Montana State football was another tough injury break when head coach Brent Vigen announced that 2022 first-team and 2023 preseason All-Big Sky tight end/fullback Derryk Snell would be out longer than expected.
Snell missed the Sacramento State game and was expected to play against Idaho last Saturday. He didn’t suit up for the Vandals and will likely be out for the remainder of the regular season.
The senior is one of the fan favorites on the MSU roster. He’s widely known as the “Alaskan Assassin”, a moniker given to him by former MSU assistant coach turned color commentator for Bobcat’ games on MTN, Ty Gregorak, who also serves as a lead analyst for Skyline Sports.
Snell’s role on the team is a difficult one as he’s lined up in multiple positions and requires multiple skills to be proficient. He has nearly four seasons of snaps and experience, which is difficult to replace at any position. Taking over the spot is another highly skilled player in Bozeman High product Ryan Lonergan.
“We’re not going to ask Ryan to do all the things we ask Derryk to do,” Vigen said. “Derryk is uniquely talented and he’s got the number of reps playing that position and the wide variety of reps that that position can be asked to do. We are not taking for granted that just throwing a guy in there is going to be able to do it.”
Snell has hauled down 12 passes for 159 yards and three touchdowns on the 2023 season, but is also a key to the Bobcats’ formidable run game that averages over seven yards per carry on the year. The role that Snell’s hybrid H-back position is most responsible for is setting the edge offensively, which has been one of the most important factors in MSU averaging 7.5 yards per rush this season so far.
“I think you find a few things that we can rep through the course of these weeks and then ideally Ryan feels really good about those things going into the game,” Vigen said. “It takes some things away from us because of how skilled and talented Derryk is.”
The Bobcats are coming off a 24-21 loss where they struggled mightily on offense in the first half against the Idaho Vandals. MSU didn’t score and managed just 52 yards on 19 plays. MSU didn’t get its first 1st down until there was 93 seconds left until halftime on its fourth possession – a drastic differentiation from the mean of over eight yards per play MSU had established in the seven previous games. Certainly, not all of that was due to Snell being out but it did play a role in the troubles the Bobcats were having.
MSU bounced back in the second half with a performance that it is more accustomed to with 232 yards on 28 plays (8.3 per play) and 21 points.
How the Bobcats finish the remaining three games of the season may hinge to a certain extent on the play of Lonergan, who now has two full games under his belt, but hasn’t been targeted with a pass in either game. His blocking has been significant as MSU was able to rush for over 300 yards against Sacramento State and when disregarding a sack against Idaho, ran for 88 yards on 12 carries in the second half, which right at the team’s average of 7.2 yard per carry.
Snell’s injury is added to a list that also includes: senior starting running back Lane Sumner for the season to a lower body injury; sophomore nickelback Caden Dowler out for the season with a knee injury; senior offensive guard Cole Sain and junior All-Big Sky offensive guard J.T. Reed out for the season until this point; and sophomore defensive tackle Zach Black to a season-ending knee injury.
Sophomore slot receiver Taco Dowler missed the first seven games of the season while recovering from off-season shoulder surgery. Junior captain and starting inside linebacker Danny Uluilkepa suffered an elbow injury against Sac State that will likely cost him the rest of the regular season.
Plus, sophomore safety Dru Polidore has missed time in games and has played last two weeks with a giant cast on his hand.
Montana State came out of the Idaho game with plenty of questions. They return home to Bobcat Stadium after two straight weeks on the road against top ten teams for a game with upstart Northern Arizona this Saturday at 1.
