Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a series breaking down the Montana State Bobcats following the third spring under head coach Jeff Choate and his staff. Today’s installment addresses the quarterbacks.
BOZEMAN — Jeff Choate returns his starting quarterback for the third straight season in his third season at the helm for Montana State. Yet MSU’s head coach continues to search for someone to push Chris Murray.
The electric but sporadic dual-threat quarterback from Inglewood, California burst onto the scene by rushing for 180 yards and three touchdowns off the bench in MSU’s 41-38 loss at Sacramento State. Two weeks later, he took over the starting job against Weber State and has been Montana State’s sole starter under center ever since.
The 2016 Big Sky Freshman of the Year led the Bobcats to back-to-back wins to end his freshman season on a high note after MSU lost the first six Big Sky Conference contests of the Choate era. Murray’s 142-yard, two-touchdown rushing performance in a 24-17 win over rival Montana etched him into the lore of the rivalry in his first-ever face off with the hated Griz.
Last season, Murray showed flashes of brilliance — his 311 yards passing, 107 yards rushing and four passing touchdowns in a narrow 31-27 loss to No. 3 South Dakota State and his 306 total yards, four total touchdowns in a 49-21 win over North Dakota come to mind — but also could not rid himself of the inconsistencies that also plagued his rookie season.
Murray completed just eight passes in a rainy 25-17 home loss to eventual Big Sky Conference champion Weber State. The next week on a windy Saturday at Bobcat Stadium, Murray completed just two passes for nine yards in a 30-22 win. He completed more than 50 percent of his passes just three times in the next eight games, finishing the season at 51.5 percent for 1,597 yards, 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Murray again led the Bobcats to a win over the rival Montana Grizzlies, rushing for 99 yards and a touchdown and throwing for 98 yards in a 31-23 win in Bozeman, MSU’s first against its most bitter foe in Bozeman in more than a decade. But the glory of beating the Grizzlies hasn’t netted much else as Choate enters his third season with a 9-13 record.
In the off-season, Choate moved quarterbacks coach DeNarius McGhee, a former two-time Big Sky Offensive MVP, to running backs coach and added veteran Bob Cole as the passing game coordinator. Choate and his staff also added Travis Jonsen, a former 4-star recruit out of Servite High School in Anaheim, California who began his career at Oregon and made a stop at Riverside Community College before landing at MSU.
But Jonsen slipped on the ice and broke his left foot, an injury that cost him spring football his first year at Oregon and eventually played a factor in him losing the starting job, ironically, to former MSU quarterback Dakota Prukop, a graduate
transfer who started for the Ducks in 2016.
Jonsen’s injury combined with Brady McChesney’s abrupt retirement midway through MSU’s recently completed set of spring football practices has meant Murray and redshirt freshman Tucker Rovig have taken almost exclusive reps over the last six weeks.
“I think we have one guy who has clearly separated himself from the other,” Choate said following the Sonny Holland spring game that served as the finale for his third spring at the helm. “I think we will have to have Travis Jonsen come in and compete, Casey Bauman come in and compete and Tucker Rovig will have to take the next step.”
Cole has served as an offensive coordinator for seven college programs, including at Portland State and Montana in the Big Sky. Cole worked for Mick Denney in 1999 and 2000 for the Grizzlies before following Dennehy to Utah State, where he first crossed paths with Choate in Choate’s first college job.
Cole has since made stops at Florida A&M, Wyoming, Western Kentucky and Northern Illinois, where he coached former Heisman Trophy finalist Jordan Lynch, a dual threat quarterback who led UNI to unprecedented success.
At Montana State, Cole inherits an incumbent who is one of the most explosive athletes in the league in Murray, a highly recruited former 3-star gunslinger in Rovig and an unproven player who was once one of the top quarterback recruits in the country in Jonsen. Cole agrees that Murray clearly separated himself form Rovig during the spring.
“He’s got a giant upside,” Cole said. “I don’t know what he’s charted at now but he’s probably 70 percent in all the team settings and well over that in 7-on-7. He gets it, he’s working hard, the mental aspect of it.
