Choate is most famous for going 4-0 against the rival Montana Griz. What follows is a six-part Skyline Sports series – Part II: The Pillars of Choate ; the six ways Jeff Choate changed the Montana State football program for the better.

BOZEMAN, Montana — When former Montana State All-Big Sky offensive lineman Dylan Mahoney told stories of his weight gaining process, his tales basically centered upon going through the drive-up late at night to feast on burgers and fries.

When former MSU offensive lineman Leo Davis used to reminisce about what it took to transform from a long and lanky defensive end into an all-conference offensive tackle, the member of the Blackfeet Nation would joke that he had to load up on fry bread tacos to pack on the pounds.

Now when Montana State football players try to put on weight, it comes with a scientific plan. And a coach.

It’s just one of the internal ways that former MSU head football coach Jeff Choate altered the inner workings of the Montana State football program and athletic department as a whole.

“We have always gotten money for food and you can eat at some places on campus, but we never had a plan for not only how to put on weight but how to put on good weight,” former MSU captain Derek Marks said leading up to the 2019 season. “Choate takes care of us. Not only are we not hungry but we are learning the impact nutrition can have on our performance on the field.”

That was the plan when Choate first hired Brittney Patera as MSU’s first ever registered sports dietitian in February of 2017. The Bozeman native spent time at Cincinnati and Washington before returning to the Gallatin Valley to become the first registered dietitian for any athletic department in the Big Sky Conference.

Since Patera’s hiring, there has been a noticeable difference in the Bobcat body compositions, particularly among football players striving to put on lean muscle mass and gain weight.

“We’ve come a long way in terms of our player development,” Choate said. “Part of that is job (former strength and conditioning) Coach (Alex) Wilcox did in the weight room but the nutrition is the biggest thing for us. Our fueling station, the job that Brittany Patera does is second to none. Regardless of where I’ve been, she’s as good as there is.”

Heading into the 2019 season, the last campaign Choate led the Bobcats, the head coach mentioned specific players like wide receiver Kevin Kassis, defensive end Bryce Sterk, strong safety Brayden Konkol, running back Lane Sumner and tight ends Derryk Snell and Ryan Davis as those who made noticeable, sizeable and healthy gains leading up to the season. He also gave credit to the dedication of offensive linemen like Lewis Kidd, Connor Wood and Zach Redd to add the necessary pounds to compete at the Big Sky Conference level along the trenches.

The task of adding mass is different than even in the early 2010s when Leo Davis (Ryan Davis’ oldest brother) was helping MSU to conference championships or in 2016 when Mahoney was one of the last stalwarts of former offensive line coach Jason McEndoo’s stable.

Instead of pounding cheese burgers and eating all the available, cheap food they can find, instead MSU has access to nutrition plans designed by Patera. The added weight is more sustainable, healthy and, if a player gains a significant amount, they can also get help after their playing careers end to shed that weight if needed or desired.

In an interview last summer, Patera said her goal is to help Montana State’s offensive and defensive linemen consume between 4,100 and 5,500 calories per day. She has designed plans to help each big man get meals that include high fat and healthy fat foods to help meet those calorie demands in an efficient and sustainable manner.

“I have a lot of fun teaching the guys how to eat 5,500 calories because you basically have to put food in your body any minute you can,” Patera said with a laugh.

“Coach Choate has pushed a lot of funds to help these guys have a lot more nutrient dense, high-fat foods. At the fueling station, we are able to offer them a lot of high calorie snacks and things they can take home as well. And we have weight-gain powders. For those guys who need that, they have access to it.

“Surprisingly, many of them do a good job of maintaining this on their own but a lot of them have the same meals every day they can cook themselves.”

Entering his senior year, Montana State offensive lineman J.P. Flynn already had a pair of all-conference and All-American nods on his resume. Following a stint playing for the San Francisco 49ers, The 6-foot-6 and once 335-pound guard looked like a lean, mean fighting machine.

