Category Archives: WAC

July 26, 2012 · 10:51 PM

In unsurprising move, UM names Mick Delaney head coach

By Taylor Anderson, Big Sky Country News

There was something eerily calm to the late-July morning air in the final hour leading up to the University of Montana press conference regarding its Athletic Department Thursday at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

But football coaches, GSA donors and media were swarmed the steps leading up to the Canyon Club donning smiles and laughs, and morale was clearly high among the crowd.

Despite the tough decisions to be made closer to the start of school and the football season, associate athletic director Dave Guffey led the press conference by saying “this is a positive press conference, which in Griz athletics is a good thing.”

Indeed.

UM President Royce Engstrom started off by thanking Mick Delaney for his time in the off-season serving as interim head coach after the firing of Robin Pflugrad and Jim O’day without reason.

“We need to take this step at this time to support our recruiting efforts of our student athletes, who need to know who they will be playing under as a coach,” Engstrom said.

Ironically enough, Engstrom passed the baton to interim athletic director Jean Gee to announce Delaney’s two-year contract.

Gee started off by listing some accomplishments within Grizzly athletics last season before introducing Mick Delaney as full-time head coach of the football team.

“Certainly hiring a head coach is one of the most impactful decisions an administrator can make. I am honored and excited to announce Mick Delaney as the next head football coach at the University of Montana,” Gee said.

Delaney, a native of Butte, served under Pflugrad as “team mentor.” Before that, Delaney was an assistant coach under Sonny Lubick at Colorado State for 15 years. He also served under Bobby Hauck in 2008.

Delaney repeatedly said he would emphasize character and academics within his players.

“We’re trained as coaches to do and handle the unexpected. That’s our profession. We have 126 years of coaching experience on our staff,” Delaney said.

“The good things, the bad things, they’re unexpected, a lot of them,” he said. “But for the most part, this job is not only the best job in FCS football, it is probably the easiest from being able to handle the young men that are playing football at the University of Montana.”

That may have been an overstatement on Delaney’s part. The status of two of the Grizzlies’ more experienced quarterbacks are in question from legal troubles off the field.

Prosecutors haven’t yet decided to pursue charges against starting Grizzly quarterback Jordan Johnson after sexual assault allegations arose earlier this year. He is in a civil no-contact agreement with the woman, and remains on the Grizzly roster.

Gee announced this summer that Gerald Kemp was released from the team before then interim coach Delaney clarified that he was “indefinitely suspended” and could potentially return to the team. Kemp was involved with an altercation with police with former Grizzly cornerback and current St. Louis Ram Trumaine Johnson.

“I can guarantee you that we will recruit kids with high character number one, good academics number two,” he said.

“We have four commitments as of this time, I would guess maybe after today we would get a couple more. Can’t talk about specifics there, but Montana is good to us.”

In his first move as head coach, Delaney went on to name two new assistant coaches to his staff. Kefense Hynson, former wide receivers coach at Yale, will coach special teams and tight ends. Ross Brunelle, former Grizzly football player, will coach as well.

Montana has won 12 of the last 13 Big Sky Championships.

Engstrom said Delaney’s leadership will help ensure “excellence on the playing field, excellent in the classroom, and excellence in character and citizenship.”

Gee said in an interview after the conference that the nationwide search for a full-time athletic director is underway and that Engstrom should make that announcement later in August.

As far as the NCAA investigation on the UM football team, Gee didn’t say whether naming Delaney head coach indicated that fans could relax.

“I think any investigation that we’re undergoing right now, you know, we’re cooperating, it’s going along as it’s supposed to go along,” Gee said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s connected that this is going to have an impact on anything. This is what we needed to do for our team.”

The NCAA this week unleashed a $60 million fine on Penn State for its poor handling of Jerry Sandusky’s sexual assault scandal, which prompted a story by Gwen Florio of the Missoulian questioning whether UM would face similar sanctions.

