Jeff Choate has had exactly eight months to lay the foundation. On the eve of his first fall camp as Montana State’s head coach, Choate seems to know exactly what it will take to get MSU back to its former spot among one of the top programs in the Big Sky Conference.
[restrict paid=”true”]“In order for us to climb the ladder and get back into conference championship contention and competing in the playoffs and making runs, it’s all about focusing on the process,” Choate said. “We can’t waste time. We have to have the right mindset and the right demeanor. Championship outfits do things a certain way all the time. They don’t just choose when to do them.
“That’s something we have to be better at during fall camp. We get 29 opportunities and we can’t waste any of them. I can tell you exactly what we are going to be like from the practices and the work the kids put in. For us to get back there, the most important thing is consistency every single day.”
The Bobcats have claimed Big Sky Conference banners six times and advanced to the FCS playoffs seven times since 2002. MSU claimed three straight Big Sky crowns for the first time in school history at the beginning of the decade. Montana State has held at least a share of the conference crown more times over the last 15 seasons than any Big Sky school outside of Montana (8). MSU even has one more league title than Eastern Washington since 2002, although EWU has claimed four league championships this decade and the Eagles’ 2010 national title was the last by a Big Sky team.
Despite all the success, Choate takes over for a fired head coach, the second time such a situation has transpired in Bozeman since the turn of the 21st century.
Mike Kramer took over the Bobcats in 2000, bottoming out in his first season with an 0-11 campaign. By 2002, MSU shared the Big Sky title with the defending national champion Grizzlies thanks in part to a 10-7 win in Missoula to snap “The Streak”, a 16-game losing skid to UM. By the time quarterback Travis Lulay’s legendary career was finished, he had three wins over Montana, shares of three Big Sky titles and a pair of playoff appearances.
By 2006, Montana State had its first playoff win since its 1984 national championship season. By the spring of 2007, MSU fired Kramer. The program was awash in controversy including the arrests of half a dozen former MSU football players in connection with a drug ring funded with scholarship money. The situation came to a head with the murder of a local drug dealer by a former Montana State football player (John Lebrum) and a former MSU basketball player (Branden Miller).
Rob Ash took over at MSU in the summer of 2007 and fought against the academic and scholarship restrictions he inherited for the NCAA violations under Kramer. By 2010, back-to-back stellar recruiting classes built on a string of top-level talent from Texas and bolstered by a collection of in-state players who would go on to become all-time MSU greats resulted in the first of three straight Big Sky titles.
In 2013, despite returning a core of players that included All-America quarterback DeNarius McGhee, record-setting running back Cody Kirk, All-Big Sky wide receiver Tanner Bleskin and Buck Buchanan Award-winning defensive end Brad Daly, MSU sputtered down the stretch. The Bobcats lost three straight, including a 54-29 loss at Eastern Washington in which the Bobcats did not record a single defensive stop. Montana State, a team that began with a preseason No. 2 national ranking, missed the playoffs for the first time since 2009.
In 2014, MSU bounced back behind a new dynamic offensive weapon in sophomore quarterback Dakota Prukop. Montana State climbed as high as No. 8 in the nation but a shaky defense continued to loom as an Achilles heel. The Bobcats fell in the non-conference by one point at home Eastern Washington despite scoring 51 points. The Bobcats barely escaped Sacramento State with a three-point win on a last-season field goal despite scoring 59 points. Behind Prukop’s dual-threat wizardry, Tim Cramsey’s offense set a school record with 496 points but MSU lost two straight games to end the season 8-5, including a humiliating 34-7 loss at rival Montana and a 47-40 loss to South Dakota State at home in the first round of the FCS playoffs.
Last season, the defensive struggles were put on full display. Montana State surrendered yards, points and big plays in bunches. MSU led the conference in scoring (42.9 points per game) and managed to win just three league games and just five games overall. The losing season was Montana State’s first in 14 years and resulted in the swift firing of Ash just two days after a third straight loss to the Grizzlies.
Choate takes over a program with solid facilities, a top-notch stadium and a rising academic institution to recruit to. He said many times during spring drills and the off-season that he wants to embrace the tradition of Montana State in order to get the Bobcats back on track.
