Editor’s note: For the eighth straight football season, Colter Nuanez will profile seniors from the Montana State Bobcats each Friday. MSU senior defensive linemen Tyrone Fa’anono, Zach Wright and Tucker Yates will be profiled individually. The 2018 series kicks off with a feature on Montana State’s defensive line as a whole.
BOZEMAN — By the time the carnage to Montana State’s defensive end position finally gave reprieve, four projected contributors sat on the shelf. In Jeff Choate’s first season, the Bobcats had a pair of freshmen and a converted tight end to choose from when it came to the edge of MSU’s defensive front.
Robert Wilcox and Devin Jeffries suffered season and ultimately career-ending knee injuries during the first off-season under Choate leading up to the 2016 season. Tyrone Fa’anono’s bothersome foot flared up again, costing him a spot in the rotation. Shiloh Laboy’s shoulder never regained stability.
Choate has coached some of the premier defensive linemen in college football this decade, having a hand in helping Florida’s Dante Fowler and Washington’s Danny Shelton and Hau’oli Kikaha each become early NFL Draft picks. But as he entered his first season as a college head coach, the dearth of talent because of injury on his Bobcat roster was striking.
That first season, Montana State held its own defensively despite having to play a pair of rookie defensive ends in Derek Marks and Marcus Ferriter, a converted tight end turned defensive end in Woody Brandom, a natural middle linebacker at Buck end in Grant Collins and a pair of sophomores on the interior in tackle Zach Wright and nose guard Tucker Yates.
Fast forward to Montana State’s season opener to begin the 2018 season on August 30 against Western Illinois. The trials and tribulations of MSU’s defensive front seemed like a distant memory.
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MSU’s defensive line came at the Leathernecks’ offensive front in waves, first employing a stunting scheme that was surprisingly stagnant only to ditch the tricks, return to their roots and grind Western Illinois into the Bobcat Stadium turf.
“As the game went on, even if all of them weren’t sacks, we constantly pressured the quarterback (Sean McGuirre) and effected him,” MSU defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak said. “To close out the game on a fourth down, get that fourth sack and win the game on defense, that was pretty special and shows the strides we’ve made.”
The Bobcats emerged with a 26-23 victory thanks in large part to the pressure they were able to apply on McGuirre, WIU’s savvy, strong-armed senior all-conference gunslinger. Bryce Sterk’s sack with eight minutes to play helped set up a game-tying field goal by Tristan Bailey from 50 yards out. Sterk’s clutch fourth down sack with four minutes to play gave MSU the ball for good in the first season-opening victory under Choate’s staff.
“We weren’t sure exactly how they would come out but at halftime, one of our coaches said their right tackle was just about to call it a day,” Sterk said on Wednesday. “I took that as an opportunity. If they are tired and I was feeling pretty great at halftime, that’s a booster to look forward to in the second half.
“That last sack was really exciting. I knew it was fourth down, I knew someone had to make a play and I figured I would give it my all. I don’t know what I felt but I felt like I had to go get him.”
Since joining the Big Sky Conference in 1963, Montana State has proud lineage of some of the best defensive linemen the league has seen. From Gary Gustafson to Bill Kollar, from Mark Fellows to Corey Widmer, from Dane Fletcher to Buck Buchanan winners Caleb Schreibeis and Brad Daly, much of MSU’s success has gone hand in hand with harassing quarterbacks.
During the last two seasons under Rob Ash and the first two seasons under Choate, the sack production took a sharp dive. In 2014, Choate oversaw a Washington defensive line that notched an eye-popping 52 sacks. In his first season at Montana State, the Bobcats totaled 15. Last year, that number dipped to 13, 11th in the 13-team Big Sky.
“I’ve been a part of teams that had 50 in a year,” Choate said. “I’m not saying that’s realistic for us but I think 30 is a realistic number. I think if we get 30 sacks, that’s going to be good. If you look at the teams that won the conference the last two years (North Dakota and Weber State), they both led the league in scoring defense and sacks. There’s a direct correlation to success in this league and being able to affect the quarterback.”