Alex Neale was a three-year starter at center for MSU. By the semester after his final football season, he looked more like a linebacker. That’s part of the comprehensive plan that Choate, Patera and the MSU support staff crafted thanks in large part to Choate’s implementation and motivation.

“For those big guys, they have to do it right away,” Choate said. “They have to lose it right now or they will probably never lose it. I don’t know if you’ve seen J.P. lately but J.P. is lean and mean. Alex has dropped more than 40 pounds.

“(Neale) looks totally different than some of those big gainers on the other side of the spectrum. He looks good and he’s healthy. I think that is really important for those big guys. We tell them to gain all this weight for these four or five years and if they don’t get it off right away, it’s going to be harder, harder, harder to get it off. For their long term health, it’s important.”

All of the nutrition improvement and innovation is part of a larger picture of ensuring the physical and mental welfare for his players that Choate made a high priority when he took over as Montana State’s head coach in December of 2015.

Choate spent most of the 1990s as a high school coach in Idaho, helping work with teenagers as a football coach and athletic administrator, making stops in Challis, Twin Falls and Post Falls before joining the college ranks at Utah State in 2002.

For all but a brief stint at Eastern Illinois when Choate made his first foray into the FCS coaching ranks, he spent most of his nearly two decades of collegiate coaching at the FBS level. He made stops at Boise State (2006-2011), Washington State (2012), Florida (2013) and Washington (2014-2015) before coming to Bozeman.

Those FBS training grounds influenced Choate, particularly when he was coaching at Power 5 schools like Washington and Florida who have nearly limitless resources.

“With the exception of nine months I spent in Charleston, Illinois 15 years ago, I only know one way to do it,” Choate said. “I think that does change my approach. These are the things I know to be true. How do I take care of our student-athletes? How do I do that? You tell me you need a toaster? I get you a damn toaster. You tell me you need a clock in the weight room or the fueling station so you’re not late? I’ll get you the clock.”

It’s a microcosm of the detailed way Choate went about building trust throughout his roster and throughout the athletic department as a whole.

“It’s the little things; You have to earn the trust of your players so when they come in and talk to you, they tell you the truth,” Choate said. “I think that’s rare in most college football programs. How many guys in most college football programs are going to come complain about something? Nobody.

“I want our players to know this is their program, to have ownership in it and to know that they can come to me if they have things that can help us be better. They need to come to me with the problem and the solution. And we can have a dialogue. But that’s powerful.

“I tell these guys all the time that my No. 1 job around here is to eliminate excuses. If you tell me you have to have something to do your job, it’s my job to get it for you.”

In a circumstantially ironic way, Choate’s dedication to his players’ well-being was perhaps on best display during the last calendar year, a time period that has left may across the country and the globe bewildered because of the uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last spring when most folks — and most Montana State football players — were quarantined, Choate and his staff had a routine of calling or communicating with every player on the MSU roster between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. to do check-ins about “physical well being, psychological well-being and academic well-being.”

Choate said he had one player that “got into a bad situation” where upon returning to his out of state home, his parents had lost their jobs and they were temporarily homeless. The Bobcat coaching staff was able to “intervene”, Choate said, and use some of the program and department’s student-athlete special assistance money to help get that player back to Bozeman “into a stable environment.”

“That’s one thing I think people don’t get about football is I would say one-third of our roster and maybe more, they are not just relying on Montana State football for a place to work out or a place to play and recreate; they are also reliant on Montana State football for basic needs – food, shelter and safety,” Choate said. “That’s not the case in most Olympic sports.

“I think most tennis players come from families that have the ability to buy court time. Women’s basketball, it’s a travel sport. Most of these kids come from affluent backgrounds. The highest percentages of kids who receive Pell grant money, FAFSA money in our athletic department are football players. That’s a piece people forget when we start getting kids back on campus to work out.”

Perhaps one of Choate’s greatest gifts is his ability to diagnose issues analytically and craft tangible solutions that are not influenced by emotion yet still drive connectivity and love. It’s one of the lasting impressions that Choate leaves on Montana State.

