It’s been true for so long it’s become almost a joke: the Montana Grizzlies have such a conveyor belt of 6-foot-plus, 220-pound in-state athletes to play in the middle of their defense that they must have an underground cloning facility somewhere on the Hi-Line.
Underdogs like Levi Janacaro, Braxton Hill, Tyler Flink, Ryan Tirrell and other Montana products will form a deep, almost entirely Montana-made linebacker corps this year.
As impressive as that developmental pipeline has been, it doesn’t translate to most other spots on the Griz defense. Eureka’s Garrett Graves, a safety, might be the only other Treasure State starter on the Griz defense this year. On the defensive line, Kalispell’s Henry Nuce has shown considerable potential, but is yet to nail down a consistent starting spot.
In the secondary, though, redshirt junior Trevin Gradney has taken a traditional path to a potential starting job at cornerback.
The Billings West product has been one of the top special teams players in the Big Sky Conference each of the last two years, while also getting limited reps at corner. If he can translate his fearlessness, athleticism and instincts flying down on punts to lock up the second starting cornerback spot across from Corbin Walker, he’ll not only become the first Montanan to start at that position for the Griz during Bobby Hauck’s second tenure in Missoula – he’ll solidify a potential spot of concern for the Griz defense.
“I think he’s gotten better and better since he got here,” defensive lineman Alex Gubner said. “I’ve watched him in camp so far, guy’s making plays, breaking up passes all the time. He’s super fast. I don’t pay too much attention to the corners because I’m always watching the line, but I think that guy is gonna have a big year.”
Montana has tried several methods of developing corners since Hauck returned in 2018. In his first two years, converted wide receivers Justin Calhoun and Dareon Nash held down the spots.
Coming out of the pandemic in 2021, the Griz solidified one corner spot with FBS dropdown and eventual FCS All-American Justin Ford – almost certainly the biggest transfer success story since Hauck’s return – and filled in the other with a combination of Renton, Washington product Walker, Oregon State transfer Omar Hicks Onu (in 2021) and Idaho State transfer Jayden Dawson (in 2022).
If you’re keeping track, that makes Walker the only player this regime has recruited out of high school to see meaningful reps at the position.
With both Ford and Dawson gone this year, Gradney could become the second.
At Billings West, he picked off nine passes, broke up 24 more and forced four fumbles as a senior for the 2018 state champion Golden Bears.
“He’s probably not the fastest guy on the team, or the biggest guy, but he’s always there making plays,” Billings West coach Rob Stanton told Skyline Sports about Gradney in 2021.
A life-long Montana State fan whose dad, Joe Gradney, played defensive line for the ‘Cats from 1989 to 1992, Gradney nevertheless committed to the Griz in 2018, part of a recruiting blitz in Hauck’s first year back that also saw Montana snatch players like Bozeman High’s Kris Brown and Ryan Simpson from their rival’s territory.
“I thought I would hate it up there, but the coaches made everything super easy, and it just seemed like a place I wanted to play and further my career at,” Gradney said after committing.
Since then, he’s been on a track more often reserved for the linebackers that the Griz seem to recycle through starting spots every year.
Dante Olson, Jace Lewis, Marcus Welnel and a million Griz LBs before them have talked about the importance of cutting their teeth on special teams before maturing into a bigger role at the heart of the Griz defense. On this year’s team, Janacaro, Flink and Tirrell have all made defining plays on special teams.
Under Hauck, the Griz place enormous value on the kicking game not only to create advantages on the scoreboard, but also to test young players for the attributes they require on defense – the athleticism and instincts to survive, the fearlessness and intensity to thrive.
Even amid the general craziness of special teams, gunners – the players who line up wide on punt coverage teams and, if they do their job right, are first downfield to make contact on the returner – are a special breed. Other names for the role, via Wikipedia: shooter, headhunter and kamikaze.
That’s the role Gradney stepped into.
“You’re trying to beat two guys in what amounts to a running street fight at a sprint,” Buffalo Bills great Steve Tasker told Esquire in 2015. “You get into an area that depends on instinct and creativity, and the whole time you have these two guys who are trying to beat you senseless.”
In 2019, ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg asked Tasker and Matthew Slater – maybe the two greatest gunners of the modern era in the NFL – what the position required.
“They come up with eerily similar answers.” Van Valkenburg related. “Selflessness, toughness, fearlessness, adaptability and a willingness to be physical.”
Gradney showed all of those as soon as he stepped onto the field as a third-year (thanks to COVID) redshirt freshman in 2020, establishing himself as UM’s top gunner, making eight tackles and being named first-team all-conference as a special teams player and the Grizzlies’ Hauck Family Special Teams Player of the Year.
He was just as good in 2022, although it didn’t come with similar accolades, and also started to break into the lineup behind Ford, Walker and Dawson at corner, seeing extensive action late in blowouts against Eastern Washington and Cal Poly and recording two pass breakups.
Gradney was working with the starters at cornerback early in fall camp but will have plenty of competition the next few weeks. The Griz brought in Akron transfer Ronald Jackson Jr. last winter and both UCLA transfer Jelani Warren and JUCO transfer Lamar Campbell late this summer going into camp.
“I think our room’s filling up nicely and we’re having a lot of competition, which is really good for me,” Gradney said. “When you have guys nipping at your heels and competing every day, coming hard every day, you gotta rise to the occasion at some point. I think if you can rise, you’re gonna play.”
The Griz are counting on that competition to provide an adequate replacement for Ford, whose appearance took the defense to another level – although he wasn’t the only reason, Montana went from allowing 399 total yards and 278 passing yards per game in 2019 to 330 and 246, respectively, in 2021.
And Gradney is counting on his experience to win that competition.
“I think just having the tenacity to be able to run down and go (cover punts) maybe translates it over to having the tenacity to fill a hole or cover that guy downfield for as long as I have to,” Gradney said. “I think me being here for the last four years, five years under, like you said, the All-American Justin Ford and Omar and Jayden Dawson and all these guys coming before me and kind of showing me the ropes, it’s been great.”
