Dakota Prukop’s departure from Montana State dominated the off-season college football headlines, both in the Big Sky Conference and across the West.
The electric All-America dual-threat quarterback took put his rare skill set up for auction, earning offers from TCU and Texas in his native Lone Star State as well as Alabama and Oregon, two of the premier programs in college football. He went on official visits to Tuscaloosa to walk the halls of ‘Bama’s state of the art facilities with Nick Saban. Less than a week early in December, he walked Oregon’s peerless locker rooms, complete with big screen TVs and Xboxes for every player.
Ultimately, his familiarity with the spread option led him to Oregon. He left a wake of uncertainty in Bozeman upon his exodus.
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Prukop’s shocking decision came a week after Jeff Choate was hired to replace Rob Ash as Montana State’s head football coach. Although Prukop piled up more than 7,500 yards of total offense over the last two seasons, having to start from scratch actually might be a good thing for MSU as it hustles through a 29-practice fall camp leading up to its September 1 opener at Idaho.
“Our veteran guys understand that this is the design of the play is and when it breaks down, this is what we do,” Choate said in an interview in the off-season. “Dakota isn’t there to bail them out anymore. Dakota had a really unique skill set. I think the receivers, the ‘backs last year did a great job of staying alive on routes, giving him options down the field. I think that’s where we have to be more efficient and more precise.”
Following Prukop’s transfer, Choate wasted no time finding his quarterback of the future, his signal caller for the present for that matter. In January, Montana State signed Tyler Bruggman, a 6-foot-1, 195-pounder who has had an odyssey across the country after signing with Washington State out of Brophy Prep in Phoenix in 2013. He made it one year on the Palouse before transferring to Louisville, where he lasted one season. He spent the 2015 season at Scottsdale Community College before landing at Montana State.
“He’s a better athlete than most people get,” Choate said in July. “He can run a variety of systems. He’s not a 6-5 kid but he’s compact built, muscular athlete. He can run, he can get himself out of trouble. The thing I like most about him is he works within the system. He’s going to be meticulous about his footwork, he’s to be meticulous about knowing where to go with the ball based on the pre-snap read, being efficient with the football, not making bad choices. Those are the things I want in a quarterback.”
Bruggman’s seemingly tireless work ethic has been the talk of his teammates since he arrived on campus in January. At first, it irked many of the Bobcat veterans, both because he was not their departed friend and because he did not have a football field to show his skills on to further enforce his desire to be a leader. After 15 spring practices and four more during the current fall session, Bruggman’s nature has now had time to resonate with his new teammates.
“Tyler is the type of guy who doesn’t quit working — ever,” Montana State senior running back Gunnar Brekke said, his under shirt soaked in sweat after yet another trying post-practice sprinting session enforced by Choate and his staff. “He’s always got something on his mind, something he wants to do. I kind of have to remind him that he has to step away a little bit, breath, regroup and when you come back out to practice, just relax and ball, do your thing. Anyone who has been here and watched him play, when he’s out there playing relaxed, he’s a very good quarterback.”
“Tyler is one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever seen in my life,” added sophomore center Alex Neale, himself a transfer from UNLV. “When I messed some snaps up the other day, he went out and ran with me after practice. He works hard for everything he does and takes all the blame for anything bad that happens to the offense.”
On Sunday during Montana State’s second practice, the defense forced five turnovers, including a collection of interceptions partially aided by newly installed coverage packages by the defense. The following day, the offense readjusted, committing just one turnover, two short of the defense’s goal each day. On Tuesday during a closed second half of practice conducted in Bobcat Stadium, Choate said Bruggman finally found the zone he hopes the quarterback can settle into.
“I saw a comfort level in Tyler today that I’ve been waiting to see,” Choate said. “You could tell he was really in the groove.”
Even if it’s a product of the unknown, Bruggman welcomes the challenge of any wrinkle new defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak and his unit might throw at him.
“Over the course of the season playing 12 games and the playoffs, you are going to be seeing all kinds of different coverages, so this has been great playing against our guys and having them throw different looks at us,” Bruggman said. “They are making us better and we are making them better.”
First-year offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham said he takes interceptions with a grain of salt. He conjured up a comparison for one of the all-time great gunslingers, a man who threw more than 500 touchdowns and more interceptions than anyone in NFL history.
“Brett Favre just got into the Hall of Fame. That dude wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger and make a play. You can’t be afraid to pull that trigger and make a play,” said Messingham, who most recently worked as a quality control assistant at Indiana. “He threw some interceptions that he’d like to have back but he also threw a whole bunch of touchdowns because he was aggressive. My deal with our quarterbacks is to be aggressive but be smart. When we turn that film on last night and looked at Sunday’s turnovers, how many of them were just aggressive plays we were trying to make? How many of them weren’t very smart? Unfortunately, we had a few that weren’t very smart and that’s the things we have to fix.”
In the off-season of 2014, Prukop emerged from a heated quarterback battle in Bozeman narrowly beat out Jake Bleskin, Tanner Roderick and Quinn McQueary to assume the starting role under center. Bleskin stuck around, Roderick moved to receiver and McQueary eventually transferred to Montana Tech, costing Montana State its 2013 quarterback recruit.
The following recruiting season, Montana State elected to not take a quarterback. In spring ball, redshirt freshman Jordan Hoy, MSU’s lone scholarship QB recruit from the Class of 2015, also left the program.
Because of the attrition, four young players are learning under Bruggman. Ben Folsom, a 2013 signee out of Dillon who spent two years on an LDS mission, returned to the team last fall and mostly played scout team wide receiver. Brady McChesney, a walk-on who led Kalispell Glacier to the Class AA title in 2014, redshirted last season as well. The quarterback group also includes Chris Murray, a 6-foot-4, 195-pound dual-threat athlete from Lawndale, California and Kamden Brown, a 6-foot-1, 187-pound preferred walk-on out of Charter Oak in Covina, California.
“I think that both Ben and Brady are pushing Tyler,” Choate said. “Brady is one of those sneaky guys. He’s really smart, he’s really accurate. He knows where he is going with the ball and he’s able to spot it.
“Ben is not even the same guy he was in the spring. Coming off an LDS mission basically playing scout team receiver in the fall, swimming. Now that guy looks like a quarterback. I think that’s just going to help Tyler. As the competition continues to increase, those two guys continue to push him and each other, that’s what we need in that room. I really like the development of those two guys and how they are starting to emerge, make plays and Tyler is knowing he has to be on point.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
