BOZEMAN, Montana – Clevan Thomas sat by himself during his first team gathering at Montana State.
“I was to myself, sat across from everybody, think I had a ski mask on (laughs), and I just wanted to read the room,” said Thomas, who joined the MSU football team mid-summer leading up to the 2022 season as a transfer from Kentucky. “I’ve been in college locker rooms. Like, at Kentucky, guys come into the locker room but you don’t see everyone. People don’t just greet each other.”
Thomas said you might go months or years before meeting many teammates because of varying schedules and workout times.
“So I came in, team dinner, sat by myself. And I’m not kidding, at least 65 or 70 guys of the team walked over to me, introduced themselves to me,” Thomas remembered. “Seeing that happen, it showed me this team was for real.
“Them doing that helped me create trust right away.”
Although Thomas’s status is currently in flux because of eligibility issues stemming from an academic investigation at Kentucky, the story of his arrival at Montana State is a prime example of how the Bobcats seamlessly remade their wide receiver room this past off-season.
Other then the uncertainty stemming from Thomas’ eligibility status, he and fellow senior transfer Ravi Alston have fit in with ease to the Montana State offense and the MSU locker room. Each came to MSU with different aspiration for how they wanted their final college football careers to finish. And each has found important ways to contribute to the success so far this season for a Bobcat squad that enters November with a 5-0 record in Big Sky Conference play.
“I think they have fit in really well,” Montana State second-year head coach Brent Vigen said in October. “Everybody’s got their own story about why they are transferring but it’s about changing your opportunity. And both of those guys with one year remaining wanted to cap off their college careers in a different way.
“We were really intentional about what their opportunity would look like. And the importance of fitting in to our culture, to our team, that was important. And they’ve done that.”
Although Montana State has built a well-earned reputation as a football program that employees one of the most smash mouth run games in America, the Bobcats have had a string of some of the most individually talented wide receivers the Big Sky Conference has seen since the dawn of Cooper Kupp at Eastern Washington.
Travis Jonsen, a former 5-star quarterback who took official visits to Alabama and Penn State before landing at Oregon and eventually transferring to MSU, was a threat with a vast skill set. The part-time Wildcat quarterback, part-time outside receiver went on to get a Super Bowl ring with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after exhausting his eligibility at MSU in 2019.
Kevin Kassis, a former partial scholarship player from Southern California, was a four-year starter who had one of the best individual single seasons in program history when he caught 67 passes for 871 yards and six touchdowns as a senior in 2019. He is now on the Seattle Seahawks active roster.
Lance McCutcheon went from hometown project to on the active roster for the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams during his time as a Bobcat turned NFL wide out. The Bozeman native played early at MSU, mostly because of his blocking skills. As a senior, he had a historic season last fall, snaring 61 catches for 1,219 yards, the latter a school single-season record.
After McCutcheon and Nate Stewart graduated, many thought Montana State would turn to players like Jaden Smith and Charles Brown, a pair of highly regarded talents out of Texas. But each one, along with Jahamd Monroe entered the transfer portal in the off-season. And Cam Gardener, a former Utah transfer, along with Andrew Patterson, an electric player as a rookie in 2021, each became unavailable to the Bobcat offense. All that turnover left a giant question mark in Montana State’s wide receiver room entering the 2022 season.
MSU had Coy Steel coming back for his sixth year, but he suffered a knee injury midway through last season, which cost him the first two months of this year. The Bobcats also had signed talented freshmen Taco Dowler and Christian Anaya. But Vigen and his staff knew they need to fortify their ranks.
Alston, a 6-foot-3, 203-pounder who prepped at Vista Murrietta in Lake Elsinore, California, wanted a new opportunity. And Montana State saw an instant fit, adding him to the roster before January was over just a few weeks after losing 38-10 to Norht Dakota State in the FCS national title game.
The physically talented receiver calls himself a late bloomer, but that bloom helped him dominate the Division III ranks at St. John’s in Minnesota. Over three seasons, he notched 153 catches for 2,350 yards and 22 touchdowns. He was a D-III All-American in 2019 after piling up 1,444 yards and 13 touchdowns.
“Coming out of high school, I had no offers at all. But I just wanted to go somewhere I was wanted and St. John’s wanted me so I was there in a heartbeat,” Alston said last month. “I had a great career, was a two-time All-American. It was amazing.
“My goal was to level up and test myself against better competition and Montana State gave me this opportunity and that’s what I want: to help this team win and get back to the national championship and win a conference championship.”
The 5-foot-11, 193-pound Thomas played one full season in his Kentucky career. He caught one pass in eight games as a true freshman in 2017. He redshirted in 2018 after making two catches in three games. He played in all 13 games and started seven in 2019, finishing with 99 yards and a touchdown on 11 catches. Thomas appeared in four of the Wildcats’ 11 games in 2020 but suffered an ACL tear in during spring ball in 2021, an injury that forced him to miss all of last season.