At no point did the Engstrom, Gee or Delaney mention the three investigations currently underway at the University of Montana and in town by the Departments of Justice and Education and the NCAA.

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· 8:49 AM

UM Athletic Department to hold press conference

By Taylor Anderson, Big Sky Country News

Speculation on Thursday’s press conference is only that, so guessing what will happen is tricky. There is a lot going on at the University of Montana, but the school this summer has been close to mum.

UM is currently in the eye of a storm as the Departments of Justice and Education continue a combined investigation of the town and school handling of sexual assaults in the last three years. The NCAA is conducting a separate investigation of the UM football team since January.

The NCAA has remained silent on its investigation but said it would take about six months to complete, lining it up with the end of July.

“Thank you for your inquiry … however, the NCAA does not comment on current, pending or potential investigations,” said Cameron Shuh, associate director for public and media relations for the NCAA.

There are two interims in place within the Athletic Department: Jean Gee as athletic director and Mick Delaney as head football coach. Both received the positions after UM President Royce Engstrom fired Jim O’Day and Robin Pflugrad without specifying his reasons.

Grizzly quarterback Gerald Kemp was also “indefinitely suspended,” as Delaney told the Missoulian in July.  Gee announced that Kemp had been released from the team before Delaney told the paper Kemp could possibly return to the team at some point.

The Missoulian does a good job summarizing what’s happened with the athletic department to date with regard to the sexual assault scandal and investigations, although its press conference preview doesn’t mention Kemp, which could be clarified during Thursday’s 10 a.m. meeting.

News has been slow flowing from the paper after it reported on a trove of emails by university official after the sexual assault investigations rocked the school and town this summer.

The start of the fall semester, and subsequently Griz football, is quickly nearing. But still the hardest anvil has likely not yet fallen. In a week when the NCAA already hit Penn State with a $60 million fine—what some consider worse than a cancelled season—it’s worrisome to speculate what penalties UM could receive.

At 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, something is going to happen to UM athletics. It will either be big, or something bigger will come soon after in August.

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June 12, 2011 · 4:29 AM

Opinion: Montana football needs more than Pflugrad’s cordiality

June 11, 2011

Success in the coming season for University of Montana Grizzlies football is more than a quirky coach with a friendly smile away.

Pflugrad’s entrance last season from a coaching job at Oregon appeased Griz fans as the Hauck regime left for deeper waters in the FBS at UNLV. Maybe it was the perception that an FBS coach – one from Oregon, no less – would provide comfort to a team fresh off a Championship loss and starving for a championship for a decade.

His behavior in press conferences provided stark contrast to the dictatorial nature of Hauck’s conferences. Sloughing off rumor questions with a sarcastic remark in serious tone showed news-watchers that their coach had everything under control.

Partly, that was true. The team stayed out of criminal situations more easily than during Hauck’s years. Aside from DUI convictions, the players were on their best behavior during the 2010 season.

But a well-behaved team in Griz Country seems to matter less to fans than having a crime-ridden backfield. Hauck showed his stance on the issue when he put up a wall of silence on a reporter from the school’s newspaper who asked about alleged criminal activity from Griz players. The players were accused of beating up a UM student at a party near campus.

Talk of a do-or-die 2011 season for Pflugrad’s second year at Montana is whispered (if not thought about loudly) around Missoula. The fan base holds its coaches in high regard and expectation when it comes to getting another championship.

History bodes well for under-performing coaches at UM. A head coach has never lasted less than three seasons at Montana since George “Jiggs” Dahlberg stepped in and coached for a single season. He went 1–4 during the 1945 season. (Dahlberg also coached the basketball team that season and later became athletic director).

It’s not likely that Pflugrad would get the boot after a 7–5 season, unless, perhaps, the team underperforms again next season. Losing to the Montana State Bobcats during a frigid November, potential playoff deciding game left Griz fans with a salty taste in their mouths, so the 2011 game in Bozeman could have added importance. A Grizzly team hasn’t lost to Montana State in consecutive seasons since the 2002 and 2003 seasons.

