BOZEMAN — Montana State held its first fall practice of 2024 fall camp on Friday.
The team has a 23-member senior class with high school graduation years ranging from 2019-21. They provide veteran leadership at every position group and are dialed in on making their final run the most memorable yet.
"I think this group has a variety of guys that have been here for quite some time," Montana State head coach Brent Vigen said. "Certainly some new faces that we’ve added the last couple years, so different perspectives. All the position groups are covered within this senior group."
"It’s been good," Montana State senior linebacker McCade O'Reilly said. "We’ve lost a lot of people along the way, but this group that we have now is just tight-knit and tough. If you’re here, and you’re left, you’re ready to get after it."
A former Bobcat that’s back on staff this season is Sean Chambers. He’ll be an offensive analyst and assistant quarterbacks coach for the team this fall.
"He just joined us, really, this week," Vigen said. "He’s going to be an analyst slash assistant quarterbacks coach, helping coach (Tyler) Walker out. Certainly helping Tommy (Mellott) and Jordan (Reed) and Patrick (Duchien) and Chance (Wilson) as much as he can too."
Walker, who was formerly the tight ends coach at MSU, is now the offensive coordinator replacing Taylor Housewright. He also moved from tight ends to quarterbacks coach with his new role after Chuckie Keeton departed the program during spring ball.
Jordan Walsh was then hired to coach tight ends. He was an All-Big Ten offensive lineman at Iowa, who coached most recently at Eastern Illinois. He was a graduate assistant at Wyoming in 2020 when Vigen was there as offensive coordinator.
"I think it was apparent to me that moving Tyler to quarterbacks would be our best move And ultimately, continuing to put our staff together at that point in time was the way I was looking at it," Vigen said.
"It’s the Montana State offense," Walker said. "You know, we’re going to run the ball, throw the ball down the field. We’re going to be explosive. We’re going to put our guys in great situations."
The past two seasons, Montana State used a two-quarterback system with Chambers and Mellott. Montana State senior wide receiver Ty McCullouch said both were gifted in their abilities and great teammates, but he’s excited to see how the offense will run with one quarterback in Mellott at the helm.
"I don’t think having the two quarterback system allowed them to actually get in the flow of the game and last year we saw Tommy actually get into a flow for the first time of the season, and we saw what he was able to do," McCullouch said, referring to the NDSU second-round playoff game where Mellott had 355 total yards and four total touchdowns.
"He was killing it out there."
