MISSOULA — Brent Myers has been coaching offensive line so long, Austin Buehler’s mother wasn’t even in middle school by the time Myers’ well-respected career began.
Buehler’s mother, of course, is Greta (Koss) Buehler, a former Montana Lady Griz who is widely considered one of the greatest players in UM’s illustrious women’s basketball history. The Buehlers are an easy reference point here both because of Koss’s fame — she was the 1996 Big Sky Conference MVP and played for the Utah Starzz in the inaugural year of the WNBA — and because Austin Buehler is expected to be one of several Montana-made offensive linemen leaned heavily upon to rebuild a unit that returns zero starters from last season’s 13-2 Griz squad.
Buehler, who prepped at Helena Capital, and Torin Jeske, a third-year player out of Bozeman High, might also serve as a sort of litmus test for the efficacy in a change in philosophy under Myers’ guidance.
“I like to find the young, athletic guy and build them up in both body weight and confidence,” Myers said in an interview with Skyline Sports in May. “That’s the model that’s always worked best for me.”
For most of the Bobby Hauck 2.0 era, the Griz favored building their offensive lines with a mix of internally developed talent (Liam Brown, Brandon Casey serving as the best examples) as well as plug-and-play FBS transfers like A.J Forbes and Chris Walker (Nebraska), Everett Johnson (Cal), Patrick Matan (NC State) and Cade Klimzcak (Central Michigan).
With the 2026 season-opener rapidly approaching, it appears that Montana still might have a few FBS players in its starting lineup on the offensive line — UNLV transfer Dyllan Drummond has been running with the first-team offense for most of fall camp at guard while Dylan Jemtegaard, who transferred to UM before last season, looks like the starting center — the rest of the inexperienced unit is likely to be anchored by internally developed players.
Jeske, a 6-foot-6 junior who put on 24 pounds this off-season to check in at 295, has been getting the bulk of the reps at left tackle since Hauck “retired”. Buehler, who at 6-foot-5 gained 10 pounds to also check in at 295 pounds, looks to be the bookend at right tackle. And Lucas Freitas, the most experienced of the group, is the biggest, checking in at 6-foot-6 and 310 pounds.
None of the aforementioned has ever started a game for the Griz. But the fact that UM brought in transfers Campbell Vandiver (South Carolina), Jack D’Ambra (San Diego), Wyatt Sanford (Carroll College) and Drummond and only one is starting is certainly a departure from the mode of operation the last few seasons at Montana.
“All the kids that are playing for me right now except for the freshmen have gotten game reps, multiple reps,” Myers said. “Bobby and the offensive staff gave a lot of those guys reps. Then as I went through the cut ups and evaluated, I had game film.
“One thing that I always say, all the time, is that every good player started for his first time. You take an All-American like I had in Sua Opeta at Weber or the kid that just went to the Denver Broncos for me, Gavin Ortega, who was a two-time all-conference kid, and once upon a time, those guys had to start for the firs time.
“Sua came from the defensive side and had never started anywhere. Ortega started as a freshman. But he still had to start for the first time. You can’t become experienced until you start fo the first time. That’s our group.”
The Grizzlies have had a revolving door at offensive line coach lately after years of stability. Chad Germer spent 2015 until 2023 as Montana’s OL coach — the UM alum was also the offensive line coach for his alma mater from 1998 until 2002 between Mick Dennehy and Joe Glenn’s staff, again in 2009 on Hauck’s staff before returning to join Bob Stitt’s staff and staying when Hauck replaced Stitt ahead of the 2018 season — before moving on to Eastern Washington.
Joe Pawlak spent one season in the position in 2024 with limited results. Norcross was a one-and-done as well.
Enter Myers, who is well-renowned around the coaching business for his ability to develop young talent, mold raw prospects and teach the fundamentals of offensive line play effectively.
“He’s a guy who is very passionate, very knowledgeable and I think he’s a great teacher,” UM head coach Bobby Kennedy said last week. “You see those things showing up with that unit every day. He’s demanding. But guys know he cares about them. And he’s going to get the best out of those guys. I’m very confident in what he’s bringing to our offensive line.”
Buehler has shown apparent potential since he walked onto campus. But he’s had to bide his time while trying to pack on the pounds necessary to hang in the Big Sky trenches, while also having to navigate having former power conference players dropped ahead of him on the depth chart. Now the Capital City product has an opportunity to turn potential into production.
“It’s every Montana kid’s dream to do this,” Buehler said. “Jemtegaard has a lot of experience. We have a few transfers that bring new perspectives in. And there’s a lot of young guys who are just ready, and eager to play.”
