Postseason accolades continued to roll in for Montana head coach Bobby Hauck on Tuesday with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) naming him the FCS Region 5 Coach of the Year.
This marks the fourth time Hauck has been named AFCA Regional Coach of the Year in addition to 2006, 2009, and 2023. He was also named a finalist for the Eddie Robinson FCS Coach of the Year for the third time on Monday.
The AFCA recognizes five regional Coach of the Year winners in each of the Association’s five divisions: Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Championship Subdivision, Division II, Division III, and NAIA. The winners are selected by Active members of the Association who vote for coaches in their respective regions and divisions.
Hauck receives regional honors again this year alongside some of the best in the game, including Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Clark Lea of Vanderbilt, Kevin Cahill of Lehigh, and Chris Fisk of Central Washington, who led the Wildcats to an undefeated regular season outside of a loss to the Griz on Sept. 6.
Former Grizzly and Helena native Kyle Samson, now the head coach at Montana Tech in Butte, also received Region 5 Coach of the Year honors at the NAIA level after leading the Orediggers to an undefeated regular season at 11-0.
The AFCA will announce the 2025 National Coach of the Year winners in FBS, FCS, Division II, Division III and NAIA on Monday, December 15. The Regional winners in each division are finalists for National Coach of the Year. Each will be honored on Monday, January 12, during the 2026 AFCA Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Hauck recently became the winningest coach in both overall and league wins in Big Sky Conference history and is now one of the top 10 winningest active coaches in all D-I football. He led the 2025 Grizzlies (picked to finish third in the preseason Big Sky Coaches’ Poll was pegged No. 7/9 in the preseason polls) to an 11-1 regular season with 11-straight wins to earn the No. 3 seed in the FCS Playoffs.
This year’s Grizzlies returned zero starters on defense and just 25 lettermen from a year ago, with a sophomore first-year starting quarterback and 63 of the team’s 107 total players listed as underclassmen and six underclassmen starting four-plus games. Hauck guided them to a top three national ranking for the last five weeks of the regular season and was one of just four teams in UM history to start the year 11-0.
Hauck is now 149-42 overall and 86-23 in two terms as the Grizzlies’ head coach. His win percentage in conference games of .788 is the best percentage of the top 10 winningest coaches in league history, meaning year-over-year he’s won more games than any other coach in a shorter amount of time.
His 149 wins at Montana make him the second-winningest active FCS head coach and one of the top 10 winningest active coaches overall in D-I football, along with notable mentors like Kirk Ferentz of Iowa, Dabo Swinney at Clemson and Kyle Wittingham at Utah. He’s also one of the top five winningest coaches in all D-I football at his current school.
He’s an eight-time Big Sky Conference champion and enters the 2025 FCS playoffs having won 18 postseason games at Montana, currently the third most in tournament history.
2025 AFCA Regional Coach of the Year Winners
Football Bowl Subdivision
Region 1: Brent Key, Georgia Tech
Region 2: *Clark Lea, Vanderbilt
Region 3: *Curt Cignetti, Indiana
Region 4: Joey McGuire, Texas Tech
Region 5: Timmy Chang, Hawaii
Football Championship Subdivision
Region 1: Kevin Cahill, Lehigh
Region 2: Bobby Wilder, Tennessee Tech
Region 3: Joel Taylor, West Georgia
Region 4: Steve Englehart, Presbyterian
Region 5: Bobby Hauck, Montana
Division II
Region 1: #Jim Clements, Kutztown
Region 2: Kaleb Nobles, West Florida
Region 3: John McMenamin, Northwest Missouri State
Region 4: Chris Fisk, Central Washington
Region 5: Jay Long, Chadron State
Division III
Region 1: C.C. Grant, Coast Guard
Region 2: Dan Wodicka, Johns Hopkins
Region 3: Tony Kunczewski, Berry
Region 4: Brad Spencer, North Central
Region 5: Mike McElroy, Bethel (Minn.)
NAIA
Region 1: *Myles Russ, Keiser
Region 2: Ted Karras, Marian
Region 3: Joel Osborn, Benedictine (Kan.)
Region 4: Joel Penner, Dordt
Region 5: Kyle Samson, Montana Tech
*-2024 winner
#-2023 and 2024 winner