BOZEMAN — Jeff Choate remembers when he was a player at Montana Western in Dillon, when spring football finished, everyone went home for the summer. The Bulldogs would report back for fall camp in August and get into shape as quickly as possible with the first game fast approaching.
Those banked repetitions with your team in spring were so essential. Not so much anymore if you ask Montana State’s head football coach.
As Choate enters his third year at the helm for the Bobcats, his thoughts on spring football have changed significantly.
“Now, 90 to 100 percent of our roster stays in town for the summer,” said Choate, who is 9-13 but has two wins in two match-ups against rival Montana so far at MSU. “We can get a lot of really good work done all summer long and learn to practice without beating each other up with our player-run practices.
“Last year, in the last 10 minutes of the spring game, we lost a guy who was arguably our best defensive player throughout spring ball (sophomore linebacker Jacob Hadley). That tore my guts out. Not only was it a meaningless scrimmage in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t even in the season. If I’m going to lose a kid, I want to lose him on Saturday.”
Hadley, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound athletic specimen out of Billings Central, suffered a torn ACL during the Sonny Holland spring game last April, an injury that cost the projected starter the 2017 season. To avoid similar injuries, Choate has revamped MSU’s spring football schedule, which began on Saturday morning.
The Bobcats will practice three times before taking a week off for spring break. Upon return, the team will practice three times a week from March 20 through April 6, mostly going in the mornings except on the weekends. Montana State will hold its spring game on April 7, have one more practice the following week and wrap spring drills with some non-contact 7-on-7 during the Triangle Classic in Great Falls on April 14.
“The reason we are going so early and looking to finish so early is I want to let these guys get back in the classroom,” Choate said. “Semester schools it’s always hard because if you back spring ball up, it’s right up against finals. They are finishing football, they get a week of being a normal student again and then it’s finals week. I didn’t feel like that was best for our kids. I felt like it was better to have a little more, have three or four weeks to dig back in as a student and then hit finals.”
A collection of key contributors will either be absent or limited during the 15-practice schedule. Senior Buck end Grant Collins along with junior inside linebackers Brayden Konkol and Josh Hill are all recovering from shoulder surgery, as is sophomore outside linebacker Balue Chapman. Collins, Konkol and Chapman will miss spring ball while Hill, like Hadley and senior wide receiver John D’Agostino (knee) will be limited.
Redshirt freshmen defensive tackle Travis Yates and offensive lineman Brody McKnight will also be limited because of injuries.
“They don’t give you any rings for winning spring ball so my objective is to let some of these young guys get some work, focus on some of the things in the passing game we can do without a ton of contact,” Choate said. “Work on our fundamentals and get the heck out of the field house and do something different for a few weeks because it gets a little mundane when you are in here just pounding weight all the time.”
The other big hit is a broke foot suffered when he slipped on ice by transfer quarterback Travis Jonsen. The former four-star recruit graduated from Servite (Anaheim) High early in hopes of winning the starting job under center at Oregon as a true freshman. He suffered a broken foot during spring drills, eventually falling behind former Montana State quarterback Dakota Prukop, an Oregon graduate transfer, and then rising freshman Justin Herbert. Jonsen spent last season at Riverside Community College, where he again played sparingly after former blue chip Victor Viramontes left Michigan and landed at Riverside.
“I feel bad for Travis because he’s kind of gone the yo-yo route already,” Choate said. “He gets here and thinks he has a fresh start and then this thing happens. I’m frustrated that he’s not out there in the spring because I’d like to see what he can do. I think a guy like Tucker Rovig is probably going, ‘Ok, I’ve been waiting for my turn anyway.”
Jonsen’s injury will delay the anticipated quarterback competition that will also include incumbent junior Chris Murray, the leading rusher in the Big Sky Conference last season, and redshirt freshman Tucker Rovig, a 6-foot-5 former 3-star recruit from Boise who sat out last season.
“We want to have great competition there, we have to have great competition there,” MSU second-year offensive coordinator Brian Armstrong said. “We just didn’t have that a year ago. Whether it’s Cheddar (junior Brady McChesney) or Tucker or Travis coming back this summer, we have to have it. You definitely have to have more than one ready to go and everyone is at their best when they are getting pushed and you have to compete.”
Other than Murray, Montana State returns a collection of offensive starters, including four offensive linemen who started last season. Senior center Alex Neale is the only one who will play the same spot. Junior Mitch Brott will switch to left tackle after two years bookending the right side and sophomore Taylor Tuiasosopo will switch from left guard to right guard. After playing at guard as a redshirt freshman, Lewis Kidd is expected to take over at right tackle.
MSU will be in the market for a new starting running back after the graduation of Nick LaSane, the retirement of senior Noah James and the departure of junior Edward Vander. Indiana transfer Tyler Natee, a 6-foot, 265-pounder who prepped at Euless (Texas) Trinity High, is the front-runner to be MSU’s new bell cow out of the backfield. Senior Logan Jones and sophomores Anthony Pegues and Tyrel Burgess will also receive plenty of spring reps as the Bobcats await the addition of four freshmen in the fall at the position.
“Tyler Natee has been a great fit,” Choate said. “Awesome kid, very strong. We try to have him lose weight. He lost body fat but he didn’t really lose any weight so he’s right around 265 pounds. But he’s light on his feet. He looks good going through running back drills. Extremely powerful, a great weight room guy and I love his personality. He’s fit right in in our locker room and has been awesome to be around.”
