A Montana kid can’t play quarterback at a national championship level…Not in 2024… right?
Sure, Paul Dennehy led Montana State to the national championship. But that was just after Bobcat head coach Brent Vigen was born nearly 50 years ago.
Sure, Dave Dickenson and John Edwards led Montana to 1-AA glory. But that was in the olden days. That was before the RPO and the spread option speed attacks that many college programs favor these days. That was before the Treasure State was discovered by the outside world.
If you hail from Butte, America and you have elite speed… if you’re tough as nails, not just because you have bulging biceps and you can squat the house, but because it’s ingrained in you….and if you’re beating Troy Andersen handily in conditioning drills your first week on a team, you are swiftly getting switched to defense…right?
As soon as you cover a kick or a punt, and you smack the returner to ignite Bobcat Stadium, you’re on your way to becoming the next Montana kid who was a star signal caller in high school before becoming a star safety or linebacker…right?
Almost exclusively, that’s been the recent trend for star high school quarterbacks from Montana. Lead your prep team to high school glory under center then spend your college career chasing quarterbacks or trying to intercept them. Every once in a while, you get to catch passes from them. And once in a blue moon, you can be like the most recent Mining City product to blossom into a star. You get to go from Frontier Conference quarterback to all-conference offensive tackle to Pittsburgh Steeler like former Butte High and Montana alum Dylan Cook.
If you have transcendent athleticism and the want-to of so many of the great Montanans to play for the Bobcats and the Grizzlies over the last two-plus decades, you’re fast-tracking to be the next No. 41 at Montana State or the next No. 37 at Montana, not the next national championship-winning quarterback. You’re going to chase all-conference honors on special teams before trying to become the latest from the Treasure State to win Big Sky Defensive MVP. You want to be the next Kane Ioane? The next Vince Huntsberger? The next Patrick O’Connell? Those aspirations are lofty, yet realistic. You have real dreams, kid.
Tommy Mellott, though, dared to dream. And those helping guide the kid from Butte saw his special gifts. Raw, sure. But artistic and analytical. A compassionate servant leader with a killer instinct. Superb speed with a mind that works even faster when he’s in flow state. A work ethic a mile high and a mile deep, honed by growing up in one of the most iconic towns in the country.
And the irony of all of this is Tommy Mellott would’ve willingly and seamlessly switched to safety or outside linebacker if the Montana State coaching staff asked. He shared in the experience of so many high school quarterbacks turned “athlete” quarterback recruits, spending much of his first college year covering kicks and playing in spot offensive packages.
Four years after shooting into the superstar stratosphere thanks to one of the most unlikely debuts in Treasure State football history, Mellott has one last chapter to write in his one-of-a-kind Montana State saga.
One thing is certain: Mellott is above any narrative, superior to any trend. His ability to not only exist but flourish beneath the brightest spotlight for a Montana-made field general since Dickenson has been impressive to observe. It’s also played a crucial role in the meteoric rise of Montana State as the football program reaches heights unseen in 40 years.
With one game left in his storied career, Mellott stands on the brink of unrivaled history. He’s a finalist for the Walter Payton Award. He’s the first-team All-American quarterback for the last undefeated football team in Division I. He’s a 4.0 student who’s a former finalist for the William H. Campbell Trophy. He’s the Walter Camp and ADA National Offensive Player of the Year. And he just happens to be from one of the most historic, sports-rich towns in the state and the region.
A victory Monday night against the mighty Bison of North Dakota State could vault Mellott into rare air. Those who had a front-row seat to Dickenson’s record-setting and Big Sky Conference-defining career in the mid-1990s leading the University of Montana would say to compare anyone, even Mellott, to the “Legend of the Fall” would be blasphemy.
And it’s impossible to compare Mellott — a spread option quarterback who’s built like a tailback, a dual threat who, until this season, spent the vast majority of his time either bowling over defenders in the open field or nursing injuries on the sideline caused by those big collisions — to Dickenson, a cerebral air-raid quarterback from Great Falls who threw for 13,486 yards (including playoffs) and 137 touchdowns during his peerless career.
