Michael Pitre is in his first year as Montana State’s recruiting coordinator. The third-year assistant has spent his tenure at Bozeman mentoring several all-conference running backs, including electric speedster Shawn Johnson and two-year captain Chad Newell.
Pitre has long held a passion for recruiting despite the 31-year-old’s young coaching career. As a player at UCLA, he immediately recognized the potential talent can make if you find the right fit to bring to a program. As a recruiting coordinator for two high schools in the Trinity League in Southern California, as a graduate assistant at Colorado and in his first full-time job at Montana State, Pitre has carried that understanding with him.
[restrict paid=”true”]“I’m really passionate about the recruiting process because everyone knows that recruiting is the bloodline of your program,” Pitre said. “If your staff can recruit talent and the right type of kids, you know you are giving yourself a good chance on Saturdays to be successful.”
Pitre has had a hand in recruiting veteran Bobcats like senior defensive end Jessie Clark and young players with potential like redshirt freshmen tight end/defensive end Woody Brandom, wide receiver Keon Stephens and cornerback Chris Harris.
For most of the decade, Montana State has had a resume filled with success to recruit to, from the three straight Big Sky Conference championships the school claimed between 2010 and 2012 to the postseason berth in 2014 that made it four trips to the FCS playoffs in five years for the Bobcats.
But on the field, the program has fallen on hard times. MSU has one just three of its last 13 Big Sky Conference games, including five straight losses to begin the current campaign. Montana State went 5-6 last season, its first losing season in 14, and are out to a 2-6 start this fall. Still, Pitre said the recruiting pitch has not changed.
“We sell Bozeman, the education and really selling what we are building here,” Pitre said. “It’s hard to sit there and say it when you are sitting on a 2-6 season but at the end of the day, it’s part of the process and as long as we stick to the process, our vision will come to fruition sooner than later. It’s just a matter of being patient, finding the right kids for this program and this university.”
Pitre and first-year head coach Jeff Choate have garnered nine verbal commitments entering November, including pledges from 3-star defensive back Jalen Cole (Mater Dei High, Santa Ana, California), 3-star Boise-area quarterback Tucker Rovig, 3-star defensive lineman Travis Yates (Orange County Lutheran) and in-state studs like Dillon’s Troy Andersen and Billings Senior’s Keaton Anderson.
Despite Montana State’s struggles this season, Choate said the group remains engaged and committed. He hopes they can help bring more future Bobcats on board.
“They have created a bond,” Choate said. ‘They already feel like a recruiting class that is committed to Montana State. They are in a process of recruiting other guys. They see what we are trying to do here and they are committed to the future. And I certainly think the support our fan base gives us is big because we can certainly sell to that.”
Choate echoed Pitre, saying the football program is still selling the top notch education Montana State can provide, the experience of playing at one of the top five attended stadiums in the FCS can be like and the vision he and his staff have for the Bobcats.
“Those are things we’ve focused on since Day 1 of the process all the way back to the 2016 recruiting class,” Choate said. “I think we have a lot of good traction.”
On Monday, Choate described at length his theories of how to upgrade the talent of his team, something he has emphasized as a deficiency that has been a main factor in his team’s struggles. Last week, Choate said he noticed Montana State’s “lack of lower body strength” in being able to finish tackles or tackle “superior athletes” to the ground after his team’s 41-16 loss to Eastern Washington.
Monday, pointed to building a deep, strong defensive line that can play against the run and the pass without help from the other two levels of the defense as the primary factor in building a championship team.
“There are so many teams that are going to spread you out and throw the ball,” he said. “Everybody talks about secondary. I’d take pressure over coverage every day. That’s a DB’s best friend is an active pass rush.”
Choate also said his team needs to find a quarterback who can be a top-level Big Sky Conference signal caller and that MSU needs to increase their team speed.
Since taking over as recruiting coordinator, Pitre has altered Montana State’s strategy in several ways. The Bobcats are now recruiting the Pacific Northwest more heavily after favoring Texas to the I-5 Corridor during the Rob Ash era from 2007 until last season. Linebackers coach Kane Ioane is the primary recruiter of the region and Pitre said doors have been wide open for the Bobcats because of new head coach Jeff Choate’s Northwest connections from his time spent at Boise State, Washington State and Washington over the last decade.