“I think Rob Ash was the right guy at the right time for Montana State. I think Mike Kramer was the right guy at the right time for Montana State,” Choate said. “The mandates with which those two guys were given to operate in, they both achieved in their own ways and that’s in large part due to the commitment that Montana State has to football.
“I think the pieces are in place. I’m a history major. I pay a lot of attention to the history of Montana State and I think it’s important to celebrate that history of Montana State because that’s a powerful tool, especially when you are trying to indoctrinate kids into our culture. We will celebrate our past on a daily basis.”
Despite what he calls a “leadership vacuum” at the top of Montana State’s athletic administration — just months after Choate’s hiring in December, MSU announced the contract of athletic director Peter Fields would not be renewed — Choate wasted no time revamping his new program.
Within a month, Choate had hired Montana defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak to coordinator the Bobcat defense. Choate lured Courtney Messingham, formerly the offensive coordinator at Iowa State, away from Kevin Wilson’s staff at Indiana to coordinator the Bobcat offense. He hired Rocky Mountain College head coach Brian Armstrong (offensive line) and Montana Western head coach B.J. Robertson (tight ends, director of high school relations) to join his staff. He added a strong contingent of former Boise State standouts in Gerald Alexander (secondary), Matt Miller (wide receivers) and Byron Hout (defensive line). He completed his staff by retaining linebackers coach Kane Ioane, demoting the Bobcat Hall of Fame player from defensive coordinator but promoting him to assistant head coach. Choate also retained running backs coach Michael Pitre and promoted him to recruiting coordinator to replace Bo Beck.
Just a week after Choate’s hiring, Prukop declared he would graduate from Montana State and play his final season of eligibility elsewhere. After a whirlwind process that earned him offers from a handful of premier programs and provided official visits to Alabama and Oregon, Prukop decided he would become a Duck.
Prukop’s transfer coupled with the graduation of four offensive linemen and the off-season unavailability of senior J.P. Flynn (patella tendon rupture) made the pressing needs obvious. Choate added Scottsdale Community College quarterback Tyler Bruggman and UNLV transfer center Alex Neale in January.
In February, Choate’s first recruiting class included 16 prep players and another transfer in Naijiel Hale, a cornerback from Washington. Following spring drills, Choate announced the addition of 11 preferred walk-on players. Montana State also added six more transfers: defensive tackles Fou Polataivao and Brandon Hayashi along with twin linebackers Jakob and Lukas McCarthy, all from the California junior college ranks, along with graduate transfers cornerback John Walker (Colorado) and offensive tackle Patrick Carroll (UNLV). Days before fall camp, MSU confirmed Montana wide receiver Dalton Daum would join the team, meaning the first day of fall camp will feature 34 players who have never formally practiced at MSU.
“I feel really good about this group because it’s a very mature group,” Choate said. “The McCarthy brothers are 23 years old. You have a bounce down from Washington, Naijiel, who knows how we are going to operate and who is familiar with Coach Alexander who played for him (Alexander was a grad assistant at UW). That will be an easy transition. And then John Walker, a graduate transfer who played a ton of football in the Pac 12 and is a mature guy. Usually, those guys don’t come in and announce their presence. They get that they have to fit into the team and earn their stripes.”
For the first time this decade, the expectations for Montana State entering the season are low. The Big Sky’s coaches picked the Bobcats to finish seventh in the league while the media picked MSU eighth. Montana State will look markedly different on both sides of the football, both in scheme and mentality, Choate said. The Bobcats will have to replace an All-America quarterback in Prukop, an All-America tight end who was drafted into the NFL in Beau Sandland and four starters along the offensive line including NFL signee John Weidenaar on the offense alone. The defense returns eight starters, but it’s a group that has been searching for confidence and identity for more than two years.
The Bobcats open camp on Saturday morning. Flynn, for one, doesn’t mind trying to defy the mediocre expectations entering the 2016 season.
“Everyone loves to be the underdog,” Flynn said in July. “You have a different chip on your shoulder when you are the underdog. When you are a question mark, you always have to prove people wrong.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserevd.
