New Griz coach right at home in Montana

University of Montana head football coach Bob Stitt may be new to the Grizzlies, he may be new to Missoula and to Montana, but he sure seemed to feel right at home when he visited Havre for the first time.

Stitt, and UM Athletic Director Kent Haslam were in Havre Tuesday, at a luncheon at Tilleman Motors to talk Grizzly football and UM athletics, and right away, Stitt made mention of the fact that it hasn’t taken him long to grow accustomed to Montana life.

“I’m really excited to raise our boys in Montana,” Stitt, who comes to UM after a highly successful 15-year stint at NCAA Division II Colorado School of Mines said in front of a crowd of strong Grizzly supporters. “They have become city boys the last few years, but this is how I grew up. This is the type of environment I grew up in. And we’re really excited to be here in Montana and raise our family in this type of environment.”

Stitt said he was raised in small-town northern Kansas, and he played his collegiate football, and started his coaching career in small-town Nebraska. However, Tuesday, he also noted that Grizzly football is anything but small. He talked passionately about the passion the Grizzly fan base has for the program he takes over from Mick Delaney. He talked about understanding how high the expectations are and more than once, he referenced the amazing game day atmosphere at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, which, as Haslam spoke about earlier, is getting a massive upgrade with the eventual building of the Washington-Grizzly Champions Center, a football operations building, which will be a game changer for the program when completed.

“We feel like we can compete with anyone in the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision), but with a facility like that, we feel like we can go out and compete in recruiting with the FBS mid-major type schools, with facilities that match them or are better than them, and we have a game day environment that is better than most FBS schools. So it’s already awesome, and we feel like those facilities are going to make it that much better.”

Awesome indeed. But, in his first season at the helm of one of the all-time winningest FCS programs, Stitt knows there’s work to be done. He mentioned several times on Tuesday about opening the season with four-time FCS national champion North Dakota State. But he also mentioned that high expectations and a rabid fan base are things he relishes, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s a lot like when I was in Nebraska,” he said. “The fan base is huge and they really care about how you do. They really care about everything Grizzly football. So there’s a different kind of pressure there. There’s high expectations. But that’s what we want. We are setting the bar very high for this program.”

Expectations are high at UM, and Stitt cherishes those expectations and challenges. But there is one game each year that he isn’t as familiar with as the rest of the Montana fan base, and those in attendance Tuesday — the annual Griz-Cat rivalry. That’s the game that everyone in Montana cares about more than the rest. And while he’s yet to experience the true intensity of the rivalry, he said that he doesn’t think it will take him too long to get accustomed to how the Brawl of the Wild works.

“It’s something that I’ve heard a lot about, and I watched part of the game this year,” Stitt said of the Brawl. “It’s something I’ve been a part of before, when I was a player, it was Nebraska-Wesleyan. We hated their guts. We couldn’t stand them, and it’s one of those things that if you lost that game, it would ruin your life, and we never lost to them. And I don’t plan on changing anything with rivalry games now. We’re out to win them all. Because it’s so important to our fans, it puts a lot more pressure on us to be prepared and ready for that game. It’s a huge rivalry, and you can’t just show up and really understand it, but as this season goes on, I’m sure we’ll get more and more emotionally attached to it. And I’m really looking forward to it. I’m really looking forward to that Griz-Cat week.”

No doubt Stitt will embrace Griz-Cat week, as Griz’ fans like to refer to it. Listen to the man for just five minutes and you would swear he’s been the head coach at Montana for a decade, instead of just five months. He’s engaging, enthusiastic and extremely personable, and he’s already embodying everything that the proud Grizzly program needs and wants in its head coach.

And with his small-town roots, his old-school coaching philosophies mixed with his innovative, fast-paced offensive scheme, it was easy to see, in person on Tuesday, that the Grizzlies have landed a head coach that has had everybody talking since the day he was hired. And in just a little over four months, all of Griz Nation will get to see him, and his Grizzlies in action when they take on the Bison in front of a ESPN national TV audience.

“I’m so excited,” Stitt said. “For a coach like myself, this is an opportunity of a lifetime, to coach this team. When Kent (Haslam) first called me about the job, I actually couldn’t believe they were contacting me. Montana is the big-time and through the process, I just kept thinking the rug was going to get pulled out from under me. So I’m really thankful that Kent stuck with me, and I couldn’t be more proud and excited to be this program’s head coach.”