But it’s also impossible to deny what Mellott has done over the last four years at Montana State. In terms of meaning to his university, his hometown and home state, Mellott and Dickenson sit in a group with just each other.
But if you want to be the next Dave Dickenson? The next Paul Dennehy? Keep on dreaming, kid.
“Tommy Mellott is simply amazing,” Montana State president Waded Cruzado said. “To sustain all of that pressure when you are that young, is absolutely incredible. To see this extraordinary athlete who is totally committed to his sport but also totally committed to his academic program, that’s so wonderful for our university.
“And perhaps the most important part of his legacy is that for four years, he remained true to Montana State University and I’m sure that many schools approached him and I’m sure there were many offers along the way. But he committed to the Bobcats on Day 1 and he graduated from this school. That’s amazing.”
So much of Mellott’s allure goes beyond statistics. Off the field, he comes across as a baby-faced kid from Butte, America, defined by his humility. On the field, his improvisational ability marks him as someone touched with truly special athletic gifts. And the bigger the game, the bigger the passion and performance for the Bobcat quarterback.
That’s been particularly true the last six weeks of Mellott’s final collegiate season. He’s been as performative as at any time in his career, celebrating with flair.
When Taco Dowler caught a touchdown pass to cap the first possession of MSU’s 31-14 semifinal win over No. 4 South Dakota, Mellott sprinted to the end zone to celebrate with his fellow former Montana Gatorade Player of the Year. On the day famed lead-off hitter Rickey Henderson passed away, Mellott did his best lead-off home run celebration, mimicking a game-igniting bomb with a smooth baseball swing as MSU was off and running to the Bobcats’ eighth playoff win with Mellott as their starting quarterback.
That’s just one of a variety of trademark moments during Mellott’s historic senior season. Later in the game, he turned a fumbled snap into a 41-yard touchdown sprint, sending a record-setting Bobcat Stadium playoff crowd into pandemonium.
And with each step toward the ultimate goal of MSU’s first national title since 1984, Mellott’s flair for the moment has been on full display.
“There’s a lot to be said about playing football with passion because the grey area is what separates the strategy and the schemes,” Mellott said. “Balancing the creative and the concrete, the analytical and the artistic, every element of that can be the defining factor.
“So then the effort and the passion that you play with separates good from great. It’s been my quest to try to emphasize and define that and push everyone on this team to keep that passion because when you lose it, you lose your edge, you become complacent. That’s true in every area of your life. So I’ll always hold that close to my chest: keep the passion.”
On Monday, that passion comes to fruition. Mellott has an opportunity to cap his career with the ultimate prize. A Montana State victory would cap the first 16-0 season by a Big Sky Conference team and the second ever in FCS/Division I-AA.
“If Montana State can win the championship on Monday, the last three starting quarterbacks from national champions on teams from the state of Montana are from Montana and have 4.0 GPAs,” said Mike Kramer, the pseudo Big Sky Conference historian for Skyline Sports and a man who spent 50 years in the league as a player at Idaho and the head coach at Eastern Washington, Montana State and Idaho State. “They’ve been Montana kids. They all have humility, courage, toughness and such great academic achievement. It’s a model.”
Kramer is of course referring to Dickenson, a multiple-time Montana Gatorade Player of the Year who won multiple state titles at Great Falls CMR before leading Montana to its first national title in 1995. The Big Human is also referring to John Edwards, the Billings West alum who led the Griz to the 2001 national title. That UM team went 15-1, which is tied with this Montana State squad for the most wins in a single season by a Big Sky team.
“Tommy Mellott should win the Walter Payton trophy. There’s no better player than Tommy Mellott in FCS football,” former Idaho head coach Jason Eck said following his team’s 52-19 loss at Montana State in the quarterfinals of the playoffs. Eck took the head coaching job at New Mexico a few days later.
Mellott has been a household name around the Big Sky Conference and the FCS since he did his best Clark Kent impression during the 2021 FCS playoffs. The 19-year-old stepped into the proverbial phone booth and emerged as Superman, leading MSU to three straight playoff wins.
