Going to weigh in on this because the way it's being shaped by the pro-Hauck crowd bugs me a great deal.
If you want Hauck to return, ok. On many levels, it's understandable. You want to return to an era when the Griz were successful on the field, and Hauck was the last person in charge when that happened. Personally I don't think Hauck possesses any special coaching abilities, and think Grizzly football was set up for success in that era by a number of factors, including institutional momentum (which no longer exists) but maybe you want to return to that brand of boring, but disciplined football. At least Hauck cared about playing defense and protecting his quarterback, two things Stitt seemed to think were annoying inconveniences. I don't believe Hauck will be successful again (at least not as successful as he was), but that's mostly because I believe the entire conference has evolved. Re-hiring him is a clear sign your school is trapped in the past, and that you don't trust yourself to find a dynamic coach because you whiffed on Stitt, who proved he was not nearly as smart as gushing profiles about his success at the friggen School of Mines made him out to be.
And if you're Pro-Hauck person, you're mad (so mad!) that the local media is recounting a number of things that shaped the culture of the program -- and the school -- during Bobby's tenure. You're mad mostly because you don't want to defend these things, even though no matter how hard you try, you know basic acts of criminality aren't the fault of the media (but the actual criminals).
I don't expect a football coach to babysit his players 24/7. College kids (in particular college-aged men) often do stupid things, and this is true at Montana, at Eastern Washington, at Baylor at Florida State and Clemson. You have to factor "character concerns" into recruiting, but in reality, winning is primarily what matters so if you have to gamble that you can keep a few talented bad actors in line, you'll do it. Everybody does it, from Saban on down.
What matters, though, is how you react to those misdeeds. How you handle the fallout when when of your players pistol whips a drug dealer (in order to steal and sell his drugs) or is accused of sexually assaulting a woman, or gets in a fight at a party and runs from the cops. (All things that happened under Hauck.) How a coach handles crisis is where I still have major reservations about Hauck, and don't believe he'll ever change. Whether you like the media or not, you're the most high profile (and highest paid) employee at a public university. There is a maturity and responsibility that comes with that job. Even Nick Saban is asked how he's going to handle the discipline of his players when they misbehave, and instead of throwing tantrums and acting like a child, he understands one of his jobs is to defuse the tension, not escalate it. The idea that the Missoula media puts any real pressure on the football coach is laughable when you compare it to how major programs are covered. No one benefits from the head coach throwing a tantrum and yelling at student reporters in a press conference for asking why two players aren't in the line-up when they've been involved in a fight. No one at the university benefits when you act like a child and refuse to answer questions from the same reporters for weeks, simply for daring to ask questions about how you're disciplining your football team.
Grizzly football has never been something Missoula has supported blindly. The town and the fanbase supported it, and grew to love it, because of people like Don Reed and Joe Glenn. And a big reason for that was they didn't treat it like war, they wanted the program to feel like part of the community. They didn't feud with the local media, they understood that the relationship was mutually beneficial. Grizzly athletics did not feel corporate, they felt like something you were emotionally invested in. If you don't think the deterioration of that had an eventual effect on enrollment, you're living in a total fantasy. No, Montana's enrollment issues aren't entirely related to football or the sexual assault stuff — plenty of it has to do with the long-term value of STEM degrees vs. liberal arts degrees — but they certainly played a roll. Longing to return to an era where the most high-profile employee carries himself with a snarling arrogance is not a way to fix those issues. If I were Bodnar, or the Board of Regents, I'd be very hesitant to hand the keys to an employee who seems to believe "I answer to no one, and FU if you don't like it."
If Bobby Hauck has grown from his UNLV experience and understands he can be both a hard-ass on the practice field, but handle his larger responsibilities with more charm and humility than he previously did, great. I'll be impressed. (I did enjoy the way he used to troll the Cats, mostly in good fun.) But blaming the media for Hauck's self-inflicted problems (which then contributed to the university's most pressing problems) is a foolish approach.