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Portal and Roster Limits

HelenaHandBasket said:
First, last season and this season are 2 completely independent things. Second, are they really underperforming based on the last 15 years or was last season the exception?
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I guess I don't get how you think last season, and this season are independent? Same coaches, many of the same players and philosophies. You construct a roster to have sustained year over year success, not to have one good year every four. I get the argument you are trying to make, but roster management is as important as it's ever been and playing in a title game and then having this year's disappointing results either speaks to roster miss management or being on the fortunate side of some good luck last season. And judging by how things are going, next year doesn't look much better, even when considering the easy schedule.

I like Bobby. Think he is a great guy, parent and husband. I think he is passed the prime of his coaching, mostly because of his disdain for how the game has changed. The reality is, recruiting in college football is 247/365 now. You have to recruit prep players, recruit portal players and recruit guys on your own roster to stay. Many may not like it, I suspect he despises it, but it's the reality. If he is unwilling to go balls to the wall every year trying to build a championship level roster than he should not be coaching a program like UM. He just does not outwardly seem like he is excited and energetic about coaching anymore. He says a lot of the right things, but you can tell a lot of it is just telling people what they expect to hear.

Don't get confused, I want him to be successful at UM. Would like nothing more than for him to lead us to a title, but I won't blindly support him like some either. He gets paid the big bucks to win football games, and when he doesn't, he should deservedly get some criticism.
 
GrizRealist said:
I guess I don't get how you think last season, and this season are independent? Same coaches, many of the same players and philosophies. You construct a roster to have sustained year over year success, not to have one good year every four. I get the argument you are trying to make, but roster management is as important as it's ever been and playing in a title game and then having this year's disappointing results either speaks to roster miss management or being on the fortunate side of some good luck last season. And judging by how things are going, next year doesn't look much better, even when considering the easy schedule.

I like Bobby. Think he is a great guy, parent and husband. I think he is passed the prime of his coaching, mostly because of his disdain for how the game has changed. The reality is, recruiting in college football is 247/365 now. You have to recruit prep players, recruit portal players and recruit guys on your own roster to stay. Many may not like it, I suspect he despises it, but it's the reality. If he is unwilling to go balls to the wall every year trying to build a championship level roster than he should not be coaching a program like UM. He just does not outwardly seem like he is excited and energetic about coaching anymore. He says a lot of the right things, but you can tell a lot of it is just telling people what they expect to hear.

Don't get confused, I want him to be successful at UM. Would like nothing more than for him to lead us to a title, but I won't blindly support him like some either. He gets paid the big bucks to win football games, and when he doesn't, he should deservedly get some criticism.
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They are independent because things aren't the same. All the players aren't the same, all the returning players didn't play the same, the schedule and the opponents, not the same, injuries...not the same. The outcome last year was the blip, not this year. This year looks like pretty much every year for the past 15 except last year. I know people want UM to be more successful, but over the last 15 seasons the Griz have averaged 8.5 wins per year, but in the 8 years in between 1.0 and 2.0 that fell to under 8 and since 2.0 has jumped over 9. The Griz have had 10 or more wins in 3 of BH 6 seasons since his return and only had 2 of 8 when he was gone. The Griz won 8, 6, and 7 games the 3 years prior to BH returning. BH has made the program better, he just hasn't been able to find the continuity to match the 1.0 era. Reality is, this season matches or exceeds 9 of the past 14. Bobby has 3 of the 5 better seasons.
 
playing in a title game and then having this year's disappointing results either speaks to roster miss management or being on the fortunate side of some good luck last season.
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Bingo. Clif was lightning in a bottle. Coupled with a stout D and you get a trip to the Natty.
 
GrizRealist said:
They still had a pretty clear upward trajectory even following a first-round exit. It was pretty easy to look ahead after that loss and already know they'd open the season top 5 and be a NC contender. Thats the difference here, I think. While I'm glad UM won a playoff game and lost in the second round to the potential Champion, no one is looking at next year's Griz team the way people were looking at this year's Cat team after their playoff loss. UM is on a downward trajectory, and anyone not wearing maroon colored glasses can see that.

Also, I know you are going to twist this like a pretzel trying to refute it and saying its false, but I'm here to tell you that you're one of the few who think thinks are all fine and dandy right now.
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I didn’t think the Cats were destined to be a great or top team after their last season. So don’t include me in your everybody. UM is not on downward trajectory. Jeez, UM was just the no 2 in country last year. One season doesn’t make a trajectory. That’s just plain stupid. Don’t misrepresent what I say and think.
 
GrizRealist said:
A team in the championship 11 months ago should not be having the kind of roster issues UM is having in all fairness. When teams wind up in the title game only to go back underperforming the standard it means the stars aligned in many ways, but mostly from a personnel standpoint, during the title run. The personnel this season was inadequate and looks to be even worse next year.
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What roster issues? Few good or top players in portal so far. Cats lost more top players to portal last year. How can you judge the talent at this I T if season and with the Portal. That’s silly.
 
AZGrizFan said:
Bingo. Clif was lightning in a bottle. Coupled with a stout D and you get a trip to the Natty.
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PTGrizzly said:
5, 4, 3, 5, 2, 5.

Those are the losses in each year since Hauck has been back.

T6, T3, T3, 6, 1, 5.

Conference finishing place since Hauck has been back.

