BOZEMAN, Montana — Montana State’s quarterback battle grabbed all the headlines this off-season. But the most contested starting position during MSU’s recently completed fall camp came in the middle of the Bobcat defense.
Josh Hill is a two-year starter entering his fifth year in the program. But he missed almost all of last season with a back injury. Chad Kanow was a rising star coming out of a true freshman year that saw him light it up on special teams. But he only played in half of Montana State’s games last fall while struggling with knee and shoulder injuries.
Michael Jobman started every game at inside linebacker next to toughness tone setter Grant Collins and showed flashes of his fortitude. But the rise of redshirt freshman Nolan Askelson, the significant improvements of converted quarterback sophomore Callahan O’Reilly, the steady presence of fifth-year senior Walker Cozzie and the addition of junior college transfer Blake Flovin made the inside linebacker competition on the MSU campus in August a fierce one.
Throughout the course of the season, it could be “a six-man rotation,” Montana State defensive coordinator Kane Ioane said on August 9. “If that’s how it is, that’s how it is. That’s just going to provide depth and as we know, injuries happen. But we feel really good about that group as far as overall talent and ability.
“The challenge, which is a good challenge, is figuring out who is going to be the playmakers when it’s all said and done.”
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Montana State head coach Jeff Choate said earlier this month that the evaluation of the position would be “critical because they have to know what the decision is and how the decision is going to be made.” He said the Bobcats used a production chart throughout camp that is posted in the locker room every day so everyone knows who is leading the battle.
With the release of Montana State’s first game week depth chart leading up to its season opener at Texas Tech on Saturday, Askelonson occupies the No. 1 spot at Mike linebacker ahead of O’Reilly.
“I don’t think it was his fall camp, I think it was his summer that put him in that position,” Choate said on Monday. “He was committed to being excellent. And I’ll be honest with you, I think Callahan O’Reilly was, too. Those two guys almost fed off one another. You could see Cal was coming in getting extra work. Nolan was coming in getting extra work. It’s almost like they were spying on each other. If one was going to get that work in, the other one was too. Those guys pushed each other every step of the way.
“There’s probably an argument to be made that at some point, those guys are Mike and Will instead of backing each other up. But Josh and Michael Jobman will have something to say about that too.”
At Will, Hill will return to the starting lineup for the opener ahead of Jobman. Flovin is the third Mike and Cozzie the third Will. Kanow is not on the first depth chart.
“They are not making my job easy, I’ll tell you that,” Daly said earlier this month. “I have a lot of good players in my room. That’s due to great recruiting before me. Hopefully, I’ve added to their games as well, trying to develop these guys as great young men and great young linebackers.
“I’m looking for aggressive, physical, fast players but smart football players. That’s really what separates: we have physical, fast guys. Now who’s the smartest guy I can trust to go out there and be in the right spot.”
Hill entrenched himself as an impressive playmaker with great instincts and a nose for the football as a two-year starter at inside linebacker in 2016 and 2017. Last season, Hill had to have off-season back surgery, a procedure that cost him all but Montana State’s final game, a 52-10 playoff loss to North Dakota State last season.
“He didn’t play for more than three months and he steps on the field and is arguably our best defensive player against the best team in the country,” Choate said.
Hill is only 5-foot-10, 210 pounds but he makes up for his lack of mass with a keen sense for the total picture of the Bobcat defense.
“He’s one of the smartest linebackers I’ve met,” Kanow said. “He’s helped everyone out. Even if it’s not his position, he still knows. He’s so smart and he’s always willing to help other guys out. I love having him back.”
Kanow went from special teams stud to front-runner to start at the other inside linebacker position in MSU’s 3-4 defense entering his sophomore season last fall. But the 6-foot-4 rangy linebacker who prides himself on being one of the hardest hitting Bobcats suffered an MCL tear during the season, then had surgery on his AC joint in his shoulder following the season.
“Dealing with injuries, the mental part is pretty hard,” Kanow said on August 22. “I had a lot of people around me to support me but it got tough some days, waking up and feeling your body can’t really move that well. Having people around me who care about me and want to see me do great things really helped me a lot.
“At one point when I was injured, I was 235 but that was just fat, not good weight at all and I felt slow. Now I’m at 225 and I feel pretty good at that weight.”
Upon his return, Choate has identified Kanow as “a physical force” and “a more physical version of one of our most physical players.”
“My thing is physicality, just knowing you are the hardest hitter on the team. I might not be but in my head, I tell myself that,” Kanow said. “
“Hitting is the thing that keeps me going. You get one good hit and your confidence is building. It’s just something different with it. Growing up, I started smacking people and it’s always something I’ve enjoyed doing.”
The 6-foot-5 Jobman is up to 241 pounds, 30 more than he came to Montana State with as a former Class B standout at Huntley Project High in Worden, Montana. That added weight could help him capitalize on a sophomore campaign that saw him notch 73 tackles and three tackles for loss.
The 6-foot-2 O’Reilly is up to 228 pounds, more than 20 pounds up from what came in at as a quarterback out of Bozeman High. Three years later, Daly said O’Reilly is pound for pound one of the strongest players on the Bobcats.
“I think it just came down to a little productivity throughout the course of fall camp,” Choate said of Askelson edging out O’Reilly. “Cal came on late. You could see the light bulb came on a little bit.”
But Askelson has a chance to be one of the breakout players on a Bobcat defense flush with talented veterans at all three levels. The former Class AA Defensive MVP out of Billings Senior stood out as a true freshman last season, blocking a punt in MSU’s 35-14 win over No. 24 Incarnate Word in the first round of the FCS playoffs and getting snaps against the rival Grizzlies as well as NDSU.
The 6-foot-1, 222-pounder plays with great instinct and play recognition. He is a flush tackler with good speed sideline to sideline and a fearlessness at the point of attack.
“I love the competition, man,” Askelson said. “It’s a great group of guys I’m competing with. Cal is a great player, one of the hardest working dudes on the team. Moving into fall camp, Coach moved Josh Hill over the Mike. I’ve watched him since high school and I know he’s a great player so I knew I had to step up my game if I wanted to get out there.
“We worked hard all summer. I saw them grinding and I knew I had to grind. It was a good competition and I know it brought out the best in everybody.”
It remains to be seen if Askelson and Hill can entrench themselves as the players who receive the majority of game snaps at inside linebacker or if any of the others can make a case to be in the rotation heavily.
Because Montana State returns some of the most fearsome edge players in the FCS — freak athletes like 6-foot-5, 255-pound edge Bryce Sterk and prodigious converted offensive weapon Troy Andersen, a 6-foot-3, 228-pound thoroughbred — opponents will likely run right at MSU’s inside linebackers. Choate hopes the deep yet unproven group is ready for the challenge.
“There is going to be a lot of balls that are funneled to those guys so they are going to have to be efficient tacklers,” Choate said. “You look over the hill and you think about a Dante Olson. That guy is a tackling machine but that’s because other guys are doing their jobs. It’s not like he’s making every play by himself out there. We have to have the ability to funnel the ball and not allow teams to hit us vertically and crease us.
“I believe those guys will be just fine.”
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Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