Yates broke into the starting lineup as a redshirt freshman the second half of the 2015 season. Wright would’ve started next to him on the interior regardless of the injury situation in 2016. But the valuable reps Marks played accelerated his development. With Fa’anono healthy, that foursome has served as the foundation.
“Those guys I think see their role as leaving a legacy,” Choate said. “Hey, we got it back to where we wanted it to be. We taught these young guys how to do it and do it right. And when we walk out of here, we know this place is going to be in good hands. I think that’s a big part of their motivation.”
With the base built, Choate and Gregorak started to fill in the pieces. Choate’s first recruiting class included Chase Benson, widely considered one of Montana’s top prospects out of Helena who made his first start in place of the suspended Yates against Western Illinois.
That class also included Kyle Finch, a preferred walk-on from Dillon who has had one of the best off-seasons of any Bobcat according to his coaches. The redshirt sophomore is Sterk’s backup at MSU’s Buck end position.
But the key addition might be Sterk, the statuesque yet speedy 6-foot-5, 255-pound former Washington transfer. Choate originally recruited the Lynden, Washington native to UW, then showed faith in him again, bringing him to Bozeman to play one of the most important spots in Gregorak’s 3-4 scheme.
“The lack of pressure off the edge, that’s one of the things that’s kept us from winning some of those tight games,” said Choate, who’s team has played 13 different one-score games in the 22 games under his guidance.
One day during fall camp, Choate said Sterk “made probably four or five plays just because he is so long and fast, the combination of the two, whether it’s chasing a guy down from the backside or just sitting there, reaching out and grabbing a dude, I just don’t know if we’ve had that guy. I think he changes the dynamic seriously.”
The rare physical gifts Sterk possesses — he was a state champion 400 meters and long hurdles runner in high school — were on full display against Western Illinois. Twice, he chased ball carriers down on sweep plays that otherwise exploited the edges of MSU’s defense.
Early in the third quarter, Fa’anono’s relentless effort and diverse set of pass rush moves caused for the Leathernecks to send help for their offensive tackles. That in turn left Sterk alone one-on-one, leading to the two late sacks as the Bobcats closed out a potentially crucial victory over the visitors from the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
“I was curious to see what his game maturity would look like,” Wright said. “Young guys, guys who haven’t played a lot, they tend to lose their heads a little bit, guys who haven’t been in it. On 4th and one, they are like a mad dog just trying to get the ball. But I was very impressed by Sterk. He showed maturity that you don’t see in first time starters.”
The addition of Sterk, the renewed health of Fa’anono, the steadiness of Wright and Yates and the newfound depth with the improvement of Benson, contribution of true freshman nose James Williams and the preparedness of Marks and Ferriter has the unit aspiring to lofty goals.
Yates said the conversation about chasing a reputation as the best defensive line in the Big Sky Conference and one of the top units in the FCS began in the off-season.
“We definitely talk about it quite a bit,” Yates said. “There’s a lot of talk about us three seniors up there and the addition of Sterk but we have to go out and play. We have got to quit looking at the newspapers and keep working.”
“We don’t assume anything, we won’t assume we are going to be the best but that’s definitely our goal,” Sterk added. “Once we reach that goal, that goal will be the standard. Whatever it takes to get there, we will work until we get there.”
As part of that pursuit, Marks said the group spent many off-season nights watching NFL film, studying elite pass rushers like edge specialist Joey Bosa of the Los Angeles Chargers and LA Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, widely considered the best interior pass rusher on the planet.
Choate calls the MSU defensive line “the best leaders as a unit as we have on the team.” The trials the group has been through and the improvements they have made will serve as the foundation for what could be a stark jump in production and reputation.
“The ceiling is whatever we decide it to be,” Wright said. “Going out with the way our unit is specifically, us having the leadership we have there, the one goal and the biggest goal we have is to quite frankly to be the best.
“A lot of people can say that’s a lofty goal, shoot for the stars, you might miss them by a little bit, but that’s all garbage when you look around at the guys in the room and you can say we can actually do this. We can be the best defensive line in the conference. We can make a run at being some of the best guys in the country.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