While recovering from the knee injury, Kentucky got a new offensive coordinator and a new wide receivers coach.
“Not saying I couldn’t compete or play but nothing is promised during football and I could just tell that the environment wasn’t for me anymore,” Thomas said. “My time had passed.”
When Vigen and MSU offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright contacted Thomas last summer, the wide receiver said he had plenty of questions.
“When they were contacted me, I was like, ‘Montana State? Montana? I was so confused on the fact that…I knew Montana was a state but I didn’t know Montana at all. I did not know Montana State. AT ALL. Like from a can of paint, I did not know Montana State.”
The “energy and passion of the coaching staff” as well as the “feeling I had in my heart” helped land Thomas in Bozeman. And from the moment he joined the Bobcats in mid-summer, he started making an impression.
“Right from the get-go, it was apparent that he was going to fit in really well,” Vigen said. “His work ethic and the way he goes about his preparation is impressive and shows maturity. That was a really positive picture for a lot of our younger guys this summer.
“Working out, doing extra work, he’s kind of a pro. That’s how you would see it with his preparation.”
Each newcomer has had standout moments so far this season. Alston had a highlight reel touchdown catch in Montana State’s “Gold Rush” season opener under the Bobcat Stadium lights.
The following week against Morehead State, Alston hauled in five catches for 96 yards, each season-highs. Alston has 20 catches for 288 yards, each second behind Willie Patterson on the Bobcats.
“The biggest thing for me was earning the respect of the guys around me,” Alston said. “I have one year here so how can I make an impact? The biggest thing was just not trying to be a vocal leader because we already have those but coming in and doing things the right way, making sure I’m accountable, making sure the guys around me can count on me and being a leader by action.
“Coming here, earning the respect of our guys, I think I did a great job of that and now we are rolling.”
Thomas has hauled in 11 passes for 147 yards and two scores, including a sweet 29-yard over the shoulder touchdown catch during MSU’s offensive explosion with Sean Chambers playing quarterback in a 41-24 win over UC Davis. He’s also been a willing blocker, helping to set the edge for an MSU run game that’s averaging nearly 300 rushing yards per contest.
“I bring physicality, speed and I love to play fast,” Thomas said when asked about his attributes. “And I want to be physical. I am the slot receiver. I block bigger guys, nickles, safeties, sometimes ‘backers so I definitely try to bring that physicality so we can get the edge in the run game. Whatever we have drawn up, I definitely want to make big plays or help us make big plays when I can.”
Both new, old additions to the Bobcat receiver room are very self-assured young men.
It’s hard to imagine the hulking Alston ever playing Division III football. And his big smile shines almost as bright as the diamond earrings he sports in his MSU head shot on the football team’s website.
Thomas first earned the attention of reporters at Montana State’s fall camp for wearing a sort of ski mask/head cover to “protect my great skin from the sun”, a statement that drew plenty of laughs considering the smooth-talking young man hails from Miami.
Thomas tells pretty much every story or statement with exuberance and charisma. He rattles off seafood joints that serve the best fried snapper when asked about what he most misses from his hometown. While he misses Miami, he said one of the lasting impressions from his time in the Treasure State has been the hospitality of the locals.
“The people are wonderful out here, the fans are incredible and people are really spirited about football here,” Thomas said. “The view, coming from a long ways from here, you have mountains everywhere, cattle walking around just like normal (laughs). It’s very different than Miami but I’m enjoying the beauty, always.”
Housewright, MSU’s charismatic, swashbuckling young offensive coordinator, is the first to acknowledge that Montana State “hasn’t been the most exciting place to come play receiver” and worried that might affect MSU’s ability to get high level wide receivers, particularly as veterans coming from the transfer portal.
But Housewright recognized right away in Alston and Thomas the desire to “purely want to win.”
Montana State’s slick offensive coordinator has frequently talked over the last few years about wanting skill players who want the ball and wanting to get the skill players the ball as much as possible.
Who knows what the future will hold for Thomas — a source says he should be back before the end of the regular-season — and who knows how many big-play opportunities will arise as the weather turns to winter for either of the senior first-year Bobcat wide receivers.
But that’s where the vetting process comes in key. And Housewright knows that statistics will have nothing to do with the continued attitude of the confident senior duo.
“There’s this negative connotation that the transfer portal is nothing but selfish guys who couldn’t play at their school and that’s not true. Sometimes, it’s just guys who want a different opportunity and have done all they can do at their school and they want to win and prove themselves and want to try to win a championship,” Housewright said.
“The biggest thing those two love about this place is the team atmosphere and what our guys bring to the table, knowing their names and getting to know the guys. They’ve done a great job of bringing their experiences to our team and doing a great job of taking advantage of their opportunities. They have great personalities. They are great leaders. We love having them at Montana State.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