Hauck lost the 2003 Griz-Cat game during his first season as head coach. He went 9–4 and lost a double-overtime FCS playoff game to Western Illinois.

The team has tried to fill the gaps left by departed seniors like Chase Reynolds, Jimmy Wilson, Brandon Dodson, and the quarterbacks, Andrew Selle and Justin Roper.

The team already possesses talent in the running back spots with Peter Nguyen and Jordan Canada. But the quarterback spot was perhaps the most notorious spot on the Grizzlies roster during the off-season.

The team entered the magnified departures of Tate Forcier and Nate Montana from Michigan and Notre Dame respectively. Forcier visited the Montana campus and considered the school on his list for his junior season, but later signed on with Miami, where he will sit out a mandatory redshirt season before he is allowed to play in 2012.

Montana slithered onto campus with covert visits to campus with his dad, NFL legend Joe Montana, and meetings with the athletic department before he enrolled in school there and walked onto the team before spring drills started.

Montana doesn’t solve the team’s quarterback woes, however. The backup at Notre Dame entered a three-man pool of players vying for the top quarterback spot. Montana’s DUI charge in June may have come at the best possible time as the team is in limbo between spring drills and summer ball, so he may slip under the radar unless Pflugrad decides to take action. Montana pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The coaching drama came during an interesting year for the University of Montana athletic department. Talk of trying its hand in the Western Athletic Conference (an FBS league) solidified after the school was the subject of WAC commissioner Karl Benson’s desperate attempt at expanding the conference after losing three of its biggest football members, Boise State (2011), and Nevada and Fresno State (2012).

It was also the first semester under the school’s new president, Royce Engstrom, aired on the side of certainty by deciding to stay in the Big Sky Conference. Making the leap into the FBS, along with being a risky jump into a lopsided pool of talented football teams, would have come with financial insecurities that the school couldn’t afford to disregard.

The debate came after the first season Montana missed the playoffs since 1992, so even participating in talks of taking every athletic team to an arguably superior conference outraged some and dumbfounded others. Fans weren’t ready to give up watching playoff games in Missoula, and displayed realism from a franchise that could have easily been tempted by the stories of Boise State, which left the Big Sky and moved into the WAC, where it has become a powerhouse.

The fans opted rather for the tale of Idaho, who, like Boise State, played in the Big Sky against Montana, but chose to move into the then-Division I conference, where it has been among other lame ducks with similar backgrounds.

Going back to the days of witnessing football dominance only at the high school level and not on a national scale is a fate that fans eclipsed back twenty-odd years ago, so regressing to that is out of the question. The athletic department considers itself flattered for the inclusion in any WAC expansion, and pledged to use it as fuel for moving back into football dominance in the FCS.

But dominance must resume quickly. Griz fans aren’t one to forget how the team lost to its cross-state rival last season (a game that was perhaps decided by three ballsy calls to try to score on fourth inside field goal range resulted in three turnovers instead), in minus-20 degree weather was a sad way to end a sad season.

The Grizzlies start off with a road game in Tennessee should be viewed as a guaranteed wad of money for a department that needs it rather than a chance at defeating a once-dominant FBS Volunteers squad. Starting 0–1 would mean the team has ten more chances to prove itself against a schedule that includes FCS champion Eastern Washington (albeit an Eagles squad minus Taiwan Jones), along with Cal Poly, Weber State and Montana State teams that defeated the Grizzlies last year.

If the team wants to re-assert itself as the team of terror in the Big Sky before it welcomes new teams and splits into two divisions, it had better start early, and under the reigns of coach Pflugrad if he enjoys his time in Montana.

