HBOZEMAN, Montana — As the Montana State Bobcats took the field to open fall camp in August of 2017, Josh Hill stood along the rail that lines Dyche Field next to a smattering of boosters, fans and media, a forlorn look written upon his face.
The former Class AA Defensive Player of the Year had only ever experienced individual success on the football field. But a year ago, Hill faced the prospect of never playing the game again.
The cerebral, fearless Kalispell native started as a redshirt freshman and sophomore at inside linebacker at Montana State despite his diminutive stature. The 5-foot-11, 200-pounder plays with an attitude and aggressiveness that belies his size. That reckless style has helped him stand out in big games during his career.
But it likely also led to him suffering a back injury severe enough it required surgery and cost him almost all of last season.
“There’s been a lot of tough parts about fighting injuries,” said Hill, who missed all or parts of three games in 2017 as well. “I think the toughest part is not being able to put my best football out there and be the best I can be due to being injured and not being able to work out like I would like to leading up to the season. And missing games with my friends is tough.”
During his redshirt year, the former state champion from Glacier High School lived in the dorms with Mitch Brott, a Billings West product who himself joined the Bobcats as a partial scholarship player in Rob Ash’s last recruiting class.
Each broke into the starting lineup in Choate’s first season, Hill at Will linebacker, Brott at left tackle while they continued living together. Brott enters this season as a preseason All-American with 35 consecutive starts under his belt. Hill has managed to play in 21 games, missing all but MSU’s 52-10 season-ending loss at No. 1 North Dakota State last season.
“There was a while there where I didn’t know if I was going to play again,” Hill said. “I didn’t know if NDSU was going to be my last game. I didn’t know if Cat-Griz 2017 was going to be my last game.
“I just feel lucky and blessed to be out here and be a part of this and try to look at every day as a blessing.”
That blessing has been a long time coming. Hill was not a part of the Bobcat roster that endured fall camp last season. He did not return to the fold in game action until the final game of the season, although he did notch five tackles and snare an interception in his lone appearance of 2018.
Last season, Montana State’s inside linebackers struggled with injuries from start to finish. Grant Collins, a stalwart who started for four years, suffered yet another tear to his shoulder that would eventually require surgery but still managed to start nine games. Chad Kanow had a sophomore season bookended by injuries. And Hill was not available until November.
“We missed him a lot,” Montana State fourth-year head coach Jeff Choate said. “Josh was trying to figure out what was going on with Josh last year and in fairness to him, that’s what his priority needed to be in terms of his health and making sure we were making the right decisions in terms of how he progressed with his football career and if there was going to be a football career.
“He was struggling but now that we have gotten through that, he’s in a much better place mentally. I love seeing a smile on the kid’s face. Big picture man. It’s about making sure these kids grow as men.”
Hill battled through an off-season of rehabilitation and hard work to earn clearance for Montana State’s fall camp. Although his reps were limited and the staff put him “on a pitch count”, he still managed to earn the starting job at Will linebacker entering MSU’s season-opener Saturday at Texas Tech in Lubbock.
“The coaches have done a good job of putting me in a position where I’m not going to be overly physical every day,” Hill said. “I just got to the point every day where I was just breaking down all the time, missing games, missing seasons. I think we’ve realized that we have had a lot of injury issues so we are working to resolve some of that.”
“You need those reps in practice to build confidence to go play in games. It’s not like I’m showing up every day and not taking any reps, not doing anything. I need to make tackles in practice so that in games, I am confident that if I go down hill and fill that gap, I’m going to tackle the guy. There’s a fine line of doing too much and not doing enough.”
Choate consistently references Hill’s lack of size, saying things like “he’s not going to wow you physically” or “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” MSU’s head coach is also the first to bestow praise on a player that has been a lynchpin in his defense when healthy, saying “it’s going to be impossible to kep Josh off the field when he’s healthy because of the intangibles he brings.”
Montana State first-year linebackers coach Bobby Daly, himself a former Class AA Defensive Player of the Year out of Helena Capital who was an All-American linebacker at MSU in 2007 and 2008, has helped mitigate Hill’s practice schedule while his recovery continues.
Each day before practice, Daly said, he and Hill talk about how Hill’s body feels. Daly admits that when he first took his new position — he spent the last six seasons in various roles on Paul Petrino’s staff at Idaho — he did not believe he would have Hill as part of his group.
Now that Daly has seen the way Hill works, even if limited during fall camp practices, Daly has been impressed with Hill’s fortitude and diligence.
“Extremely physical, extremely smart and he’s got a quick trigger, man,” Daly said. “When he makes a decision, he goes and it’s full speed.
“His game has not changed. He’s still that fast, physical guy who broke down his body the last couple of years. He’s done a great job getting back.”
That perseverance has resonated with Hill’s teammates as well.
“He’s a helluva competitor, man,” MSU redshirt freshman Nolan Askelson, the slated starter next to Hill at Mike linebacker against Texas Tech, said. “He’s a great dude and in the short few weeks I’ve been around him in this camp, I’ve already learned so much from him. He’s a great leader. He leads by example, not always the loudest dude but he is working hard.”
“I think I was a senior or junior in high school and I remember watching him and he was like 200 pounds and I was like that kid? But he’s a freak and he’s SO tough,” added MSU junior outside linebacker Troy Andersen. “He has been battling throughout his career. A back injury, that’s scary stuff. For him to come back from it and still be a really good football player is unbelievable.”
Because Hill took a redshirt in 2015, last season proved to be basically a lost campaign. But he’s back for his fifth and final year. Looking back to his time last August standing on the rail watching fall camp, Hill is determined to make the most of his last few months playing for the Bobcats.
“I know what it’s like to not be involved in this, I know what it’s like to not play in games,” Hill said. “There’s a reason I’m here and that I’m playing. I think it’s really special to be a part of this. There’s nothing else I want to do right now.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