“I don’t even care if they let us work out,” Choate said back in May. “I just want to make sure my kids are safe and that they have a roof over their heads, they have a way to get meals, pay their rent. There’s a lot of kids in our football program that, mom and dad are going, ‘please leave’ because you are one more mouth for us to feed.

“We want to be that support system, that family that can bring them in, provide them safety and opportunity and, ultimately, add value to their lives.”

Brooks Nuanez contributed to the reporting of this story. Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserved.

What follows is a six-part Skyline Sports series – The Pillars of Choate: the six ways a head coach changed the Montana State football program for the better.

BOZEMAN, Montana — Mike Kramer beat the Montana Grizzlies three times in four seasons, including posting a victory in Missoula against a team that had won the Division I-AA national championship season the year prior that snapped “The Streak.”

Rob Ash won more games than any Montana State head coach before him. Ash’s 70 wins and three straight Big Sky Conference titles were more than Kramer or national championship-winning coaches like Dave Arnold or Sonny Holland ever secured. Ash won more often than the last Bobcat head coach to move on to a “higher” level – Jim Sweeney, who left for Washington State following the 1967 season.

Yet no football head coach — and perhaps no figure in the modern history of the university save current MSU president Waded Cruzado — altered and influenced the mentality, the sense of belief and the expectation to never take a back seat to anyone, particularly not the Griz, more than Jeff Choate.

The dynamic, driven personality came to Montana State with a vision. He preached that vision with as much passion and ferocity as any football coach the Big Sky Conference has seen. From his ability to profess his goals to his gift for galvanizing every person involved in the entire fabric of Montana State football, Choate is a spectacular figure in the lore of a program steeped in history.

“He built as much unity on campus and in the athletic department as any person I can remember at Montana State,” said one athletic department administrator who has worked at MSU since Ronald Reagan was president.

“He touched everyone by being real and really investing time in people, all people. And that made it so he had everyone in the (athletic department) building, everyone on campus, everyone in Bozeman and nearly everyone throughout the state, every person involved in the Bobcat football organization pulling for him. That is a pretty impressive thing.”

From Choate’s perspective, that element of his ability to galvanize those around him was intentional and direct. It was part of his plan when he first took the job and the reason why he almost completely absolved himself from criticism internally and externally during a fascinating yet short-lived stint leading a storied program with 15 Big Sky titles to its credit.

“We’ve done a really good job of keeping the main thing the main thing,” Choate said in his departing press conference on January 23. “Culture starts with vision. That’s what drives the culture. That’s what you want it to look like. The first piece of my vision here at Montana State was to take care of my people and add value to their lives. Our people, our support staff, I make a point to stop and talk to them every day.

“We wanted to build the culture where everyone in the organization knows we appreciate them and to know that my student athletes know that everyone is here for them. My No. 1 job is to take care of my players and add value to their lives. That’s why we’ve been able to drive this culture. We care about our people and most importantly, we’ve made decisions to do what’s best for our players here at Montana State.”

On the field, Choate will be most well remembered for his 4-0 record against the Grizzlies. From the unlikely 24-17 upset of UM in Missoula in 2016 that kept the Griz out of the playoffs to the 31-23 win over Montana in Bozeman that marked the first MSU home victory over the rival in more than a decade and also signaled the end of Bob Stitt’s time coaching UM; from the insane 29-25 victory in Missoula sealed by perhaps the most memorable goal line stand in the history of the Treasure State in 2018 to last season’s 48-14 lambasting that affirmed that Montana State is little brother no more, Choate’s legacy will always start and end with his ability to slay the Grizzlies.

“No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I will always be able to say I never lost to Montana,” Choate said in his farewell press conference, fully acknowledging the significance to his fan base of the accomplishment and its importance to his legacy.

Choate will also be remembered as a charismatic, magnetic person with an ability to articulate and profess his vision at a truly elite level.

