probably didn't get as many drop-downs or transfers as we wanted with so many players leaving. We signed a lot of high school players (the Griz signed 20 prep players and have four transfers), and overall we think they are good citizens, had good transcripts, and have the athletic ability to play for our football team - and you have to look at all of those things these days in college athletics."
Another key aspect to spring drills this year is that the Grizzlies have two new coordinators: Ty Gregorak on defense and Timm Rosenbach on offense, and those two need to familiarize themselves with the players and their respective systems.
Last season the Grizzlies finished 7-1 in the Big Sky, including a 36-10 victory over their intrastate rival and No. 1 ranked Montana State on their way to garnering the regular-season championship. Montana then defeated visiting and 15th-ranked Central Arkansas 41-14 in a FCS second round game, then beat second-ranked Northern Iowa 48-10 at home in the quarterfinals, and ended its season with a 31-28 loss at top-ranked and undefeated Sam Houston State in a semifinal contest.
Montana 2012 Spring Practice Schedule:
March 19-21-23 (Monday-Wednesday-Friday).
March 24: Saturday Scrimmage in Washington-Grizzly Stadium, time TBA.
March 26-28-30 (Monday-Wednesday-Friday).
April 2-6: Spring Break.
April 9-11-13 (Monday-Wednesday-Friday).
April 14: "Saturday Night Under The Lights" Scrimmage in Washington-Grizzly Stadium, 6:00 p.m.
April 16-18-20 (Monday-Wednesday-Friday).
April 21: Saturday Scrimmage in Washington-Grizzly Stadium, time TBA.