MSU must replace captains left tackle Dylan Mahoney and wide receiver Mitch Herbert, but the rest of the skill positions are flush with experience. MSU will have three senior tight ends — Connor Sullivan, Curtis Amos and Wilson Brott — with game experience.
Outside X wide receiver Jabarri Johnson, slot receiver Kevin Kassis and speedy, tall Z receiver Lance McCutcheon start out as the top players on the depth chart at their respective positions. Karl Tucker II, a Great Falls CMR product who played as a true freshman two seasons ago, will move to running back after only cracking the rotation on special teams the last two falls.
Defensively, Montana State returns four players with starting experience on the defensive front not including Collins, who is expected to return to the fold at some point during his senior season. Seniors defensive tackle Zach Wright and nose tackle Tucker Yates are expected to be leaders of the unit and team while junior Derek Marks and senior Tyrone Fa’anono will share time at end opposite Collins’ Buck.
“The evolution of this deal and one of our objectives this spring is to identify who can rush the passer and develop them into some dudes who can help us on Saturdays,” MSU defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak said. “I think we have some guys in the program, we just have to find them.”
With Collins on the shelf, Choate and Gregorak will get plenty of time to observe Hadley, who’s been moved to the front line, as well as Washington transfer Bryce Sterk, a 6-foot-4, 252-pounder who has impressed during winter conditioning.
“Bryce Sterk has just found a home here,” Choate said. “The comparison I use with Bryce is Alex Neale, when he went to UNLV, that just wasn’t the right fit for him for whatever reason. From the time he stepped on to our campus, he had a smile on his face, wearing his flannel walking around, you knew Bozeman, Montana was where he was supposed to be.
“And Bryce is a lot that same way. You can tell he feels at home here. He’s been awesome. He’s strong, he looks good. I think he can be a part of our answer in terms of being able to get more pressure on the quarterback.”
Konkol and Hill are sure to reassume their starting inside linebacker positions once they assume full health. In the mean time, two-way star Troy Andersen, the Big Sky Freshman of the Year last season, will spend the spring concentrating on linebacker. He rushed for 515 yards and notched 45 more receiving yards, scoring six total touchdowns while also playing about 15 snaps a game at linebacker, notching 15 tackles.
“Troy Andersen had a huge role on our team a year ago,” Choate said. “Can we let him play Sam linebacker for 15 practices and see how he does and see where we are at and truly be able to evaluation where we are at.”
Andersen will be the front-runner to replace first-team All-Big Sky selection Mac Bignell at Sam regardless of the health of the hurt linebackers. Michael Jobman, a 6-foot-5 long-limbed athlete from Huntley Project who played Buck last season, is up to 245 pounds and is now playing Mike linebacker. Chad Kanow, a special teams standout as a true freshman last season, and redshirt freshman Tadan Gilman will get reps at Will linebacker with Konkol on the shelf.
Callahan O’Reilly, former quarterback out of Bozeman High, has been moved to inside linebacker for the spring.
In the secondary, senior cornerback Braelen Evans announced he will pursue a graduate transfer after earning his degree in May. The rest of the group includes junior Damien Washington and sophomores Jale Cole and Tyrel Thomas, all who have been thrown to the fire early on since Choate took over.
Safety may be MSU’s biggest position of concern defensively given the loss of All-Big Sky performer Bryson McCabe. Junior JoJo Henderson, a talented but banged up former junior college transfer, and Dre Jackson, himself a junior college transfer who will be a senior, are the front-runners to start with Luke May and Brian Campbell, both preferred walk-ons and high school quarterbacks, providing depth.
“It’s been a revolving door on the back and and we have to get it right,” Gregorak said. “Continuity on the coaching staff will help so much.”
For the first time since before Choate arrived, Montana State will have the same coaches in the secondary — Mark Orphey will work with corners, Kyle Risinger will coach safeties — for a second straight season. MSU running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Michael Pitre took a job on Jonathan Smith’s staff at Oregon State. Wide receivers coach Matt Miller will take over recruiting coordinator duties while Pitre’s spot on the staff has been filled by veteran coach Bob Cole, MSU’s new passing game coordinator.
Other than that, the staff returns in tact with Armstrong calling the offense for the second straight year, Gregorak calling the defense and coaching the linebackers for the third straight year, BJ Robertson coordinating the special teams for the third straight year, DeNarius McGhee coaching quarterbacks for the second straight year and Byron Hout working with the defensive line for his third season.
A combination of coaches including Choate, McGhee and Armstrong worked with the running backs during Saturday’s first practice of spring.
On special teams, Robertson returns second-team All-Big Sky punter Jered Padmos for his junior year. The Boulder native is the only returning All-Big Sky player for a Bobcat team that brings back 44 lettermen and bring 24 players off of redshirt. Kicker Gabe Peppenger left the program in the off-season and will be replaced by Cofffeyville College transfer Tristan Bailey if Bailey can beat out converted wide receiver Jacob Byrne, a converted wide receiver.
“There will be times when we want to let the young guys get after it a little bit and show us what they have because they didn’t get a chance to being on the scout teams throughout the course of the season,” Choate said. “But spring ball has to change a little bit. Our focus needs to be on the summer. We get all the guys here in the summer so we can have some good training together, there’s probably more carry over into that into August then there is in March and April.”
Brooks Nuanez reported this story. Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