The Bobcats are back into the Midwest with defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak recruiting Minnesota. He is also tackling Colorado, particularly the Denver and Boulder areas; he played linebacker at Colorado in the late 1990s. Offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham has helped MSU maintain its presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area while also recruiting the Jayhawk Junior College league along with Iowa, places he previously made coaching stops during his 20-plus year career.
Director of high school relations B.J. Robertson is the primary contact in the state of Montana and has helped MSU get a jump on in-state recruits earlier than in previous years. Offensive line coach Brian Armstrong, defensive line coach Byron Hout and Miller are also recruiting in Montana. Hout and Miller, each former Boise State standouts as players, also have renewed Montana State’s presence in Idaho.
“We want to be more proactive than reactive and rather than waiting to see if guys have big senior years, we are getting out there early in the process and identifying guys, even 2018 guys, let’s make sure we have some sort of communication with him, get him up here on an unofficial to a game,” Pitre said. “That will pay dividends in the long run.”
Pitre is still MSU’s primary recruiter for the Inland Empire, Orange County and the Fresno area. He has connections from his time at UCLA as well as stints at Servite and Santa Margarita High in the Trinity League. Yates, Cole and two-star cornerback Tyrel Thomas (St. John Bosco Prep) all play in the league. Secondary coach Gerald Alexander is also recruiting Southern California.
Choate signed 18 players in February of this year, including transfers quarterback Tyler Bruggman (Scottsdale Community College), cornerback Naijiel Hale (Washington) and center Alex Neale (UNLV). Following spring drills, Choate added seven more transfers and brought the total of new faces on the Bobcats on the first day of fall camp to 34 thanks to a collection of walk-ons.
The coaching staff has shaken up the roster in many ways, from benching Bruggman in favor of raw true freshman Chris Murray to playing fellow rookies like wide receivers Kevin Kassis and Karl Tucker II, defensive end Derek Marks and cornerback Damien Washignton a healthy number of snaps.
A total of eight true freshmen have played this season, including starting punter Jered Padmos and starting kicker Gabe Peppenger, both in-state products. Redshirt freshmen like Harris, Stephens, Brandom, linebacker Josh Hill, and defensive end Marcus Ferriter have all cracked the starting lineup at some point this season as well.
Choate has spoken highly of players who are redshirting this season like defensive linemen Chad Benson, Kyle Finch, Michael Jobman and Lewis Kidd, offensive linemen Taylor Tuiasosopo and Jake Sessions and linebacker Balue Chapman. While the class is split almost in half of who is on the varsity and who is on the practice squad, the staff has done their best to keep the group together.
“You sometimes see those young guys who got an extra year to develop physically leapfrog some of these guys who didn’t,” Choate said. “What those guys who played this year have to realize is starting in January when they get back from winter break, they have got to just eat iron. They have to take advantage of that lost time.
In an effort to maintain unity between a redshirt like Chapman and a starting true freshman like Murray, every member of last year’s signing class outside the three transfers have to work out together at 6 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday.
We want them to feel the same pain of that alarm going off at 5:30 on Tuesday and Thursday,” Choate said. “It’s not one guy over here getting to sleep in because he’s the quarterback and this other guy over here is grinding it out. We try to level that off.”
Montana State’s rebuilding plan is in full force even if it is more extreme than most expected for a program that has claimed six Big Sky titles and advanced to the playoffs eight times since 2002. Choate is confident that this off-season will be a measuring stick to how much progress the Bobcats can make heading into his second season.
“The way we are going to train around here, and if you look at our freshmen who are redshirting and the way they have developed…there’s guys like (walk-on offensive tackle) Kyle Murack, who when he came in here four months ago looked like a bean pole and now he’s starting to get bumps on his arms,” Choate said. “He is looking pretty good. If we can get these guys to train like we want during the off-season, we are going to be good. They are going to be mature. They will have gone through these battles and they will get what we want them to do.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Right Reserved.
