BOZEMAN — Jeff Choate has been coaching football since the early 1990s, including spending the last 15 years coaching at the Division I level. During a six-year stint at Boise State, Choate remembers facing off against Air Force’s triple option offense. During his one season at Florida, Choate remembers getting his Gator linebackers ready to slow down Georgia Southern’s vaunted triple option attack.
But most of Choate’s experience preparing his players comes from his days as a high school coach in Idaho.
“I played more triple option teams when I was a high school coach than a college coach and that’s fairly standard,” Choate said. “There’s only a handful of this style of team that truly commit to the true triple option in the entire country. It’s very rare to be playing one. We have one in our league in Cal Poly but we haven’t played them since I’ve been here.”
On Saturday, Choate will get his first test as a college head coach against the unorthodox rush-oriented offense with No. 25 Kennesaw State coming to Bozeman for Montana State’s final non-conference game of the season. The Owls are 7-1 thanks to a rushing offense that leads the FCS with 329.1 yards per game on the ground.
“They are similar to Cal Poly but here’s the difference: Cal Poly probably plays a little bit more of the West Coast style of this. This is the dirty south style,” Choate said. “This is a lot of cutting. Those guys are army crawling, chop blocking. It’s not a style you ever want to see and certainly not this late in the season when, like everybody else in the country, you have enough injuries to go around. We still have two very significant league games late. I don’t understand it but it is what it is.”
The Kennesaw State game was on the schedule before Choate took over as Montana State’s head coach in December of 2015. When the deal was first inked — MSU will pay KSU $200,000 for the contest — the matchup was set to fall in the middle of a competitive Big Sky Conference race. Choate’s team has won two straight league games to push its record to 4-2 in conference play but begins November with a first-ever matchup against KSU.
The Bobcats will need to pull out a win against the competitive visitors if playoff hopes are to remain alive. Not only is the matchup one with a Top 25 opponent visiting Bozeman but the Owls’ style accentuates the challenge for the hosts.
“That’s part of the problem with playing this game is where it’s at on the schedule, quite frankly,” Choate said. “Who are we going to recycle? I can’t waive my magic wand and get (defensive end) Grant Collins back or (outside linebacker) Balue Chapman or down the list.
“You don’t want to schedule this team any time. Probably one of the reasons they are not playing FBS opponents out of conference is because nobody wants to play these games… This is not a game you want to play. If you see a triple option team and someone asks me if you want to play these guys, my answer is immediately no for a lot of reasons and one is player safety.”
Kennesaw State, a part of the University system of Georgia, started its football program in 2013. Brian Bohannon, a disciple of triple option guru Paul Johnson, and the Owls began competing in the Big South Conference in 2015.
Johnson is nationally known for his flexbone spread option offense. Johnson was the offensive coordinator at Georgia Southern during the team’s run to the Division I-AA national championship in 1985 and 1986. After spending eight seasons at Hawaii, Johnson came back stateside and coordinated the offense for the United States Naval Academy.
In 1997, Johnson took the head coaching job at Georgia Southern, leading the Eagles to three straight national title games, including winning it all in 1999 and 2000. The win in the 2000 national title game over Montana State’s fierce rival Montana.
Johnson went on to serve as the head coach at Navy from 2002 until 2007 before taking the head coaching job at Georgia Tech, where he remains. Bohannon spent most of his coaching career learning the nuances of the intricate run-based offense from Johnson, serving on his staffs at Georgia Southern from 1997 until 2001, for the duration at Navy and then at Georgia Tech from 2008 until 2012, when he took the Kennesaw State job.
Bohannon has not hesitated to play the exact same style that helped Georgia Southern put together one of the most successful runs in FCS history in the same state as Kennesaw. Johnson posted a 62-10 record at Georgia Southern, becoming one of just four coaches in Division I history to win 50 games in his first four years as a head coach.