The kid from Butte took over for former NC State transfer Matt McKay as Montana State’s starting quarterback following a humiliating 29-10 loss to Montana in Missoula that snapped a four-game winning streak against the hated Grizzlies and thwarted MSU’s undefeated league record in Vigen’s first season at the helm.
The fresh-faced kid who’d spent most of the regular season cutting his teeth on special teams and as a receiver while also getting spot reps as a Wildcat quarterback looked like a rookie the first three quarters of MSU’s second-round game against Tennessee Martin. Then he put his foot in the ground and ripped off a 76-yard touchdown to spark a 26-7 victory.
The following week, Mellott’s artistry exploded as he completely freaked out against No. 1 Sam Houston State, the defending national champions. Mellott threw a touchdown, rushed in a touchdown and caught a touchdown to stake MSU to a 28-0 lead in the first quarter on the way to a 42-19 win in Huntsville, Texas. The victory was the first road playoff win in MSU’s Division I-AA history.
And thus, the legend of Touchdown Tommy was born.
“Didn’t we see this with Robert Redford in ‘The Natural’?” Kramer said with his trademark laugh back in 2021. “It’s a movie scene. It’s unprecedented. It’s fun to watch. It’s why sports are sports because the drama that is sports is nothing that is pre-ordained. You just can’t make a Hollywood movie that people would go see that is better than real life. That’s why we are so enthralled by it.”
The following week, Mellott threw for 232 yards and rushed for 151 more as Montana State beat South Dakota State 31-17 to advance to the national title game. Following the win, thousands of Bobcat fans stormed the field, pouring out decades of suppressed emotions. Mellott himself was completely overcome by the moment, sobbing during the post-game shots on TV while he tried to soak in the magnitude of the victory.
“That freshman season for me was just an emotional roller coaster, just coming in and obviously never experiencing a season, seeing what it’s really like, it is overwhelming,” Mellott said.
To hear the kid from Butte describe it, the top level of the FCS takes a different mentality simply because a loss or two can knock you out of prime seeding and thwart any ideas of a playoff run.
“The intensity is unmatched when you’re at a program like this,” he continued. “Going into the playoffs in 2021, and knowing what senior leadership we had, it was extremely overwhelming. When I was named as a quarterback going into those games, it was win or go home, game in and game out and it was an emotional roller coaster.
Montana State inserted Mellott into an offense that allowed his creativity to shine. About the only read he had to make was to either throw the back shoulder fade to future NFL receiver Lance McCutcheon or make the right decision with the ball in the zone-read option.
I didn’t understand as much as I could, about defenses and rules and numbers. So it was really just kind of go out there and play football. And that’s what was showing. That’s what our offensive staff wanted to do was just go out there and be creative.”
Daniel Hardy’s two second half sacks, Troy Andersen’s fourth down stop against Isaiah Davis (now of the New York Jets) and Mellott’s latest out of body experience thrust MSU into the title game for the first time since 1984’s out of the blue run.
“It all hits you, and we are going to go play in the national championship game, it was a surreal moment for me given all the struggle we’d had that entire season,” Mellott said. “It gave us a chance to reflect that what we had done was incredibly special and something I’ll never forget.”
From that moment on, Mellott has essentially been the face of Montana State University.
“He’s capable of it because of who he is. He is as pure as it comes in a day and age where there’s not a lot of purity to anybody,” Vigen said. “He appreciates so much where he came from. I think he understands what he represents coming from Butte. And he really values that. I think he completely understands, which most kids don’t, that he’s in this position now and there are young kids looking up to him and how he is really matters in the impression he makes.”
With the dawn of the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) era, Mellott was suddenly not only a superstar quarterback, he was a real life Montana folk hero. He shot TV commercials for local businesses. His “Touchdown Tommy” shirt made by UpTop Clothing (fittingly, from Butte) sold like hot cakes.