“Athletically, he’s a freak show out there. But throwing the ball, I have no issues with what’s going on right now. In fact, you can see every day he’s out there he’s throwing the ball better, making great decisions.”
Throughout his career, Cole has been renowned for being able to teach the fundamentals of run-pass option plays as well as zone-read options. During one spring practice, Murray held the fake for the inside zone handoff for an elongated amount of time, daring the defensive end to crash before pulling the ball late and racing for a long touchdown.
After the play, Cole yelled out, “Who keeps the ball there?” Murray looked back assuming he was in trouble for making a bad read. Upon looking at him, Cole yelled, “Man, I love this guy!”
“Don’t coach a guy like that, just let him go play,” Cole said. “Tell him which way he’s going and watch him do what he does. He’s very instinctual as far as with the option part of it, when to cut it up, when to pitch it. He does a great job with his run reads. That’s the X-factor as far as football nowadays when you have that guy who can run as well as he runs.”
Rovig, a 6-foot-5, 205-pounder from Boise who led Mountain View High to the 2016 Idaho 5A state championship, came into fall camp last season looking like he might push Murray for playing time as a true freshman. He spent the year on the varsity but kept his redshirt, taking most of the second-team repetitions in practice and traveling on the road even though he did not take a snap.
“It was a great experience to get to redshirt and travel at the same time,” Rovig said last month. “I got to really experience what game-like situations are. Being able to practice with the 1s and the 2s, preparing every single week like you are about to play is great.
“Some kids talk about how they don’t want to redshirt going into their freshmen year, which is understandable because people at this age are competitive and want to be there. There were times when I wished I could’ve been on the field but looking back on it now, I’m really glad that redshirt season happened and I got to experience the things I did and I got to be the backup, traveling and experience everything with the guys.”
This spring, Rovig largely struggled in live situations, holding on to the ball for long periods of time, enduring more touch sacks than necessary and missing the mark in terms of touch and quick reads during all three of MSU’s spring scrimmages.
“He’s just got to be more decisive, get the ball out of his hands, identify when pressure is coming,” Choate said following MSU’s first scrimmage, an outing that saw Rovig take eight sacks.
“Fundamentally, this spring has brought a lot of changes,” Rovig said. “Changing footwork…we’ve changed my footwork back to how I did it in high school, which has been very beneficial. It’s taken some time to get used to and I think the past couple of practices, I’ve finally improving with that.”
Since joining the Bobcat staff in January, Cole has set about remaking Rovig’s mechanics with mixed results. His footwork has improved but his high release has been altered as well. Although he fits the bill of a pro-style quarterback, it’s Rovig’s athleticism and upside that makes him intriguing to his new coach.
“He’s got a real good feel for the run game, does that real well and he’s a big, strong kid,” Cole said. “You like that part of it. We have done a few different things with his footwork and that’s helped him out the last two or three practices. He is throwing the ball WAY better than he has early on in spring ball.”
Rovig admits it was “tiring” having only two quarterbacks throughout the spring to split reps. Choate thought it was the most beneficial circumstance for both young signal callers.
“With two quarterbacks going right now, you could look at it and say, ‘Oh, we only have two’ or you can say if you’re those two guys, ‘look at all these reps we are getting, all these opportunities to improve,” Choate said.
“It’s one of those deals where if you yank a guy during practice and there’s four quarterbacks, he might not get any more reps the whole way during 7-on-7. You make a bad decision, process what you did wrong, get back out there and let’s fix it.”
Even with Jonsen on the shelf, the competition from the upstart and the transfer has clearly motivated Murray. His looks visibly stronger, more confident, more assertive and sounds more mature when addressing the media. The third-year junior knows he will be the key to success if MSU hopes to earn its first winning season of the Choate era in the fall.
“I’m trying to be more consistent and develop myself as a leader not only as an example leader but a vocal leader as well,” Murray said. “That’s something I struggled with in high school and in the past, even last year, I was scared to get vocal and get on guys. That’s something I’m really try to work on.
“I want to be the best I can be this year.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