He helped Montana State reestablish an identity of toughness.

He helped the program take care of its players on a level like never before.

He made fans from coast to coast believe that Montana State truly could compete perennially for a national championship.

And he helped the MSU football team catch up to the massive institutional momentum created under Cruzado’s leadership that has also been accompanied by an economic and population boom within the Gallatin Valley that has not been seen in Montana since the height of the Copper Kings in Butte.

“Choate is like when you are a kid and you might not be all that tough but you are best friends with the toughest kid in school. So you feel invincible,” Montana State head men’s basketball coach Danny Sprinkle, an MSU alum and former standout Bobcat, said in early February. “When you walk around the playground with Choate, you are like, ‘I’m good. Nobody is messing with us.’

“Everything he does, he does with such conviction, it doesn’t matter who you are, he has you so convinced in its authenticity. It’s one thing to talk about it. But he lives it. Every single day.”

Choate’s tenure at Montana State ended with a 28-22 record that included a 7-13 mark against teams ranked in the Top 25. Take away his four wins over the Griz and his three playoff wins against fledgling FCS programs and Montana State won twice in 15 games against the top teams in the country.

He never beat Eastern Washington, Weber State or Sacramento State within the league. Montana State has won six Big Sky Conference championships since 2002. Choate never won a league title.

Yet every slight one could make against Choate’s resume, he had a solution on the horizon. His self-awareness, his realness and his ability to diagnose issues before crafting solutions is what made his leadership style resonate around all of Bobcat Nation.

“He brought fans, followers and alums out of the shadows,” former Montana State All-American offensive lineman Mike Person, the captain of the 2010 Big Sky champion Bobcats and a nine-year NFL veteran who recently retired, said in February. “Choate lived this rivalry every day that he was at Montana State. I think the biggest thing is people saw a reflection of themselves to a point in Choate and what he truly believed and preached. They could relate to him. It wasn’t all a show. He truly loves the state of Montana and what it stands for and he truly loves Montana State.”

In 2019, Montana State won six games in a row, including beating the Griz by the largest margin of victory in more than 40 years. The streak also included wins over Albany and Austin Peay in the FCS playoffs to earn the first semifinal postseason bid in 35 years at MSU.

Yet last spring when the pandemic first hit, Choate remained utterly unsatisfied.

“It’s pretty damn easy to stay motivated because Team 122, what they did last year, we get nothing for that,” Choate said in a one-on-one interview with Skyline Sports in May of 2020. “We start with that: this is about Team 123. Let’s erase what happened a year ago and get what we need to accomplish now.”

A few of the primary goals Choate defined for the MSU program included his “pyramid”, which has different building blocks like going undefeated at home and winning a Big Sky Conference championship. But Montana State lost 34-17 on homecoming to eventual Big Sky champion Sac State in 2019, thwarting both of those goals. MSU’s 12-10 loss at UND the following week put the Bobcats’ backs against the wall and further solidified MSU would have to wait at least another season to claim its first Big Sky title since 2012.

“Our (2019) team didn’t accomplish the things we wanted,” Choate said. “There are still things out there for us to do. And the standard will not go down. We are just going to keep raising the bar.

“I’m more hungry right now as a coach than I have been since I’ve been at Montana State because I know how close we are. The 2,000 feet before the summit at Everest, the death zone, it gets harder up there, it doesn’t get easier. That’s what we have to remember. It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get more challenging, more difficult and because of that, we have to have our preparation right where it needs to be.

“The most elusive thing in sports is consistent, steady improvement and it’s difficult because everyone wants it RIGHT NOW. Everyone wants to be the winner, everyone wants to take the best looking girl to the prom. But it’s hard because you have to keep grinding.

“And even when you get there, the cool thing about it to me is, once you get there and you are respected, you have the ability to compete for championships, you have the ability to set higher goals, your DNA can’t change. We are still grinders. That’s what got us here. And that’s the thing we have to guard against now. It’s what we have to continue to be.”

