BOZEMAN — Jahque Alleyne isn’t really shy about anything, not the least of which admitting to a room full of reporters he’d just met that he knew absolutely nothing about Montana before he arrived in Bozeman in January.
“I honestly forgot (the state of) Montana existed, I’ll be honest,” the junior safety said with a charming smile during the first week of fall camp at Montana State. “But I knew about Montana State because I would watch them when they came on the TV and in the playoffs. I knew about MSU.”
Even though the Brooklyn-born former Virginia Tech transfer knew about Montana State from watching the FCS playoffs on ESPN growing up — MSU played on national television in 2011 and 2012 — when Bobcat secondary coach Mark Orphey first contacted him, Alleyne thought he was getting recruited to South Carolina.
Orphey was a graduate assistant at USC at the time, about to take his first full-time college coaching position on Jeff Choate’s staff at Montana State. Alleyne was suddenly in search of a new home after Frank Beamer’s retirement and Bud Foster take over in Blacksburg didn’t seem like the right fit.
“I thought I was going to USC at first, University of South Carolina,” Alleyne said. “Then he switched his profile to Montana State. And it was like, ‘oh, ok.’
“I don’t feel like I made a bad decision. I think I made a great decision. I definitely wanted to get out of the state of Virginia anyway, away from the East Coast. It was a good thing they found me.”
The 6-foot-1, 185-pound free safety was a three-star recruit in 2015 coming out of Ocean Lakes High in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a heralded, fertile and infamous recruiting ground that has produced some of the country’s most heralded and troubled athletes.
As a true freshman in 2015, Alleyne played in all 12 games. In 2016, he sat out the first four games of the season due to suspension according to a report by Virginia Tech Insider. In January of 2017, he left one of the renowned and consistent defensive powerhouses in the FBS.
“I was just tired of Virginia,” Alleyne said. “I was born in New York so I’ve been up and down the East Coast. I’ve been to Florida, I’ve been to Georgia, I’ve been to South Carolina. I just wanted to go somewhere different with a different environment.”
Alleyne finished the semester in the spring of 2017 at Virginia Tech before enrolling in a junior college. After Orphey contacted him, in order to regain his eligibility, he moved across the country to Southwest Montana.
Before he could join the Bobcats, he had to get his eligibility in order so he moved into an apartment, got a job and enrolled at Gallatin Valley College. He received no sort of financial assistance from the football program, did not participate in spring football and could not be around the team in any competitive form until this summer.
“Que is a very mature young man,” Choate said. “You look at his journey to get here – washed out at Virginia Tech, had to go the junior college rout, came all the way to Montana, paid his own way to go to Gallatin Valley college to finish his AA, had to get a certain GPA. Had to get a job, take care of himself, wasn’t with the program at all.
“I think that speaks to his desire to have a second chance. And now that he’s been through that journey, he reflects on it in a very mature way. He’s definitely a guy those young guys look to.
“He’s a well-spoken guy who has perspective who is excited to be here and get a second chance. I think he’s got some good tools and as he learns the defense, he’s going to be even more valuable for us on the field.”
While living in Bozeman last winter, Alleyne started hanging out with his teammates, ‘when it wasn’t snowing…which is rare,” he joked. While mostly playing video games, his future fellow defensive backs would ask Alleyne what it was like playing at the FBS level.
“I would just use a comparison to Washington State (MSU’s season-opener in 2017), who they played last year. Everybody’s big, everybody’s fast. That’s what I tell them,” Alleyne said.
That acclimation period to his new teammates helped ease his transition once he could finally start playing football again.
“It’s helped a lot, actually,” Alleyne said. “I feel like if I would’ve gotten here later, I definitely would feel out of place. But I would’ve found my place eventually. I feel a lot more comfortable being around the guys.”
The smooth-moving Alleyne started playing safety his sophomore year of high school before playing mostly offense his junior and senior prep seasons. At VA Tech, he played safety the first two weeks of fall camp before cracking the rotation at cornerback leading up to the season, seeing time in every game.
During his sophomore year in Blacksburg, he moved back to safety full-time. At Montana State, he gives the Bobcats a long and lean player who can play man coverage, play Cover 1 and gives MSU the ability to run a variety of calls out of defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak’s 3-4 defense.
“You can tell he’s been at a Power 5 program, a really good one,” Gregorak said. “He’s a mature kid. I really like Jacque. He has a great personality. He’s a great kid. I really think he’s looking at this experience as an opportunity. He is a talented player that gives us some flexibility on the back end.”
Montana State’s secondary added a collection of players, from standout linebacker Brayden Konkol moving back to strong safety, the position he played as a freshman in 2016, to Compton College transfer Gregory “Munchie” Filer II to uber-competitive true freshmen twins Ty’Rese and Ty’Rae Gibson. The group features just one real veteran in junior Damien Washington. The other key returners, junior safety JoJo Henderson and sophomore corners Jalen Cole and Tyrel Thomas, were all in their first seasons at Montana State last season as well.
The talent is abundant but the leadership had not yet emerged as Konkol sat out of spring drills and the rest of the new faces had not yet joined the team. Although MSU is only one week into fall camp, Alleyne has already taken command of the back end, at least from a personality standpoint.
“From a leadership standpoint, Jahque has caught my eye,” MSU defensive end Derek Marks said. “He’s a mature guy, which has been good for us, especially in the secondary room.”
“I’ll say it like this: he’s the only guy the Gibson twins listen to,” Choate quipped.
Because he’s not shy about admitting basically anything, at least thus far, Alleyne mentioned that MSU’s practices were “a lot easier than where I came from” before adding “they are definitely still up tempo.
“It’s still jogging from one field to the next field and right back, it’s a lot of moving and you get tired after awhile, especially when you finish a rep of 7-on-7 and they are like ‘special teams’ and you have to run all the way down there,” Alleyne said. “There’s no walking.”
Henderson, a 6-foot-2, 195-pound former junior college transfer, gives Gregorak a similarly built player on the back end. Henderson played in five games last season before a knee injury cost him the second half of the season.
Konkol’s consistency is proven regardless if he’s playing either safety spot or Will linebacker. But Alleyne gives Montana State a new and versatile option on the back end. Although he once had three stars by his name and earned a chance at the top FBS school in Virginia, Alleyne does not feel entitled to any playing time unless he earns it.
“I don’t want to feel like a jerk. It’s never, ‘I’m from Virginia Tech, I should be starting,’ regardless of who you are. I’m not that type of person at all. I just want the guys to know that I can learn something from you and you can learn something from me.
“I’m the type of person who is humble. I don’t expect to come in here and immediately start. I expect to work and earn the job.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