Jeske is in the mold of some of the old-school offensive linemen that Montana used to lean their reputations on. For years, the Griz would recruit raw multi-sport athletes with long limbs and nowhere close to the requisite weight needed to play offensive line at the Division I level. Many times, those prospects would be great basketball players with excellent footwork who needed to gain 50-80 pounds to be able to hang in the trenches.
Jeske, who is an excellent basketball player at Bozeman High, was originally committed to Montana Tech coming out of high school. A late offer to walk on made him a Griz. Now the redshirt sophomore has an inside track to be a multi-year starter.
“It means the world to every Montana kid to play for Montana or Montana State and it’s a dream come true for me, too,” Jeske said. “I’ve worked a lot on my pass set. I struggled with that the first few years. I switched from right to left last year so that’s been different. Coach Myers has done a great job of teaching me and getting me comfortable on the left side.”
Thus far during fall camp, the offensive line has looked aggressive and physical while run blocking and the offense has looked explosive, especially when preseason All-American quarterback Keali’i Ah Yat is at the controls.
One of the most underrated parts of this unproven line’s ability to develop quickly is the defense they are practicing against, not necessarily in personnel but in scheme. The Griz have run a high-octane, completely unorthodox defense the last eight years that used almost zero principles of traditional and commonly seen defenses that exist in the Big Sky and the FCS.
Now Montana is employing a four-man front and employing a defense with gap principles, which in turn has given the offensive line more familiar looks to help them hone in the basics and build confidence.
“I think it helps a lot because it’s definitely a defense that we will see more often compared to what we’ve gone against the last few years,” Buehler said.
Myers, who started his career at Eastern Washington in 1982 half a dozen years before the Eagles joined the Big Sky Conference, spent 2014 through last season as the offensive line coach at Weber State. He even got a chance to be the interim head coach the last two games of the year after WSU abruptly fired second-year head coach Mickey Mental after Montana State ripped Weber 66-14 in Bozeman the final Saturday of October.
Myers has been around the Big Sky and around the West for so long, he was the offensive line coach at Northern Arizona during the time that Koss was tearing up the Big Sky (1993-1997). That’s where Myers first met Hauck, who he worked along side in 1993 and 1994 in Flagsaff, and again from 2000-2002 at Washington, and who Myers worked for at UNLV from 2010 until 2012.
In between, Myers made stops working for Dirk Koetter at Boise State (1998-1999), Ron McBride at Utah (2003), Koetter again at Arizona State (2004-2006), and Steve Kragthorpe at Louisville (2007-2009).
Myers united with Hauck in Vegas after Hauck took the UNLV job after losing a second straight national title game leading his alma mater at UM. The 21-19 loss was just the 16th in seven seasons in Hauck’s first stint (along with 80 wins and seven straight Big Sky titles). Myers was the tight ends coach in Las Vegas, but “desperately wanted to get back to coaching the offensive line”. So he took a job on Jay Hill’s first coaching staff at Weber State ahead of the 2013 season.
“I love Jay and I’m very close to Jay, and it was an opportunity for me to go back and be O line coach again, and my daughter and my wife both love the state of Utah, and so we end up coming back in 2014,” Myers said. “I interviewed for the job when Coach Hill got the DC position at BYU and I didn’t get it. Then I was the interim and I interviewed for the head job again, but they chose to go in a different directly.
“That’s when Bobby called and he told me (former UM offensive line coach) Cam Norcross had left, and he goes, “I’d love to have you up here. Think about it.’
“It didn’t take me very long, because I’ve been here and I know how the good the tradition is here. I was really curious because I had played and coached here seems like 100 times, and you never get a chance to get a feel for the inside of an institution, a program. And when I came here, I was instantly fired up by the opportunity because of the things that have been done here, the discipline of the kids, the attitude of the community, and the culture of the program.”
Although much of the Griz coaching staff is new under the direction of a first-year, first-time head coach, and although Myers has never coached a game at Montana, he was actually hired by Hauck before Hauck’s seismic departure on National Signing Day back in February.
Myers said that the Weber staff used to always talk about the road to the Big Sky Conference title going through Montana. Now he he gets an opportunity to help the Griz chase the 20th conference crown in school history. And the offensive line will be among if not the most pivotal factors to that pursuit of success.”
“The road to the title always goes through Montana. It’s been that way for decades. If you’re a competitive guy, you want to coach at a school with the expectations Montana has,” Myers said. “When I came up here, I thought, ‘OK, I’ve got a chance.’ I’ve been to the semifinals, but I’ve never won the title. I’d love a shot at winning it. I don’t want to come up short. I love the expectations. I think it’s fantastic.”
