Griz Head Coaches: Not as Good as Advertised!

Anacomando · Post by **Anacomando** » Sun Dec 10, 2017 9:58 pm

People in Montana talk about the storied Griz football tradition and legacy of coaches. The facts are simply Griz coaches are not very good to begin with! Don Read failed multiple times at Portland St; had a run with the Griz, and now finds himself "game-planning" for Oregon State. Result: moderate success. Mick Dennehy rode Read's coattails to the 96' title game. Before that he was 10-12 at Western and after the Griz he was 19-37 at Utah St. Eventually he settled for retiring as Boulder Panthers athletic director. Joe Glenn was 21-18 at Doane, and was great at Univ. Northern Colorado and great again at UM. Conversely, he went 30-41 at Wyoming (as good as it gets in Wyoming) and finished at 12-34 at South Dakota. He went 200-134 overall. Great man...great winner! Easily their best coach IMO. He is retired. Bobby Hauck went an amazing 80-17 at UM and then an awful 15-49 at UNLV (as expected). He is 95-67 as a head coach. Pflugrad went 18-7 in just two seasons and then was abruptly fired! He now is an assistant at Phoenix College. Mick Delaney went 5-11 at Western in the early 90's and 24-14 at UM. Total he was 29-25 as a head coach. Lastly, Bob Stitt went 108-62 at Colorado School of Mines and 21-14 at UM. His record is 129-76.

My point is that no Griz coach in their era of "dominance" ever made it at the next level; therefore, none of them are outliers as amazing coaches! Cats have Sonny Lubick and Dennis Erickson as Cats that really made it at CSU and Miami respectively! Hands down, when you factor in Sonny Holland, the Cats have far more mentally advanced coaches then the Griz! FACTS! WINNING! Go Cats and FTG in December too!

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:20 pm

Beside Lubick, what other MSU head coach has had a chance to move up? Erickson was a graduate assistant after his playing days at MSU by the way.

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:01 am

Mick Dennehey and Mick Delaney both coached on Cat staffs.

Bobcat4Ever · Post by **Bobcat4Ever** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:04 am

Head Coaches moving up:

Jim Sweeney moved on to be head coach at Washington State and Fresno State.

Doug Graber went from head coach at MSU to head coach at Rutgers and the Frankfurt Galaxy of NFL Europe.

Dave Arnold, after FBS assistant positions, coached special teams for Seattle of the NFL.

Assistant Coaches becoming Head Coaches:

Joe Tiller hit it big at Purdue after being a player and an assistant at MSU.

Jim McElwain made it to head coach at Colorado State and Florida after five years as an assistant at MSU.

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:17 am

Two position coaches at MSU who still are doing well are Jim Michalizik and Pete Kwiatkowski.

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:21 pm

I thought we were talking about "Head" Coaches at MSU that moved directly to head coach at a 1A/FBS, which I can't seem to think of any. Lots of guys worked up as coordinators and position coaches at other schools before getting a head coaching job after leaving MSU(Lubick,Erickson,Sweeney,McElwain). We could get pretty crazy with anyone who ever worked/attended MSU and where they are now or have been. Head Coaches moving directly to FBS are pretty rare relatively speaking. Probably why Beau Baldwin went the coordinator route from Eastern. He would of probably ended up at Nevada or San Jose State. Going to coordinator route he'll probably get a Power 5 job in a couple years. Guess what I'm trying to say is "Not as Good as Advertised" and citing Erickson and Lubick isn't a an apple to apple comparison. Maybe their greatness/knowledge came from someone else they worked for later on(or it all came from MSU). On another note, have you seen how many jobs Erickson's had? He's been everywhere and back.

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:27 pm

Is it the coaches that make the teams great? or the teams that make the coaches great?

allcat · Post by **allcat** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 3:15 pm

Hawk wrote:Is it the coaches that make the teams great? or the teams that make the coaches great?

It's the school. Any affiliation with MSU makes you great. If you have an affiliation with UM, you were either lucky or failed.

Bobcat4Ever · Post by **Bobcat4Ever** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:05 pm

Hawk, my apologies for expanding the thread. I did double check and Sweeney went directly from here to head coach at WSU which was a D-I school. Sweeney might be the only one. He had one winning season in eight there.

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Thu Dec 14, 2017 11:44 pm

Bobcat4Ever wrote:Hawk, my apologies for expanding the thread. I did double check and Sweeney went directly from here to head coach at WSU which was a D-I school. Sweeney might be the only one. He had one winning season in eight there.

View Mr Lisle's thread. I believe he has identified 12 who were coaches in this conference and became head coaches at a higher level.