If Clifton McDowell provided the spark for Montana’s second-half steamrolling of Butler on Saturday, it was Eli Gillman who actually lit the fuse.
With heavily-favored Montana clinging to a 21-20 third-quarter lead, McDowell kept the ball and powered through the middle of the line for back-to-back first-down carries.
On the third play of the drive, the big transfer quarterback handed it to Gillman, who found the hole in the left side of the line, stiff-armed a defender at the 10 and stayed inbounds the rest of the way to the pylon for a 24-yard touchdown.
It was the highlight of a breakout performance for the redshirt freshman back from Minnesota, who finished with a game-high 119 yards on 19 carries in his third game and first start for the Griz.
After a slow start, Gillman’s 98 second-half yards paid off the evaluation of the coaching staff who named him the starter – and might have been the coming-out party for the next great Griz running back.
“He knew that he was going to get a big workload this week, and he went out and performed, did his thing,” Griz receiver Junior Bergen said. “You know, I have the utmost confidence in that kid. I see him work every day. And yeah, I expect those things from Eli.”
Watch his touchdown again, and you’ll see why Gillman has earned those expectations from his teammates. Every attribute of a complete running back is there in those 24 yards – the vision to spot the hole pried open by left tackle Chris Walker’s kickout block, the agility to take two lightning-fast lateral jump steps to hit it, the burst to explode straight upfield out of those sideways steps, the strength to lay down a stiff-arm on the closing defender and the speed in the last 10 yards to beat everybody else to the end zone.
The Griz have had several good running backs in Bobby Hauck’s second tenure – Marcus Knight was an All-American in 2019 before getting hurt, while Nick Ostmo had a record-breaking effort in the snow against Cal Poly last year.
With one run against Butler, Gillman showed all of the attributes that could make him next in line – and why he might be a better fit in Montana’s zone-blocking scheme than either of his predecessors. He remained first on the depth chart going into this week’s game at Utah Tech despite Ostmo apparently being healthy to play.
“He’s a good zone runner,” Hauck said at his press conference on Monday. “Sometimes that shows who’s the more instinctive backs, are the ones that are the good zone runners. I think he’s got good vision, good instincts and is a pretty physical guy for a young guy. And I think the best is yet to come with him, probably.”
Gillman, making his first media appearance in the press conference immediately after the Butler game, was impressively nonplussed for a redshirt freshman who’d just had by far the best game of his very short career.
As some Griz fans have pointed out, Gillman already looks a great deal older than the typical redshirt freshman. His rumbling voice only adds to the illusion.
“It was exciting,” he said without changing his expression. “I love going out there and playing football with my guys. We’ve been talking about it all week, how we have to dominate the run game, and if the O-line does theirs, I’d better do mine too.”
Gillman was a uniquely-touted recruit for the Griz in the Class of 2022. Montana has built the backbone of its program with recruits from inside the Treasure State. The Griz also offer plenty of players from the surrounding states, at least to the West: Idaho, Washington, Oregon. They have a strong pipeline from California, and venture into some other Western states: Arizona, Nevada and Texas.
But Gillman is the first Minnesotan on the roster since 2015, when defensive end Nick Mertes and kicker Patrick LeCorre – former teammates at Edina High School – both played for the Griz. Well, actually, “played” is a bit of a mischaracterization, since neither Mertes nor LeCorre ever saw the field for Montana, making Gillman the first North Star State native to actually play for the Griz since at least 1996.
In recent years, FCS-level talent from Minnesota has helped fuel the rise of both North and South Dakota State – last year’s title-winning SDSU roster, for example, featured 10 Minnesotans, while the Bison squad that disposed of the Griz in the second round and went on to lose in the national-title game had *35*.
Generally, with the lure of Missouri Valley Football Conference teams closer to home for FCS-level prospects, it doesn’t pay for the Griz to venture too far into the Midwest – in the Class of 2024, they offered two offensive linemen from Nebraska, Sam Thomas and Ben Gustafson, both of whom have already committed elsewhere (Thomas to MVFC Northern Iowa, Gustafson to FBS Northern Illinois).
But Gillman, despite racking up over 1,900 yards and 43 touchdowns just as a senior at Dassel-Cokato High School west of Minneapolis (the Chargers play AAA football, not tiny but not a powerhouse either in Minnesota, which goes from A to 6A), was rated just a 2-star by 247Sports. He didn’t get offered by NDSU or SDSU but did have offers from North Dakota and South Dakota, plus Northern Iowa and FBS Central Michigan, among others.
“He was a highly-recruited guy,” Hauck said. “He had a lot of scholarship offers. I mean, they were mostly FCS and MAC schools, but he came out here for camp. I think he really enjoyed it. It’s probably a question for him what the trigger was, but he liked his time here. He committed to us early and then hung on.”
Two years later, that’s paid off in a big way for Montana. On one play against Butler, the young running back showed everything he needs to be a long-term fixture in Montana’s backfield. And if the Griz continue to commit to the run-heavy read-option package with McDowell that worked to such effect in the opener, it could be the first of many highlights this season for Gillman.
“We just kept pounding the ball like we know how to, and it wears on teams,” he said. “We’re going to keep going and going and going until they can’t stop us anymore. … We just rely on our discipline and technique to keep us going, and as long as we do our job, we’ll keep scoring.”
