Naijiel Hale shed a few tears the day Montana State opened fall camp.
Once upon a time, Hale was a top tier cornerback recruit out of California powerhouse St. John Bosco Prep. The last time the son of rap legend Nate Dogg stepped on the gridiron was in the 2014 Cactus Bowl as a true freshman cornerback for the Washington Huskies. That season, he cut his teeth with tackles against Cal, Oregon, Arizona State, Colorado, UCLA, Washington State and the OSU Cowboys. He has not played football since.
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On Saturday, Hale returned to the field for the first time as his Montana State Bobcats opened their first fall camp under new head coach Jeff Choate. Hale was dismissed from Washington following the 2014 season. He sat out the 2015 season all together, both athletically and academically. A second chance provided by Choate, the defensive line coach at UW during Hale’s lone season in Seattle, is one Hale hopes he can embrace.
“I just shed a few tears.. I’m just thankful to be back.. It’s some other stuff build inside.. It’s go time,” Hale posted on Twitter the first day of camp.
Following Tuesday’s session, a practice in which Hale did more observing and riding the bicycle than taking repetitions as he battles to get back in shape, the former four-star recruit said Montana may be unfamiliar but the procedures of the day made him feel right at home.
“The way they are running the program, it’s very similar to UDub,” Hale said following Sunday’s windy practice that held its second half in Bobcat Stadium. “It’s set up like UW and it’s emotion, high tempo, a competitive environment. It’s moving. We are getting rolling.
“There’s no pressure, I just want to get better with the guys we have. We can all play. If we work the way we should, we can all get in there and help us.”
Choate is not the only familiar face Hale finds in Bozeman. New MSU secondary coach Gerald Alexander was a graduate assistant on Chris Petersen’s staff at Washington during Hale’s freshman season.
“With the prior relationship I have with Naijiel, giving him a second chance up here, I’m rooting for the kid no matter what and now that he’s in my hands and my care, I really want him to be successful so he can redeem himself for the decisions he made as a young guy,” Alexander said in an interview during spring drills before Hale arrived on campus. “We have to keep him on track, keep him in line to achieve the goals he’s set for his future.
“He’s a guy who is hungry. He had an opportunity at a Pac 12 institution. By his own wrongdoing, he thwarted that opportunity. He’s hungry for this second chance.”
Hale, who does not disclose what went awry at Washington but has no arrest record, is one of two cornerback transfers added by the Bobcats in the off-season. MSU also added John Walker, a 5-foot-9, 166-pound graduate transfer from Colorado who started nine games during his four years in Boulder.
“We talked about how we could come in and help right away with our experience playing in the Pac 12 and help the team make it to the next level,” Walker said in an interview this off-season. “We aren’t trying to come in and take over or nothing. We are trying to come in and give them that extra boost they need with the defense in the secondary.”
The additions of Walker and Hale add to a suddenly talented group of cornerbacks. The returning Bobcats each have something to prove. And the transfers are not being handed starting spots.
During Sunday’s practice, Walker and junior Bryce Alley, a starter for the first four games of last season, earned the first-team repetitions during the first hour of practice Sunday (the media had to leave after 60 minutes). Tre’Von Strong, a starter for eight games as a true freshman last fall, and Braelen Evans, a heralded recruit who has been injured for most of his first two years in Bozeman, ran with the second string defense.
“There’s always pressure,” Alley said when asked about the addition of two Pac 12 transfers to his group. “There always has been pressure, ever since I first got here with D Flow (Deonte Flowers) and them. You just have to keep come out here and get better and make your own plays.”
Sophomore Tavon Dodd, a converted running back, true freshman Damien Washington and redshirt freshman Chris Harris split the third-team reps.
“We have options there,” Choate said after the session. “We didn’t really have that in the spring. There were days in the spring when we would get to seven-on-seven and four of the guys on line one of the depth chart had to go to class. It’s hard to develop a lot of continuity when that was going on.”
Alexander, a second-round NFL Draft pick out of Boise State who spent five years in the league, said all of his cornerbacks are in contention to play. He hopes each one embraces the competition, but more importantly, embraces each other.
“As a defensive back, you have to understand that you need each other,” Alexander said on Sunday. “Don’t look at what that guy is doing and think it’s going to directly affect your playing time. Help him, he’ll help you and in that case, we will get stronger as a team. And this thing will sort itself out.”
Walker’s transfer did not go smoothly. He came on an official visit to MSU during the Sonny Holland spring game and committed soon after. But a hitch in the academic process led to him committing to North Dakota instead. Choate straightened out the academic issue before Walker had been cleared at UND, ultimately leading him to Bozeman after all.
He arrived in Bozeman more than a month before camp and participated in the final three weeks of Montana State’s summer conditioning drills. Hale arrived about a week before camp. Hale’s conditioning has been behind the first two days of camp, Choate said.
“Johnny Walker got up here and spent three weeks in our summer program and that helped him out a ton,” Choate said. “Naijiel not being here, the conditioning factor —those guys have to run a lot — that’s a challenge.
“He has a little bit of tendinitis but when he came to Washington, it was the same way. He has to work him into shape and then go from there. I think it was a mistake yesterday just opening it up and letting him go.”
The first two fall camp practices under Choate have been intense and physically demanding. MSU did almost an hour of fundamental drills to begin Tuesday’s practice with the defensive players doing pursuit drill several times and the defensive backs engaging running at others. The defensive line hit the blocking sleds for multiple periods at a time. The taxing nature of each practice is a stark change from the last few fall camps on the Dyche practice fields.
“Conditioning is the biggest priority for our entire team,” Alexander said. “It’s not just Naijiel. Everybody has to get in shape. Us as a defensive back corps, we have to be the most conditioned unit in the country. For us to be able to utilize our skill not only in the corps but defensively as a unit, our speed has to take away any daylight on the field. The only way we are going to do that snap after snap after snap is to be in supreme physical condition.”
SUNDAY PRACTICE NOTES: Junior Tyrone Fa’anono, the slated starter at defensive end, missed his second straight day of camp with a family issue. He will return to Bozeman on Sunday and begin practicing on Monday…Choate confirmed sophomore running back Logan Jones, an honorable mention All-Big Sky selection last fall as a true freshman, will not participate in fall camp but is still with the team….Junior college transfer linebacker Jakob McCarthy missed his second straight day of practice as he awaits the approval of his eligibility. Choate said he has his AA degree and is simply awaiting academic clearance.
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