“There’s a lot of ways to be successful here at Kennesaw State but the thing I love about the triple option is it develops a lot of team,” Bohannon said. “You can’t be selfish. You can’t be entitled. You can’t do that and be a part of we do. In this generation of young people, the one thing we harp on is team. I know everybody says it, but the nature of what we do demands it. It creates toughness with which is a lost art in college football today. The team and the toughness aspect is what I love about the triple option.”
Behind the standout play of quarterback Chandler Burks — the 5-foot-10, 187-pound junior leads the team with 606 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns and has also thrown for 770 yards and five scores — KSU has won seven straight games.
“It’s been super fun,” said Burks, an in-state product who ran a spread offense his senior year in high school. “The position I play is very challenging. Being able to see defenses, being able to get us in the right play at the right time, being able to make the checks when needed and being able to take care of the ball at all times has been very challenging and very fun while doing it.”
The team is averaging 30 points per game and running the ball on average 57 times per outing. Kennesaw State averages nearly 33 minutes per game in time of possession. The team has notched 167 total first downs, including nearly 16 per game (123 total) on the ground.
“It works,” Bohannon said. “It’s proven over time at every level no matter where you run it that it works. We feel like we can get dynamic players to do this stuff and really make some things happen.”
Burks is the trigger man while Jake McKenzie, a converted quarterback, is the dive man playing fullback at 6-foot, 205 pounds. Redshirt freshman Shaquil Terry is the faster of the two wing backs while Darnell Holland is also a threat in the run game. The KSU offensive line features Ryan Warrior as a 6-3, 245-pound left tackle and Zach Mitchler as a 6-foot-3, 238-pound right tackle. The guards Nick Eldridge (6-2, 282) and Matt Frank (6-3, 300) have more prototypical size while center CJ Collins is 6-3, 256 pounds.
“The one thing I know for sure is you can’t do too much. You have to keep it simple. You have to have a counter punch because I know Coach Bohannon has done this a long time and he just goes to the Bible,” Choate said. “There’s only so many ways you can play this style. I’m sure he has all the answers to counter punch if he sees what you are doing.”
Montana State had not played Cal Poly since Choate took over. MSU has played the Mustangs twice since senior captain outside linebacker Mac Bignell and his classmates have been Bobcats, losing at Cal Poly in 2014 and thrashing the Mustangs in 2015.
“Kennesaw State is fairly straight forward,” Bignell said. “Everyone is going to have their wrinkles. In the passing game, what they do but for most part, you are going to see them run the same eight plays over and over again. They are going to show different formations but pretty much you are going to see the same eight plays from them 50 or 60 times a game.”
The Owls cut block more than Cal Poly, Choate said. Bignell said the Montana State defensive players understand the crucial nature of staying on their feet.
“That’s what they get their bread and butter off of,” Bignell said. “Their guards and center are pretty good sized dudes but their tackles, they are tight end looking guys but they can get up to the second line well and they are looking to cut you. If we are able to stay off the ground, not allow us to get cut, we will have a better chance of stopping the run against them. That’s the biggest key in this game: to not get cut and not let the quarterback and fullback beat us. Those two guys make the offense run.”
Although Choate has not played a triple option opponent as MSU’s head coach, veteran defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak has planned for Cal Poly often during his career that also includes 12 seasons at Montana. This week, Gregorak’s defense has been going against a scout team led by MSU wide receiver Willie Patterson, a shifty athlete who played quarterback in a spread option offense in Tacoma as a prep senior last fall. MSU defensive intern Kendrick Van Ackeren, a former standout Griz linebacker, was a successful option quarterback at Bellevue High outside Seattle as well.
“You can’t simulate it. It’s impossible to simulate,” Gregorak said. “You can’t do it with the scout team. We are going to do our best to do it. But we are getting into November and we are going to have to do some things tomorrow during our Tuesday practice that you started to get away from in terms of the physicality. You have no way to simulate it without going full pads, the cuts and all of it.
“It’s like that opening scene from Saving Private Ryan: It’s nothing short of chaos on every play.”