Yet the quiet, calm young man remained unchanged. He kept trying to beat the entire team every time the Bobcats ran conditioning. He lifted like a linebacker and tried to lead like an upperclassman as he became one of the most famous people in the state of Montana.
“And it’s not complicated for him. That’s the No. 1 factor. I think sometimes, his humility – which is his greatest strength – there might be a weakness there because there’s a naivety to it,” Vigen said.
“That has created this tremendous situation for our university, for Butte, for our football program to have this representative where there’s not anybody like him. Whether he’s from a different age or a different time, I don’t know, but he’s all the things that, when people get a chance to be around him, he IS that way. He IS who he appears to be on TV or whatever.
“He mostly thinks ‘What’s the big deal?’ with what he’s been able to do. His naivety, his humility wrapped up into one, it’s quite a package.”
And it makes it all the more storybook that Touchdown Tommy hails from one of the country’s most historic cities.
For those around Montana, the emergence of MSU’s fresh-faced signal caller seemed like a rare opportunity for an in-state kid to play quarterback. The opportunity arose not from random coincidence, but from Mellott’s diligence and constant improvement.
The 6-foot-1, 212-pound dual threat was a three-year starter at Butte High, throwing for 7,542 yards and 71 touchdowns, while rushing for 2,568 yards and 31 touchdowns and leading Arie Grey’s Bulldogs to 11 wins and a runner-up finish in Class AA Mellott’s senior prep season in 2019.
That fall, Mellott had his best year, throwing for 2,940 yards, rushing for 1,217 yards and compiling 46 touchdowns, on his way to earning Montana Gatorade Player of the Year honors. Yet because of his point of origin, probably more than his skill set or potential, it remained uncertain if Mellott would ever get a true shot as a quarterback at MSU.
“When I was getting inducted into the Montana State Pro Football Hall of Fame, he sat at my table as the Montana Gatorade Player of the Year and my casual observation was, ‘This isn’t a real big kid’, but I’d heard he had juice,” former Montana State All-American Travis Lulay said earlier this week. “But now he’s filled out, put on a lot of muscle, looks like a tailback.
“More than that, you could see then how he carried himself and now he carries himself exactly how you’d want a leader of your program to carry themselves. He’s humble and business-like, yet dynamic and exciting.”
Mellott grew up in Butte as Shane and Dina Mellott’s only son, the middle boy between two sisters. Like many from Butte and very many from small-town Montana, Mellott’s youth was spent playing every sport he could.
As a kid, Mellott’s grandfather Gene gave him books on some of the greats from the Butte athletic and coaching lineage. That first inspired Mellott to dream big.
“Oh, they are from Butte? How is that possible?” Mellott remembers. “They are coaches at Colorado State and Miami (Lubick). Then I consider it myself and there is a tremendous lineage of athletes and coaches that come from Butte. It’s incredible and I have to hope I can keep this thing rolling for as long as I can and make sure it lasts longer than my playing days so I can contribute to that Butte history.”
Win Butte, win the state, win the Big Sky – it used to be the moniker and the reality for the Bobcats. Jim Sweeney, a Butte native, won three of the first five Big Sky titles during his five-year tenure leading MSU from 1963 to 1968. After three years and just nine wins under Tom Parac, MSU hired Sonny Holland, another Butte native who many consider the greatest Bobcat of them all.
The former All-American Bobcat center on MSU’s 1956 national title team led MSU from 1971 until 1977, leading MSU to 47 wins, two Big Sky titles and the 1976 national championship.
When Holland abruptly retired, Sonny Lubick, another Mining City man, took over. Although he was controversially fired in 1981, he is credited with recruiting many of the best players on MSU’s 1984 national title team. He went on to be the defensive coordinator for two national championship teams at Miami before serving as the head coach at Colorado State from 1993 until 2007.
“Butte, it’s a fiber, a work ethic, an intrinsic fiber of the people that you aren’t going to put them down and keep them down forever because they will surprise you,” said the late Holland, who passed away in 2022. “It’s a blue collar type of town. They’ve tried themselves in that. The game of football is something that Butte has hung its hat on.”
