Jeff Choate has a long list of ideas and critiques when it comes to the landscape of college football. From maximizing player welfare to ensuring the student-athlete experience is a memorable one, Choate has already established a reputation as a players’ coach during his eight months as the head coach of the Montana State Bobcats.
Choate has added a training table to the Bobcat football locker room to improve nutrition. He has gone to bat for transfers like cornerback John Walker to ensure he is accepted into graduate school at MSU. He has elected to give his players their entire stipend checks from their scholarships rather than withholding money in exchange for required trips to Miller Dining Hall like was the norm under former MSU head coach Rob Ash.
[restrict paid=”true”]
“Being put first by your head coach is something completely new this year,” Montana State senior offensive guard J.P. Flynn said during the Big Sky Kickoff media conference in Park City, Utah earlier this week. “It’s unbelievable as a player. He cares about us. We get all our scholarship checks. One of the main things he really works on is nutrition. He knows being at an FCS school, we have limited funds but that a guy works his tail off to do whatever he possibly can to get whatever he can for us. It’s honestly pretty unbelievable.”
Choate’s nutritional contributions have included stations in the locker and weight rooms stocked with wheat bread, peanut butter, jelly, milk, Gatorade, post-workout recovery shakes, a full freezer of ice cream and frozen fruit, tables complete with ninja blenders and all the protein shakes one could imagine. But it doesn’t stop at free lunch, Flynn said.
“He goes out of his way to make sure in every way shape and form that the student-athlete comes first and that doesn’t just include nutrition,” Flynn said. “Gear, money, whatever he can do, scholarship funds, our full checks, food, anything he can do for us, he is going to do it.”
Choate’s ability to adjust and revamp Montana State’s football culture in a short amount of time has been noticeable. Factor in that Choate took over for Ash, a man who won more games (70) than any coach in school history and claimed three Big Sky Conference titles during his nine seasons at Montana State and Choate’s changes are even more notable.
“I think culture change is very challenging regardless of the circumstances of what you walk into,” Choate said during an interview in early July. “I have to create the culture that I think we can win with at Montana State.
Among the most pressing concerns and biggest critiques of the current FCS landscape from Choate is the challenges of summer workouts. Choate spent most of the last decade as an assistant in the FBS with stops at powers like Boise State, Florida and Washington building his resume before he moved to Bozeman. At Power 5 schools, the football programs employ strength coaches for every position group that are allowed to work with athletes throughout the summer. The football programs also have the scholarship budget to pay for summer school for the majority of their roster. Neither is the case at Montana State or in the FCS.
“The biggest thing I don’t get about the FCS rules is I don’t understand why we can’t be around our players,” Choate said. “We have a limited number of people to take care of them anyway. At the FBS level, we had 12 strength coaches and all this administrative support. There were tons of people around if our kids needed someone. I think we should have access to our players. We are not paying for these guys to stay in the summer so if they are going to sacrifice their summer, we should be able to provide them with some instruction and some support.”
In an effort to maintain the foundation Choate and his new staff built during 15 spring football practices, the Bobcats used an entire session to map out a plan for player-run summer practices. Flynn missed all of spring drills after tearing his patella tendon in Montana State’s 54-35 loss to rival Montana in Bozeman last November so he spent the first six-week session under Choate serving as sort of offensive line coach alongside new OL coach Brian Armstrong.
“For me, it was seeing the game from a different side, seeing the game how a coach sees it, which makes me be more understanding toward Coach Armstrong,” Flynn said. “There’s a lot of times where I would get frustrated with Coach Mac or Coach Eck in the past but now I can see it through different eyes and it makes a big difference.”
Flynn has used that new lens to become a sort of extra coach this summer as well. Flynn and a group of other leaders have conducted at least three hour-long practices per week throughout the last few months as the opening of fall camp approaches on August 6 for the Bobcats.
“This summer has been a huge change from the past,” Flynn said. “We get a script put together and we go ones vs. ones, everything you would ever expect from like a first day of fall camp.
“In the past, summer was just kind of a thing. It was like, ‘summer workouts, let’s go do some ladders and maybe some pass sets.’ Now it’s the real deal. We are continuing to better ourselves.”
The development of the Bobcats has not been limited to the confines of Bobcat Stadium. In the past, Flynn said dozens of players came and went during the summer, making workouts when they can and rarely enjoying all the aspects that Montana has to offer outside of the football arena. This summer, Flynn said the Bobcats have about 90 percent of their roster in town and the bonding has gone beyond practicing plays.
“We just got back from an offensive line retreat, floated the Big Horn river, fly fished,” Flynn said. “That’s a new experience for some of these guys. (UNLV transfer) Pat (Carroll) claims himself as a five-star resort kind of guy. It was his birthday and I asked him what he would’ve been doing on his birthday and he said this was the last thing he would’ve been doing. He probably would’ve gone down town. Now he’s done something he’s never done before. It may have not been the most exhilarating experience but it was an eye opening one and so much fun.
“Ever since I came to Montana, I’ve gotten into so many things that I love,” the Bettendorf, Iowa native continued. “I didn’t know what fly-fishing was before I got here. Now I can’t tell you how much money I’ve spent on it, how much time I spend with it. It’s a true passion of mine. Montana has so many special activities you have to find. Coach Choate wants us to pass on the love for the 406 on to the new guys and create that culture.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserved.