-30-

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November 2, 2010 · 7:12 AM

Big Sky: Soon to be biggest

Taylor W Anderson

11/1/10

 

With the announcement of two teams joining the Big Sky Conference, and one more likely to join later this month, commissioner Doug Fullerton hopes to send a message to other schools considering a move in conferences that the Big Sky will remain an athletic powerhouse in the west.

The University of North Dakota and Southern Utah University have accepted invitations to join the BSC on July 1, 2012, along with football-only affiliates Cal Poly and University of California, Davis.

The expansion coincides with shaky ground across the NCAA, which has seen conference realignments and shifts since last summer when the Pacific-10 Conference absorbed Colorado and Utah to create the PAC-12.

The Big Sky released a press release Monday afternoon, confirming speculations over the expansion. The release announced plans for the future 13-team conference, as well as plans to add the University of South Dakota, which would make the Big Sky the largest conference in the Football Championship Subdivision.

The release included the following statement: “The Big Sky does not anticipate losing any of its current nine core members.”

When asked Monday to clarify the statement, Fullerton said, “Probably in that statement is a little bit of hopeful thinking.

“But let me just say right now, I guess the statement was made because we have no knowledge that anyone is leaving at this particular time,” he said.

The announcement comes in the wake of speculation over whether the University of Montana would accept a looming invitation to the Western Athletic Conference. Montana athletic director Jim O’Day was present at a meeting in Texas in October at which directors from four separate schools made presentations while O’Day did not.

The debate over whether or not Montana will try and make a move has become a messy debate, and is weeks from the finish line. But as the future FCS mega-conference tries to solidify itself with scheduling, time for Montana’s debate must draw to an end.

If it decides to stay, the 14-team football conference will be the largest FCS conference in the nation.

An even number of teams in a conference brings scheduling issues that Fullerton said are not yet settled. He confirmed that a divisional split would likely occur, likely geographically, stating, “I think you could come close by just grabbing a map and taking a look at it.”

If geographical location is at the forefront of the Big Sky divisional issue, it is likely that Montana, Montana State, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho State, Weber State and Southern Utah would become common conference competitors.

That scenario would leave Sacramento State, Cal Poly, UC Davis, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, Portland State and Eastern Washington in the other division.

“You gotta be careful about how big you get,” Fullerton said of the emerging giant. “But I think that the vision we have of how we’re going to develop the schedule in divisions will actually break the conference down into a couple of capsules and we will be able to actually save money on travel.”

Fullerton expects the conference to remain stable, and to demonstrate to schools like Appalachian State, Villanova and Montana, which are seriously considering moving into the Football Bowl Subdivision, that the FCS can remain a safe-haven.

“I think the vision of what we could be out here in the west is very much helpful in retaining current members,” Fullerton said.

UND and SUU both have softball programs. Their addition into the Big Sky will bring the number of members with softball programs to six, meaning the Big Sky will officially sponsor softball as a conference sport when the conference officially expands in 2012.

O’Day said at the beginning of talks over an aging feasibility study that Montana will likely add softball as a sport in the future.

 

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· 1:21 AM

Big Sky now the biggest

Big Sky Expansion

Taylor W Anderson

11/1/10

Big Sky now the biggest

Two schools have accepted invitations from the Big Sky Conference to join as core members in 2012.

The BSC sent out a press release Monday making the official announcement that the University of North Dakota and Southern Utah University have joined. The University of South Dakota did not join, but BSC commissioner Doug Fullerton is negotiating and anticipates USD joining before 2012.

The release said the BSC doesn’t anticipate losing any of its now 13-member league, contrary to speculation over the University of Montana moving to the Western Athletic Conference.

All four original members – Idaho State, Montana, Montana State and Weber State – are still in the league.

The BSC now has 11 core members, and two football affiliates, with Cal Poly and UC Davis both announcing plans to join in 2012.

If South Dakota joins the conference as expected, the BSC will be the biggest conference in the Football Championship Subdivision, and the BSC will have absorbed all of the football members of the Great West Conference.

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