After sitting on the sideline for nine full weeks awaiting a much-anticipated debut, Naijiel Hale’s competitive nature was on full display before his first career start as a Bobcat.
As Southern Utah sat on the turf stretching Eccles Coliseum turf before SUU’s home finale against Montana State, Hale barked at whoever would listen. The officials warned him and Hale responded, ‘What, isn’t football a competitive game? I’m going to show them how competitive today.”
The former four-star recruit from St. John Boscoe Prep (Bellflower, California) who last played at Washington in 2014 had not played a game since two falls ago in Seattle. He sustained his hype for the duration of warm ups despite multiple warnings from the officiating crew, the final one which caused strength coach Alex Wilcox to grab Hale and escort him away. When Wilcox returned to talk to the officials, all three had smiles on their faces, impressed and surprised by just how fired up Hale actually was was.
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“He’s got all this pent up aggression and emotion,” MSU first-year head coach Jeff Choate said. “That was one thing I was concerned about was let’s get into this thing and not get this anxiety curve ruin you. I thought he did a great job of falling into place and was a good added dimension for us back there.”
Hale had some highlights — two pass breakups including a near interception among them — and some speed bumps, namely a 40-yard completion by Patrick Tyler to Steven Wroblewski to set up a game-tying touchdown with less than two minutes in the first half during his first start at MSU.
“The biggest concern was how would he respond yesterday,” Choate said. “He played a lot of football without taking any game repetitions for a long time. He was sore, which you would expect. But he bounced back.”
Hale came to MSU as one of the star recruits of Choate’s first class. He missed most of fall camp and Montana State’s first eight games because of an undisclosed patella tendon issue. Sophomore Tre’von Strong and redshirt freshman Chris Harris have started at MSU’s field cornerback spot opposite John Walker. Junior Bryce Alley, and to a lesser extend, sophomore Tavon Dodd have seen reps at the spot as well with Hale on the shelf.
“We are searching for the best fit for this defense and the best 11 to 22 players for Saturdays,” MSU defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak said. “Naijiel would’ve been great from the get go. Naijiel gives us something. He’s competitive. He’s a quick-twitch athlete. He’s got big-time college football experience. We have missed Naijiel.”
Choate spent three seasons at Washington, including Hale’s freshman year two years ago. MSU secondary Gerald Alexander was a graduate assistant at UW and became close with Hale. Choate added Hale to the roster despite the fact that he was dismissed from UW and did not play anywhere during the 2015 season.
Choate was satisfied with Hale’s performance in his debut despite the fact that MSU fell for the sixth straight time, 38-21 to the reigning Big Sky Conference champions.
“I think he increases the competitiveness of that room and helps us be a better secondary,” Choate said.
Hale was not the only Bobcat to make his first start on Saturday in Cedar City. Gregorak said Monday MSU’s lack of cohesiveness among the defensive line and the secondary, much of it absent because of a rash of injuries, has led to inconsistent performances all season. So Saturday, MSU continued shaking up the lineup.
The staff shifted junior Bryson McCabe from strong safety to free safety, where he had an up and down performance. Redshirt freshman Brayden Konkol made his first career start at strong safety and junior Khari Garcia did not start for the first time this year.
“He’s a big, young athlete, a local boy with talent,” Gregorak said of the Belgrade product. “We thought maybe he could help us at linebacker in camp, then our safety issue. We lost a kid or two and moved him back. Sure enough, by the end of the season, he’s starting. He’s a big, good looking young athlete, no question about it. Those two keep working together, man, it will pay off.”
Choate moved Konkol to Sam linebacker with designs on grooming the 6-foot-3, 215-pounder to be All-Big Sky junior Mac Bignell. The move lasted for less than a week as injuries (primary to senior Zach Stern) and attrition meant MSU needed Konkol because the other best backup options were true freshmen Jacob Hadley and Will Martel.
“He’s a physical guy,” Choate said. “There’s one play in particular, they were running a gap scheme and the guard was out in front and he’s coming down hill and he just levels the guard. I don’t know if we get that out of some other guys out there.
“He’s a 215-pound kid with long levers who is good in space. The area where he will have to continue to improve is being able to cover the slot. But he did a nice job of going out and competing.”
McCabe, a 5-foot-10, 210-pounder who spent one season each South Dakota State and Iowa Western before coming to MSU before last season, is a prototypical strong safety. He did a good job of getting the defense lined up Saturday, Choate said. But the usually sure tackler missed tackles in Cameron Chambers’ 18-yard catch-and-run touchdown that tied the game 14-14 and on Raysean Pringle’s touchdown run to boost SUU to a 31-17 lead.
“It was a little more of a stretch,” Choate said. “He was in the right spots but uncharacteristic of him, he missed some tackles. Sometimes you don’t think about just the angle you are coming from can change that. He even mentioned it was different coming from that deep of space and having to take the air out of it a little more. He was a little low on some tackles and he will usually fit a guy up because that’s his style.
“But as far as getting guys lined up and playing the ball in the air on the deep post…he made some nice plays coming off the hash to support the corners that I don’t think we’ve seen this year.”
Choate said Garcia, a starter since his redshirt freshman season and a team captain this year, responded positively to the move.
“Yesterday afternoon when we were going through the film, Coach Alexander made the comment when he pointed some things out that (Khari) was like, ‘I see what you are talking about,’” Choate said. “Maybe we should’ve created that competition and that urgency a little bit earlier. But we had confidence in Khari’s game reps. That competition will make those guys all better in that room.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
