THE REPLACEMENT
Travis Benham
This year, Montana’s new punter is not likely to be a native of the Treasure State (Buschini was from Helena, Rohrbach from Kalispell), or even someone who’s been in the program at all. Instead, the Griz went to the portal to get Benham from San Jose State, where he had 28 punts for 1,115 yards (39.8 per) last season.
The redshirt senior from Pacifica, California, has a dual-sport background, as he played both football and baseball in both 2018 at Lewis & Clark College (not the NAIA baseball powerhouse in Lewistown) and 2019 at the City College of San Francisco. He spent the next three years at San Jose State, dropping baseball and not getting on the gridiron until the aforementioned 2022 season. Montana has pulled kickers out of the portal each of the last two seasons, to mixed results – Kevin Macias was very good, Nico Ramos more average to slightly above. The Griz punt team will still get results even if Benham doesn’t measure up to Rohrbach, but a similarly-talented replacement would potentially make them the best in the country again.