Part of the skepticism of if Mellott would play QB came from recent history, but part is because his Butte toughness shone through, immediate and sharp, as soon as he got to Montana State. He made plays on special teams and in special offensive packages all season despite not having a starting role.
In-state products have had wild success quarterbacking the Montana schools, but it’s been a while since any Montanan actually got that opportunity, particularly at Montana State. Montana kids can run. They can lead. But can they throw?
Many called Mellott “a running back playing quarterback” for most of his first three years as MSU’s starting quarterback.
“There’s been a lot of knocks on Tommy over the years,” Montana State defensive coordinator Bobby Daly said in November. “We live in this Bobcat world and we absolutely love Tommy. They say he’s not a quarterback. He’s just a glorified running back. If you look at 2021, I think that’s fairly accurate. I was concerned with how well he threw the ball coming in.
“And now? He’s an elite passer. He turned a weakness into a strength. Doubt that kid. Doubt him, I dare you. Because it motivates him.”
The aforementioned Dickenson and Edwards led the Griz to national titles. And Billings West product Andrew Selle helped guide UM to the 2009 national title game, the last time an FCS team from the Treasure State advanced that far before MSU started its run of four Final Fours since 2019.
Mellott’s ability to guide a team flush with veteran leaders as a freshman proved to be more impressive than any statistic.
“There’s a lot to like,” MSU All-American linebacker Troy Andersen, the 2021 Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year, said in late December of 2021. “His toughness and his leadership are where it starts. Everyone feeds off of that. He’s doing whatever we ask him to do and doing it at a super high level.
“There is a lot of trust and kind of a new sense of energy and revival for the offense and that goes through the entire team. He’s been playing well and it’s awesome to watch. He’s only a freshman so watch out.”
Although Mellott has struggled with injuries, he’s helped redefine the measure of success at Montana State. The Bobcats made the playoffs nine times between 2002 and 2018, but won just four playoff games. Mellott won three in his first season and counts eight postseason wins among his 34 wins as MSU’s starting quarterback. Mellott has been at the helm for three of MSU’s four Final Four runs dating back to 2019.
Those 34 wins are not accompanied though by 23 losses as Mellott has been on the roster for a total of 57 games between 2020 and this season. He didn’t start until the playoffs in 2021. He was the starter in 10 of MSU’s 12 wins in 2022 but gave way to Sean Chambers on multiple occasions because of rotation and injury. In 2023, he got hurt against South Dakota State early and North Dakota State late, adding seven wins to his career total.
This season, it’s been the Tommy show under center from start to finish. He led MSU to a thrilling comeback against New Mexico in Week 0, marking MSU’s first FBS win since 2006. And the Bobcats have kept winning, setting the school record for single-season victories with every playoff win.
“It’s all coming into focus and that’s as simple as I can put it,” Vigen said. “He’s a guy who has been thrust into that opportunity back when he was a redshirt freshman and all he really knew was ‘if I can take off and run, I should and I want to run as hard and fast as I can.’
“And he’s continued to evolve. He still knows that in a foot race, he can beat a lot of guys out there, honestly, most, if not all, of the guys. But handing the ball off in a 50/50 situation probably makes more sense, too. That’s been the key to this whole thing.”
Mellott’s supreme athleticism is rare among quarterbacks at the FCS level but is actually rather commonplace at Montana State. Lulay (2002-2005) was a dual threat who could extend plays with his legs and make opponents’ heads spin with his improvisation on the edge or in the open field. DeNarius McGhee (2010-2013) was a third down conversion machine who’s one of the great true field generals the Big Sky has seen in the modern era.
Dakota Prukop (2012-2015) was electric in open space, as was Andersen during the times he played quarterback, including during an unorthodox yet unforgettable All-American campaign as a gun-run QB that guided MSU to the playoffs in 2018.
Prukop, who recently wrapped up an eight-year career playing in the CFL, USFL and UFL, is a prime example of an electric talent who would burn opponents with his arm or legs, yet left wins on the table. During his time at Montana State, the uneven nature of his win-loss record was as much about a Bobcat defense that was downright embarrassing during Prukop’s sophomore and junior years in 2014 and 2015. And part of the volatility was because Prukop has a hard time staying available.