That hunger was a key to helping Montana State revitalize what was previously broken about its program during the waning demise of the Ash Era. As former Montana State offensive line coach Jason McEndoo once said, “the greatest plagues of an elite college football program are entitlement and complacency.” Regardless of success, Choate never let those factors creep in despite MSU’s historic accomplishments under his direction.

“I don’t think you maintain anything; I think you get better or you get worse,” Choate said in the spring. “And that’s what will happen to us this year. We will have to be a different team to get to the next level.

“We are at that place in the program where we have a lot of talent and experience and leadership walking out the door but we have reached the point as a program where in our exit interviews with our players, Team 122 had great chemistry and that’s why we won. Period. They didn’t equate our success to talent. They get it. Teams win.”

In front of Bobcat Stadium sits a statue of Holland, a man who helped lead MSU to the NAIA national championship in 1956 as a player before winning 47 games, including a run to the 1976 Division II national championship, as the head coach at his alma mater between 1971 and 1977.

Holland is one of four MSU players to have his number retired. And Holland is the only Bobcat, as of yet at least, memorialized in Bronze. One Bobcat booster joked (sort of) that Choate might be the next coach to get himself a statue in front of the stadium.

So much of that legend centers upon Choate’s epic history in the rivalry and his reputation as a “Griz slayer”. Between his time as a player and a coach, Holland went 10-1 against Montana. But he had the one loss.

The only coach with an undefeated record during the Big Sky era of the Cat-Griz battles (beginning in 1963) is former Montana head coach Don Read, who led UM to the first 10 wins of the 16-game streak the Griz once held.

And Choate started winning the Cat-Griz rivalry before he ever coached in a rivalry game. One of his first gigantic splashes upon taking the MSU head job was to hire longtime Griz assistant coach Ty Gregorak to become his defensive coordinator, basically stealing one of the greatest purveyors of passion within the rivalry from the enemy and making him a gigantic influence in the next three showdowns to the Bobcats’ advantage.

And the 2019 MSU victory resounded voluminously, essentially closing a chapter and opening a new one. The victory was the largest margin by a Bobcat team over the Griz since Holland was the head coach. The four straight wins by MSU is also the longest Bobcat streak since the mid-1970s. Since “The Streak” ended in 2002, Montana State and Montana have now each won nine games in the last 18 rivalry matchups. And the 2019 win also gave MSU the last decade, helping the Bobcats seal the 2010s with a 6-4 advantage over UM.

“There was always this thing where the Montana guys grew up with the little brother syndrome but I resent the hell out of that and I don’t even know what that means,” Choate said. “I don’t know what that means. It’s bullshit. I’ve never experienced that in my life as a competitive human being. I’ve never experienced a complex.

“I’ve been at Boise State, I’ve been at Washington. I’m not the little brother. And if you want to walk between the white lines and find out, let’s go. That’s the best attitude I want to bring to the table. That’s what I demand our teams believed.”

The possibility of Choate walking away from the impressive organization he certainly put his stamp on first gained traction in early January when he rose to the front of the line to replace Bryan Harsin at Boise State. When Andy Avalos ultimately earned the position, it seemed like Choate would reengage in leading Montana State to unseen heights in the 21^st century.

Instead, Choate bolted for a position on the staff of one of the great offensive minds in the sport at one of the most thoroughly funded and historic football programs in the United States.

Although Choate’s departure was unpredictable and surprising, in reality, the move exemplified the culture the unforgettable coach wanted to construct and the imprint he hopes he left at Montana State.

“I’m a man of principle and conviction,” Choate said in his final press conference as MSU’s head coach. “If I’m going to talk to these young men about if you want to take a jump, if you want to be great, if you want to achieve your goals, if you want to live your dream, you are not going to get that by standing on the sidelines.

“Go put yourself out there, be your best self and whatever happens, you can live with it. I’ve tried to live my life with no regrets and I have absolutely no regrets about my time at Montana State. I love this place.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.