Predictably, there was no shortage of qualified candidates who expressed interest in replacing Bobby Hauck when he resigned as University of Montana’s head football coach in December to take the top job at UNLV.
Nor should it be any surprise that UM Athletic Director Jim O’Day has kept a short list of interested parties at his disposal for the last several years.
That’s why it’s not surprising to see how he was able to quickly winnow down a list of some 100 interested parties and pull the trigger on a hire nine days after he received Hauck’s resignation.
While O’Day knew there were plenty of coaches interested, he was quick to point out at the start of the interview process that any prospect for the job needed to realize what they were getting into by contemplating a move to head the most successful Football Championship Subdivision football program in the country.
“Eight wins just isn’t good enough around here,” he told me recently in a radio interview during a Griz basketball game.
The last time Griz football won only eight games was the in Hauck’s third season in 2005, then in the second and third season (‘97 and ‘98) of Mick Dennehy’s tenure, which ended at the close of the 1999 season when he left for the head coaching job at Utah State University.
How quickly we have come to believe that eight wins is just not enough for the Montana football program.
And that is the albatross that now hangs around the neck of new head coach Robin Pflugrad, who was selected for the position after two unsuccessful attempts to get the job when Joe Glenn, and then Hauck, were hired.
In Pflugrad, there is no better person to understand where modern-day Griz football began and the juggernaut it has become.
When Pflufrad came to Missoula from Portland State with Don Read in 1986, Montana had been to the playoffs just three times since the FCS/I-AA system originated in 1977.
The Grizzlies had enjoyed just four winning seasons since the Hall of Fame teams of ’69 and ’70 and had won just 63 games in the previous 15 years, or an average of fewer than five a year.
But remember, those were the days of the old Big Sky Conference, when Idaho, Nevada-Reno and Boise State traditionally battled for league supremacy, leaving teams like the Grizzlies and other middle-of-the-road teams to vie for league spoiler.
The Griz lost to Nevada seven of the last nine times the two teams met; to Boise State eight of the last 12 meetings; and before Idaho left the league, Montana won just 4 of the last 13 matchups.
Montana now has enjoyed 25 straight winning seasons, a record 17 straight of which have resulted in a playoff berth.
Since Pflugrad and the remainder of the Read regime left Missoula after the 1995 championship campaign after winning 85 games – the most by a staff in Griz history – Montana has won 158 games in 15 years, an average of more than 10 per season.
Pflugrad, who paid his dues with assistant coaching stops at Washington State, Arizona State and Oregon, has big shoes to fill and soon will face the usual and often unrealistic expectations of Griz Nation.
He is assembling a coaching staff with several familiar names from Grizzly past, but be assured it’s the future that is most concerning and challenging. There’s no doubt in my mind, he is the right guy for the job and will be up to the task.
But remember, in Missoula, eight wins just isn’t good enough.