Who are new heavy's?

[alabamagrizzly]

I did.

Autocorrect didnt

Thats not how autocorrect works. Also, if you had "auto" correct, it would've automatically corrected didnt to didn't. Thank you for putting forth valid evidence that you're a liar.

 

[GrizNut]

Where do you get the 114 figure? Again, I am not questioning it .

I will do the best I can to explain it, but most of it is using knowledge I know to be true along with educated guesses of how Hauck and the Staff (possibly even Haslam) made decisions. It isn't gonna be short. Some of it is snipped from articles.

"The Decision Timeline

• June 19, 2025: Montana initially announced it would opt out for the 2025–26 academic year. The program originally planned to wait until the 2026–27 school year to build out the required financial and administrative infrastructure.
• Late June 2025: The NCAA introduced last-minute modifications to the settlement structure, creating the "Designated Student-Athlete" grandfathering clause. This adjustment meant schools would not be forced to make immediate, sweeping roster cuts.
• June 30, 2025: Armed with the new roster-protection rules, Montana reversed its decision and opted in right at the deadline. This allowed the athletic department to immediately access direct player compensation and revenue sharing without sacrificing current player spots."

Montana's athletic director, Kent Haslam, explained that this grandfathering provision is exactly why the university changed its decision and opted into the settlement for 2025-26.

The following is based on what the house settlement timeline dictated.
The football team was already above 105 players. Rather than cutting those athletes:

• The first 105 players count toward the roster limit.
• The additional players (for example, 9 players, if the roster is 114) are designated as Designated Student-Athletes.
• Those designated players remain on the team and are excluded from the roster count until they graduate, exhaust eligibility, transfer, or otherwise leave the program. As each designated player departs, the exemption disappears, and eventually Montana's roster naturally shrinks to the permanent 105-player limit."

The following is based on what the house settlement timeline dictated:
Montana's Roster at the end of the 2024 season included 116 athletes. 21 athletes exhausted their eligibility and an additional 32 left the program for various reasons. This dropped the base roster number to 63 players. The staff had signed 23 Freshmen in the 2025 Recruiting class. That brought the roster number to 86 players. They also signed 29 transfers bringing the total roster spots to 115 in the spring.

My guess is at that time they delegated 10 players as Designated Student Athletes. I would guess they focused on incoming 2025 Freshmen since tagging those players would make the most sense for longevity. It isn't posted who the players are that were selected, but let's guess that it was the following:
1. Hashim Jones
2. Brady Beaner
3. Brock Beaner
4. Malaki Davis (I have a theory about him)
5. Quinlan Hyatt
6. Lincoln Hoefer
7. Kaikoa Kanakaeole
8. Colton Lentz
9. DeAnte Gentry (I also have a theory about him)
10. Sage Salopek

Most of the above are 3 star players (which means little to me, but all of them also saw pretty decent playing time in the fall or looked pretty decent in their reps in the spring game. My theory on DeAnte is he is one of the ones who left the team this year and thus may have lowered us to the 114 mark that my roster count is currently at (although I don't think my count is deadly accurate). There was also rumors that Malaki Davis had left the team but came back. Did they work to get him back to maintain the additional roster spot? Not really sure but it is a fairly sound theory.

Oddly enough, Montana did not carry 114 players on their roster during 2025 (which is also why I feel the 10 players above are pretty solid choices for the Designated Student-Athletes. In 2025 the roster included 108 athletes. But as I stated above we are hovering around 114 players again. It is totally possible that the number is lower than 114, but I can't see it being much lower than 109.

Here are the breakdowns for the current roster, from what I can tell, that I posted above:

Depending on drop offs going into the summer, our roster is pretty full. I counted 114 total players compared to 109 from 2025. My count includes:

-All players on the official 2026 numeric roster. (87)

-All incoming freshmen announced as part of the 2026 recruiting class. (21) I also included Hudson Schraeder who was announced but isnt on Payton's List

-Wallace, Tupou, and Sandford who are spring/summer transfers but are not on the online numeric/TBD roster.

-I also included Jaquwan Breckenridge, Walter James, and Ka'onohi Casco who were on the spring game roster, but do not appear on the online numerical/tbd roster.

I would guess that we need to be down to 109, but I am not sure if we had gray-shirts that were part of the roster that I didn't know about.

My guess is that we are able to go back up to 114, because we only lost one of our Designated Student-Athletes...Of course, we could be surprised by players not being out when we hit Fall Camp.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[oldngrizzly]

Some would rather be grammar police which maybe an insight to posters on egriz. I was trying to incite (verb) means to encourage, urge, or provoke someone for a possible answer that sounded credible.