CATS IN CAMP DAY #4: Varying Degrees of Experience Highlight Bobcats 2024 Roster

Senior running back Elijah Elliott

Photo by: Bobcat Creative Services

CATS IN CAMP DAY #4: Varying Degrees of Experience Highlight Bobcats 2024 Roster

7/29/2024 9:09:00 PM | Football

MSU posts strong Monday practice

By: Bill Lamberty

BOZEMAN, Montana – Prognosticators employ many different tools to parse a team's preseason football fortunes entering a new campaign, but discussions about Montana State's 2024 season generally begin with one word.

Experience.

"That's definitely a strength of this team," says fourth-year Bobcats head coach Brent Vigen, but he acknowledges that experience comes in many forms. The team's 23 seniors arrived at Montana State before five different seasons, an unprecedented spread created by a unique set of circumstances.

The list begins with the five players who arrived as freshmen in the class of 2019. Seven more 2024 seniors arrived in the Covid fall of 2020, two that got to MSU in 2021 and two in 2022 remain, and seven two-year transfers joined the program before the 2023 season.

Third-year starting quarterback Tommy Mellott arrived in the fall of 2020, started MSU's first playoff game of the 2021 season, and has essentially never left the starting lineup except because of injuries. His bona fides as a starter and as a returning team captain stand as emblematic of the team's wealth of action. "We have 23 seniors this year," he said. "That's a lot of guys that have gone through a lot of football. I've been able to grow up with them for the four, five, six years, whatever it might be. It's kind of bittersweet (to be in his last season), but we just got out and take it day by day."

Tight end Ryan Lonergan is one of the sixth-year seniors, redshirting in 2019 before missing the 2020 season when MSU did not field a team. He said the ups and downs have build incredible relationships. "This one means a lot to me," the Bozeman High product said. "It's my sixth year, and all of us sixth-year seniors have worked so hard to get to this point and I'm excited to get to work. There's 23 of us seniors, and the brotherhood is unmatched. The camaraderie that we have is second to none."

The Cats return 19 starters – nine on offense, seven on defense, and all three specialists. Ty McCullouch transferred to MSU from Colorado State a year ago, and said the experience needs to translate into leadership. "We've harped on the seniors taking leadership this year of the team and having it be player-ran (rather than) coach-ran," McCullouch said. "I believe as we go through this fall camp we'll definitely be able to (lead) this team."

Mellott said multiple years together, the good times and the bad, build strong bonds. "It starts with the relationships within the team," he said. "We have all these older guys that have been together, that have played so much football together, that have endured so many summers, so many winters together, and would give anything for one another, for their success for their senior year. And then you have young guys along with that. The CATS slogan – Character, Accountability, Toughness, State – those things are what we cherish around here, and what you have to build upon to accomplish the things we want to accomplish."

While Vigen appreciates the experience, he emphasizes that production on the field remains the ultimate goal. "Regardless of all the experience we've still got plenty of guys that are trying to figure it out, and guys figuring it out that need to play roles," he said. "So we'll stick to our process in the two-plus weeks leading to that scrimmage and getting everything and getting to the point where come that scrimmage the third Saturday of camp, that's when you feel like the guys have a foundation and they can just go out and play and be evaluated in a game setting for the first time.'

Mellot said another factor looms large – urgency. "You always have in the back of your mind, 'There's always next year,'" he said. "And for a lot of guys this year, we don't."

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Bobcat coach Brent Vigen called his team's performance in Monday's practice "much better" than Sunday's.

"Maybe it's going in the afternoon for the second time," he said, "getting used to the schedule. I thought far and away it was our most competitive practice, crisp practice. It's hard to have that every day, but whatever it was I thought we came out with good intensity today. That's what we need."

Tuesday marks the team's first off day of the fall.

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MONTANA STATE'S 2024 SENIOR CLASS
Arrived in 2019 (5): TE Ryan Lonergan (HS), S Rylan Ortt (HS), C Justus Perkins (HS), DT Blake Schmidt (HS), OT Marcus Wehr (HS)
Arrived in 2020 (7): RB Elijah Elliott (HS), DE Brody Grebe (HS), QB Tommy Mellott (HS), CB Miles Jackson (HS), LB McCade O'Reilly (HS), LS Tommy Sullivan (HS), LB Danny Uluilakepa (HS)
Arrived in 2021 (2): OL Cole Sain (four-year/JC transfer), CB Simeon Woodard (HS)
Arrived in 2022 (2): RB Marqui Johnson (four-year transfer), OG JT Reed (JC/HS)
Arrived in 2023 (7): LB Cole Bullock (JC transfer), RB Julius Davis (four-year transfer), P Brendan Hall (four-year transfer), CB Jon Johnson (JC transfer), DE Nicholas Korom (JC transfer), WR Ty McCullouch (four-year transfer), WR Garrett Walchli (four-year transfer)

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