The Montana Grizzlies haven’t faced much uncertainty at linebacker over the last decade-plus.
Whenever a star graduated or moved on, it always seemed like there was an experienced backup who had waited his turn ready to step in and instantly play at an all-conference level.
This year, the Griz hope the next linebacker in line will be redshirt junior Dante Olson.
Any who followed the Griz since Bobby Hauck first took over in 2003 likely once wondered how would Montana replace Brent Meyers and Joel Robinson, the first set of standout linebackers in Hauck’s first season at the helm 15 years ago. UM reloaded with Shane MacIntyre and Adam Hoge. In 2005, Tyler Joyce and Kyle Ryan began to emerge. In 2006, Loren Utterback started to assert himself. In 2o07, Shawn Lebsock and Brandon Fisher cracked the rotation, carrying the unit until Hauck’s final season of his first tenure at his alma mater in 2009.
Although Hauck, and for a brief moment linebackers’ coach Ty Gregorak, left for UNLV that year, the Griz continued to churn out linebackers. With each graduation came new question marks, each answered in rapid fashion. Gregorak returned to serve as UM’s defensive coordinator in 2011. Caleb McSurdy, Alex Shaw and Jordan Tripp, evolved into a unit that included Tripp, Brock Coyle and John Kanongata’a, a group subsequently replaced by Kendrick Van Ackeren, Herbert Gamboa and Jeremiah Kose. That trio gave way to last season’s group of Josh Buss, Connor Strahm and James Banks.
Of the aforementioned, Gregorak helped coach McSurdy to Big Sky Defensive MVP honors while McSurdy, Meyers, MacIntyre, Utterback, Lebsock, Tripp, Kanongata’a and Gamboa all earned first-team Al-Big Sky honors. Fisher, Joyce and Coyle earned second-team honors under Gregorak’s tutelage, although Coyle is now entering his fifth season in the NFL and is slated to start at middle linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers. Under most recent linebackers’ coach Travis Niekamp the last two seasons, Banks and Buss each earned second-team All-Big Sky in 2017, while Strahm earned third-team All-Big Sky in 2016.
Olson has followed the pattern of those star Montana linebackers, playing primarily on special teams so far and being named the Hauck Family Special Teams Player of the Year each of the last two years.
Strahm also won that award, in 2016, as did Van Ackeren, who won in 2013 in its seventh year of existence, the year before the accolade was renamed for the UM head coach’s family legacy. Van Ackeren promptly broke into the starting lineup and posted back-to-back seasons of 122 and 130 tackles. The latter number is a program record.
After two years as a special teams ace, Olson will be moving full-time into the starting lineup at linebacker this year.
“Coach Hauck preaches it all the time: playing special teams is very physical and aggressive,” Olson said. “I think that carries over to linebacker.”
With Strahm and Banks lost to graduation, and Buss unlikely available for the start of the season due to injury, it’s going to be Olson’s time to shine this season. Those three were UM’s three leading tacklers last year.
Olson, listed at 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, has impressed so far in spring practice and fall camp. He’s fast to close the hole on ballcarriers and physical when he gets there.
“He’s big and physical and fast, those are good places to start,” Hauck said about Olson. “And then he grew up in a football family, he has a good feel for the game.”
Olson’s father Jeff served as the head coach at Southern Oregon in Ashland from 1996 until 2004, winning 50 games, the second-most on SOU history. He then coached North Medford High for five seasons before stepping down the year before Dante entered high school.
Olson should be the star of a linebacker corps that lost 199 total tackles when Banks and Strahm graduating, and then was thrown even further into disarray when Buss suffered an injur this summer on the tail end of missing most of spring ball after off-season shoulder surgery.
Without Buss, the Preseason Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year, Olson (38) and Shayne Cochran (20) are the only returning ‘backers that reached even double digits in tackles last year for the Griz. Montana’s 2015 Defensive Scout of the Year posted 22 tackles and two tackles for loss two seasons ago and 38 tackles plus two tackles for loss last season playing on special teams, in spot roles at linebacker and coming off the edge in certain third down packages. During spring football, Olson moved to defensive end for a short time, before moving back to linebacker and posting what Hauck called “one of the standout springs among our players.”
“I’ve always played more of a true linebacker so when I got moved to the more true d-end position it was new but I was willing to do it, willing to take on the task,” Olson said. “I feel like I was doing pretty good, had a good time and then they moved me back to linebacker.
“I’m having an awesome time. Whatever I can do to help the team win and whatever the coaches think I can do best and excel at best is good. I’m loving middle linebacker right now. I’m just here to do whatever they need me to do.”
Hauck praised the route that Olson has taken to the starting lineup.
“In my opinion, that’s how it’s supposed to work,” Hauck said. “Freshmen aren’t supposed to come in and play and start right away … We want them to cut their teeth in the kicking game. You learn about college football speed and physicalness and then you get to work your way in. If coaches had their way and it was a perfect world, guys wouldn’t start until their junior years.”
That’s been the way it’s gone at linebacker for Montana for most of the last 25 years. Learn on special teams, get some game reps, step up and lead the defense.
It will be up to Olson to continue that tradition.
“We watched him in the weight room all summer, and he’s worked his tail off, and now it’s just a matter of going out there and making plays,” Hauck said. “I think he’s got a chance to do that. He’s done a nice job getting himself ready to go.”
Andrew Houghton is a freelance sportswriter providing Montana Griz football coverage this fall. He can be reached at akh243@gmail.com. Photos by Jason Bacaj and Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
