Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in Skyline Sports’ ELEVATED EXPECTATIONS series profiling Griz football player who are likely to see elevated roles this season for Montana.
Like many kids growing up in Missoula and going to Montana football games, Colten Keintz told his parents that he would play for the Griz when he grew up.
It’s just that it didn’t look like that would ever happen.
Keintz didn’t even play football until his sophomore year of high school.
Now, just four years later, the redshirt freshman tackle is battling for a starting position with the Griz this fall, taking reps at both offensive tackle spots during UM’s current highly competitive fall camp.
“This time four or five years ago, I didn’t even know the rules,” Keintz said. “I ended up falling in love with [football] and I ended up walking on here, and it ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made. Going out for football ended up being one of the best things I ever did.”
Keintz’s quick rise is due to a couple of things.
The first is the tenuous situation on Montana’s offensive line. Four senior starters graduated following last season. Injuries and departures throughout the spring and fall have made the depth issues even more concerning.
Starting a player with that little experience is not something the coaching staff would normally want to do, but times are desperate.
Besides, Keintz has certainly earned the opportunity.
His rapid improvement from his redshirt season last fall and in spring football to UM’s current fall camp caught the attention of the Montana coaches. Because he hasn’t been playing for that long, there’s still a great deal more he has to learn.
“He’s developed on a really rapid pace to be a good football player, and he’s not there yet,” offensive line coach Chad Germer said. “So he’s got a real high ceiling, and that’s great, that’s encouraging that he’s going to do nothing but get better.”
Keintz also has the physical tools for the job. He’s an imposing 6-foot-8, the tallest player on the Grizzly roster this year, and listed at 287 pounds.
His height gives him the length needed to keep pass rushers away from his body.
That length is one of the first things coaches look for in a tackle, and it’s part of what inspired Big Sky High School football coach Matt Johnson to get Keintz out for football in the first place.
“He was my computer design teacher, I guess it was as a freshman, and he told me I had to go out and play football,” Keintz recalled. “And I went out my sophomore year and the rest is history.”
Keintz struggled at first, and didn’t even start at Big Sky until his senior year — unsurprisingly, giving how complicated football is, even for people who have playing their whole life.
But the size that had gotten him on the field in the first place was still there, and by the end of his high school career, he had improved enough to be able to walk on at Montana.
The dreams that he had as a kid were drawing into focus, and Keintz, whose dad had played baseball at Montana in the early 1990s, jumped at the chance.
The transition to college football was, if anything, even more difficult than picking up the game in the first place.
At times as a freshman, Keintz looked awkward and uncomfortable, almost like he didn’t belong on the field.
Keintz’s inexperience, though, also made him a blank slate. The Montana coaches were able to teach him new things every day, and he improved rapidly.
“I guess when I got here, it was all just kind of thrown at my face, in terms of having to learn everything right away,” Keintz said. “It’s at times a little awkward, but one thing that the coaches preach is just to embrace the awkward. I guess it’s still a challenge, having to pick up everything that’s thrown at me. But like the coaches preach, just embrace the awkward, and I think it’s really starting to all essentially slow down.”
Germer was one of the few coaches who stayed over from Bob Stitt’s staff when Bobby Hauck was hired, and the continuity also helped Keintz’s development.
“Coach Germer, he’s a great coach,” Keintz said. “He knows A to Z, everything when it comes to offensive line. And I don’t think there’s another coach I’d like to play for.”
Now, the kid who didn’t know the rules of football five years ago is going to play a big role on Germer’s offensive line.
“I just think that it’s truly a blessing to be where I am now, working with the guys I’m working with,” Keintz said. “That’s all I can say, is that it’s really humbling, just knowing that where I was four or five years ago, or even a year ago, and just where I am now, there’s just so many things to be thankful for, so many people to be thankful for.”
Andrew Houghton is a freelance sportswriter providing Griz football content for Skyline Sports this fall. Photos by Jason Bacaj, All Rights Reserved.