“You’re no good to your team as a wounded hero,” Prukop said. “You don’t want a martyr at quarterback who’s taking on linebackers with his shoulder. That’s been the biggest part of Tommy’s development. There was a time, just like me, when people would talk about, ‘Oh, that guy is so athletic, but what else?’ And now we’ve seen the growth. For him to take it to the level he has, to become a premier passer, it’s been so impressive to watch.
“There’s a lot of dual threat guys, guys who are close to as athletic as him, bigger than him, but what you aren’t going to find everywhere or really anywhere is the complete package with his disciplined mindset, the way he plays, the way he carries himself. If you were in a bar fight, you’d want Tommy to have your back.”
Mellott’s ability to bruise and his ability to burn have been on full display since his arrival on MSU’s campus. His ability to play within himself and stay on the field from stem to stern as a senior has produced nationally elite numbers.
His next touchdown will tie him with Kelly Bradley for the most TD passes in a single season (30) in MSU history. He has completed nearly 70 percent of his passes for 2,564 yards. And although MSU has limited his carries this season, Mellott has still rushed for 915 yards and 14 touchdowns. He is averaging nearly nine yards per carry.
“The interesting thing about him is that his ability to run the football is unique because he’s not one of these guys with great wiggle,” UC Davis head coach Tim Plough said. “He has a running back body and he has a running back mentality. It feels like (Davis All-American RB) Lan Larison back there running the ball. He’s that talented of a runner.
“And then as a passer, if you are that athletic, you can create some things outside the menu of the plays. He gets off schedule and it doesn’t mean the play is over. He can make great throws. And you think about the throw he made against Eastern Washington to put that game away. Every time they’ve asked him to make a throw, he’s gotten it done.”
Mellott’s pure speed has been a theme of Montana folk lore for years. Ever since he ran 4.54 seconds in the 40-yard dash as a junior in high school at a scouting combine, many have wondered what his high-octane potential might be, particularly once he got in a sophisticated D-1 training program.
MSU strength and conditioning coach Sean Herrin has coached NFL athletes. He also helped Andersen get ready for his NFL tryout before the Dillon native went to the NFL combine and nearly broke the internet. Andersen had one of the top RAS (relative athletic scores) in Combine history thanks in part to running 4.42 seconds in the 40.
Andersen weighs roughly 35 more pounds and that’s worth mentioning when Herrin says that Mellott is one of the fastest athletes he’s ever coached. Still, Herrin uses “Next Gen” technology to measure his players’ miles per hour in the open field during games. While he admits that MSU’s speedometer is a tad bit fast, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Mellott clocked 23.1 miles per hour on his long touchdown run in MSU’s 42-28 win at Eastern Washington.
For perspective, Andersen’s fastest speed was 22.9 mph. And Miami Dolphins speedster Tyreek Hill, who’s known as the Cheetah, has the fastest speed in the NFL this year at 23.2 miles per hour.
“We have a joke that the DBs probably don’t think he’s that fast until they are eating his dust,” MSU senior receiver Ty McCullouch said. “It’s fun to watch him run away from people.
“He’s an amazing athlete. He’s probably faster than me, honestly, and nobody is faster than me (laughs).”
Mellott enters his final collegiate game with 3,388 yards rushing and 42 rushing touchdowns, each the second-most in MSU’s vaunted history.
“His ability to be a slashing runner with speed and size, he’s dangerous,” NDSU head coach Tim Polasek said. “You have to tackle this guy. Some of the guys we’ve seen in the past, (former Florida Heisman trophy winner) Tim Tebow, that’s who he reminds me of. He has size and speed. He’s strong.
“Actually, he reminds me of Jordan Lynch. I was around him in 2013 and Jordan finished third for the Heisman (for Northern Illinois). He was just a tough out.”
