ELEVATED EXPECTATIONS: Sain, Session expected to bolster Bobcat offensive line

BOZEMAN, Montana — If you have an elite offensive line, you have a chance to win a championship; it’s one of the oldest notions in football.

And it’s a notion Montana State hopes is true in 2021.

But for that idea to come to fruition, MSU is going to need a few unproven players to rise their playing levels with the departure of a few outstanding pieces.

Mitch Brott started a Montana State-record 50 games during his career, capping his senior year in 2019 with All-Big Sky Conference and All-American honors as MSU plowed its way to the semifinals of the FCS playoffs for the first time since 1984.

Connor Wood, a massive 6-foot-5, 320-pounder who played tackle and guard in his two years as a starter for MSU playoff games, abruptly left the program following the first spring ball under new head coach Brent Vigen. The Boise native graduated and grad transferred to Missouri of the SEC.

Wood’s presence would have given Montana State four of the more talented and experienced offensive lineman in the league.

Lewis Kidd, a 6-foot-6, 312-pound returning all-league selection (at guard) will play left tackle for his senior season. His start September 4 against Wyoming in the Bobcats’ season-opener will be his 34^rd straight.

Fellow senior Taylor Tuiasosopo, a 6-foot-4, 305-pounder who earned all-league honors last season at guard, has started 28 games in his MSU career. He and do-everything senior Troy Andersen served as Montana State’s representatives on the Big Sky’s preseason all-league squad.

Zach Redd, a 6-foot-1, 295-pound junior, is from the same high school as Wood (the duo helped the Rocky Mountain Grizzlies win an Idaho 5A state championship in 2015) and has been a consistent cog of MSU’s interior offensive line in 2018 and 2019. Redd played mostly center in 2019 but has taken most of his snaps since Vigen took over in February of this year.

Redd’s bump to guard and Kidd’s bump to tackle means Montana State needs two players to emerge; one, respectively, at center and the other, preferably, at right tackle.

Vigen said he thinks sophomore Cole Sain, a 6-foot-4, 280-pound transfer of Riverside Community College by way of Montana, is the man at center. And talented redshirt freshman T.J. Session, an athletic 6-foot-4, 282-pound tackle out of Vista Murrieta High in Southern California will also have ELEVATED EXPECTATIONS this upcoming fall along the Bobcat offensive front.