Every time he drops back into his pass set at Montana’s fall camp this year, Brandon Casey is facing pressure. It comes from the Grizzlies’ fearsome pass rush, a challenge that likely surpasses any he’ll face in an actual game this season. It comes from being a key member of a unit that’s had plenty of well-scrutinized struggles. And it comes, perhaps most surprisingly, from history.
The natural impulse, when writing about the 2022 Montana football team, is to compare them to Bobby Hauck’s old championship teams from the 2000s. Given how much college football has changed since 2009 when Hauck’s first tenure ended at Montana, it’s easy to focus on the differences between what worked for Hauck then and what will have to work for him now, and nowhere is that gap more pronounced than on the offensive line.
The old, romantic view of a Montana overflowing with broad-shouldered, corn-fed, country-strong offensive linemen roaming around like so many majestic, doomed brontosauruses is a bit of a myth – of the seven offensive linemen to make an All-American team during Hauck’s first tenure, just three were from Montana, and he inherited two of those, Dylan McFarland (Kalispell) and Jon Skinner (Dillon) from the previous regime of Joe Glenn. Three others – J.D. Quinn, Levi Horn and Brent Russum – were drop down transfers from the Power 5. But for as many linemen the Griz brought in, they had just as many that were developed in the program, monsters like Colin Dow (Billings), Cody Balogh (Steilacoom, Washington) and Terran Hillesland (Sidney).
Things are different now. In his second stint, Hauck found the crisis of an offensive line that, exacerbated by previous coach Mick Delaney not putting an emphasis on it and predecessor Bob Stitt’s recruiting philosophy, has been the glaring weak spot of a top-10 caliber team for the past few years. Montana hasn’t had an elite offensive line in more than a decade.
For a coach who prides himself on strength, toughness and power, it’s an awkward, almost embarrassing position to be in – lacking at the grimiest, grittiest spot on the field – and, in a desperate effort to correct this deficiency, Hauck and the Griz have chosen to almost entirely forgo developing offensive linemen.
In the last three signing classes, Montana has inked just seven total high school offensive linemen – three apiece in 2020 and 2021, and just Ethan Barney from Sumner, Washington, in 2022. None of the seven are from Montana.
Instead, the Griz have turned to the transfer portal to make up the deficit, cobbling together a new line every season like a frazzled Iron Chef contestant. A year ago, four regular starters on the Griz O-line – everyone except all-conference left tackle Conlan Beaver, who was recruited by Stitt as a walk-on out of Massaponax High in Virginia – was a transfer. This year, Washington State transfer Hunter Mayginnes and Nebraska transfer AJ Forbes return at left guard and center, likely to be joined by Chris Walker – like Forbes, a former Cornhusker – at left tackle.
The right guard spot is troublesome and uncertain, with redshirt freshman Liam Brown, signed out of Beaverton, Oregon, in that Class of 2021, currently the front-runner.
But at right tackle, Hauck might finally have found his throwback to the rose-tinted old days. Brandon Casey is 6-foot-5, 295 pounds, only a sophomore and, if he isn’t from Montana, is about the next best thing, hailing from just over the mountains and the Idaho border in Sandpoint.
“If a kid and his family can easily drive here, that’s what we want,” Hauck said when the Griz signed Casey in 2020. “A place like Sandpoint is a closer drive than half the state of Montana, anyways.”
Casey was one of the gems of that 2020 recruiting class for Montana, a mauling tackle with a 2-star rating who committed to the Griz before his senior season and stayed committed despite a late offer from Oregon State. He was also a district champ in the discus and, despite being listed at 270 pounds as a senior, played three other sports along with football and track – basketball, baseball and lacrosse.
“I remember when Coach Hauck was in his first stint there and how dominant Montana was,” Casey said when he signed. “That was another reason why I came, was to return to that dominance and win another national championship.”
Music to Hauck’s ears, surely, but all the good vibes in the world don’t make it any easier to project how high school offensive linemen, even ones with 6-5 frames and good pedigree (he had multiple offers, including one from Oregon State) like Casey, will adapt to the next level.
Because of Montana’s almost non-existent offensive line depth, it didn’t take long to get the first data points. After his “freshman” season in 2020 was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, Casey played in six games and started two in the fall of 2021 when Dylan Cook battled injuries.
Entering his third year with the Griz, he’s gained 25 pounds from his high school weight – “it all starts with eating,” he said going into this fall camp – and embraced learning from the rotating cast of older transfers who have cycled in and out around him.
“(Beaver and Cook) were huge in my development,” Casey said. “They were very patient with me, they taught me a whole lot. They taught me everything I needed to know on the field, how to have that demeanor, and how to treat people off the field.”
If things go the way they’re supposed to for Brandon Casey, he’ll be the first multi-year starter on the Montana offensive line that Hauck has recruited out of high school in his second tenure – maybe, just maybe, the guy to restart a decades-old tradition, to lead the Griz back to the past and into the future at the same time.
“Yeah, the biggest thing is we have to come out here every day and get better,” Casey said. “We can’t take steps backwards. I think it all starts right now. We have to build a good foundation to carry us through the season, not just the first week but the entire season.”