With the context of this year, it’s beginning to look like 2023 was an aberration, especially considering how many juniors and seniors were on the 2024 team. Depth isn’t looking great. It’s a good thing 2025 is the easiest schedule in recent memory.
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Teams don’t get to national champ game based on luck.
 
mthoopsfan said:
I didn’t think the Cats were destined to be a great or top team after their last season. So don’t include me in your everybody. UM is not on downward trajectory. Jeez, UM was just the no 2 in country last year. One season doesn’t make a trajectory. That’s just plain stupid. Don’t misrepresent what I say and think.
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Program trajectory can absolutely be deduced on a season by season basis. Do I need to draw a graph for you? We lost most games than last year. Downward. Our roster is much worse than last year. Downward. Next years roster looks to we worse than this one. Downward.

You can theorize and sunshine pump all you want. Doesn’t change what is actually occurring.
 
GrizRealist said:
Program trajectory can absolutely be deduced on a season by season basis. Do I need to draw a graph for you? We lost most games than last year. Downward. Our roster is much worse than last year. Downward. Next years roster looks to we worse than this one. Downward.

You can theorize and sunshine pump all you want. Doesn’t change what is actually occurring.
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You can also look at Hauck 2.0 years and say the overall program trajectory is upward.
 
mthoopsfan said:
Teams don’t get to national champ game based on luck.
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I have heard some of the best college coaches say “to win a championship alot of things have to go right, including having the ball bounce your way a few times every season”

There were definitely elements of last season when the Griz were fortunate to execute on some very low percentage plays that played a big part in them getting to Frisco. Furman and NDSU come to mind.

Sometime a team catches some breaks. The Griz caught some last year.
 
HelenaHandBasket said:
You can also look at Hauck 2.0 years and say the overall program trajectory is upward.
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It’s currently going in the direction of losing more and the kind of roster overhaul needed to correct it will take multiple years to establish, especially considering Hauck is not going to attack the portal.
 
HelenaHandBasket said:
You can also look at Hauck 2.0 years and say the overall program trajectory is upward.
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Do we really have to keep debating semantics? Why can't we just all agree that the current iteration of the Montana Grizzlies football team is not good enough. The coaching staff needs to do better. They need to do a better job of recruiting and bringing in players that can get the program back to where they're expected to be, not only by the fans but by the administration, etc. I don't think this should be controversial. Bobby 2.0 might be better than what we had after he left the first time, but it's not good enough, and saying so shouldn't be debatable IMO.
 
mthoopsfan said:
Teams don’t get to national champ game based on luck.
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I would disagree slightly. I think the year Johnson was the QB his injuries kept us from advancing much further in the playoffs. Akem's injury against JMU hurt badly. Sneed's injury and playing on one leg hurt against Weber. All three of those squads were very, very good but had "bad" luck injury-wise that kept them from advancing.

Hell (while I don't think we were beating them), one could argue McDowell's injury early in the SDSU game was bad luck as well, and impacted the game significantly.
 
HelenaHandBasket said:
They are independent because things aren't the same. All the players aren't the same, all the returning players didn't play the same, the schedule and the opponents, not the same, injuries...not the same. The outcome last year was the blip, not this year. This year looks like pretty much every year for the past 15 except last year. I know people want UM to be more successful, but over the last 15 seasons the Griz have averaged 8.5 wins per year, but in the 8 years in between 1.0 and 2.0 that fell to under 8 and since 2.0 has jumped over 9. The Griz have had 10 or more wins in 3 of BH 6 seasons since his return and only had 2 of 8 when he was gone. The Griz won 8, 6, and 7 games the 3 years prior to BH returning. BH has made the program better, he just hasn't been able to find the continuity to match the 1.0 era. Reality is, this season matches or exceeds 9 of the past 14. Bobby has 3 of the 5 better seasons.
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I think you are misunderstanding what I am getting at.
But I’m also not sure we should use the time in between 1.0 and 2.0 as the bar for a successful season. Those were not great years, and saying Hauck 2.0 is successful because he has done better than those years a handful of times is congratulating him on clearing a pretty low bar.
 
GrizRealist said:
It’s currently going in the direction of losing more and the kind of roster overhaul needed to correct it will take multiple years to establish, especially considering Hauck is not going to attack the portal.
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So if the Griz win 10 games next season, how does that play with the overall trajectory? What about 9? This is why using a small, 1 year change, doesn't really give a clear picture of overall trajectory.
 
HelenaHandBasket said:
So if the Griz win 10 games next season, how does that play with the overall trajectory? What about 9? This is why using a small, 1 year change, doesn't really give a clear picture of overall trajectory.
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With next years schedule it would be a huge disappointment if we don't win at least 10 games maybe even 11 games.
 
GrizRealist said:
I think you are misunderstanding what I am getting at.
But I’m also not sure we should use the time in between 1.0 and 2.0 as the bar for a successful season. Those were not great years, and saying Hauck 2.0 is successful because he has done better than those years a handful of times is congratulating him on clearing a pretty low bar.
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So you want to use the time prior to 2010 to base a successful season? Not sure using a benchmark from 15+ years ago is an accurate gauge. What you can agree is that Hauck has been successful based on the 6 season between 1.0 and 2.0. People continue to think that the Griz program is elite, but that hasn't been the case in 15 years...think about that. 11 wins isn't the norm. 10 wins isn't the norm. I get people want more, but the lack of reality of where this program currently is perched and the expectations that winning is easy really cloud fans.
 
HelenaHandBasket said:
So if the Griz win 10 games next season, how does that play with the overall trajectory? What about 9? This is why using a small, 1 year change, doesn't really give a clear picture of overall trajectory.
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This year's results combined with the current roster does not give much optimism for next year. That could change with transfers, but that can go either way. We've seen very impactful transfers in the past, but this year they were mostly duds. In the current FCS landscape, Montana should be in the semi-finals every year. 9-5 is unacceptable, especially considering the recent success happening down the road.
 
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