Mellott has also thrown for 5,816 yards and 53 touchdowns, numbers that won’t break any passing records but certainly are impressive for a glorified running back or a quarterback that some say just ran the triple option out of the spread.
What’s next after this season? Mellott recently earned his degree in financial engineering with a perfect 4.0 GPA. He plans on chasing his football dreams as far as they will take him before settling into the business world.
“If I’m running a professional team, that’s something I’m taking note of: the growth. Look how much this dude has grown each year,” Prukop said. “People aren’t so trapped on how tall is a guy anymore. You see guys like Baker Mayfield, Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, smaller, athletic guys, Tommy sizes up with those guys no problem. Brock Purdy…why can’t Tommy go into the league and have a bunch of success?”
“From afar, I appreciate all of his qualities, his intangibles,” Plough said. “You can see his leadership. You see how tough he is. He communicates at a high level. As a quarterback guy, I love that. I love guys running their team. He’s the captain of the ship, you can tell that and he has that thing going at a really high level.”
Mellott’s head coach is perfectly sure Mellott will be wildly successful no matter how far football takes him.
“He’d be the first one to admit that he is gifted,” Vigen said. “He’s incredibly intelligent and he is athletically very gifted. But you still have to combine this uncommon drive that he has and to pursue like he does. For him, getting anything but an A would be beyond belief in school. It’s not even possible. Being as strong and as fast as he is, I don’t think he could even fathom that being just reality.
“We are really fortunate to have all this time with him, and all this time in the spotlight. This could’ve been a one or two-year thing because of what he did as a freshman, we’ve gotten to enjoy this for a full four years.”
What’s next pales in comparison to what’s right now. Mellott is so focused on completing this undefeated season, the Big Sky Offensive MVP and Walter Camp Offensive Player of the Year did not walk on graduation. He was squarely concentrated on MSU’s quarterfinal game against Idaho.
Cruzado, who is in her final year at Montana State, made sure to give Mellott a special moment to recognize his academic achievements.
“He just finished his degree in financial engineering with a 4.0 GPA and he is devoting well over 40 hours to his sport to practice and training, first one in, last one out, and you can see an intentionality in everything he does,” Cruzado said.
“When he decided not to walk for commencement because he wanted to be so singularly focused on the game that night. So we invited the entire team to have lunch together and I wanted to make sure I was feeding them correctly. So what I did is I brought Tommy’s diploma with me and I handed it to him. Because he is an inspiration to his teammates. He’s an inspiration to the student body. And he’s an inspiration to the state of Montana.”
An inspiration to Montana to be sure, and an inspiration that it can be done. Too short, too raw, too small of a high school, too tough to not play linebacker. Kids from small-town Montana CAN play quarterback at the Division I level. And they don’t have to be 6-foot-8 like Kalispell Flathead’s Brock Osweiler, who will serve as the television color commentator for Monday night’s title game against North Dakota State.
Mellott is already a Bobcat and Treasure State icon. He was among the first athletes of the NIL era to have his likeness on a T-shirt. He’s represented for one of the region’s proudest towns and helped elevate the pride of one of Montana’s proudest factions of fans.
He’s done it while chasing perfection and balancing his natural inclination to artistic creativity and his mental desire to analyze. And now he and the Bobcats get one more shot at redemption. NDSU ended MSU’s seasons in 2018, 2019, 2021 and last fall.
“There’s so many wrongs that we have to make right,” Mellott said. “The time I’ve been here and the shared sacrifice with the guys, from the seniors when I was a freshman to these freshmen now that I’m a senior, it’s something you can’t get over. It’s unbelievable what goes into this and to have men of character that you call your brothers is something I’ll probably never be able to replicate and I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can.”
“Every week, we’ve been working and praying to extend it as long as we can. Now it’s here. I don’t think it’s going to be anything that I’ll become emotional about or be worried about during the game, because this is a testament to this team. Being able to earn that last game for all of our seniors, it’s certainly a blessing. And to play a team like North Dakota State, a team that has always been in the mix for national championships, I’m just very excited to get an opportunity to play them over in Frisco.”
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