Jerry Louie-McGee, Montana’s leading receiver and potential highlight every time he touches the ball, will miss Saturday’s game against Sacramento State marking his second straight absence after undergoing minor surgery to repair an injured meniscus, Montana head coach Bob Stitt confirmed Monday afternoon.
Louie-McGee is expected to return to the lineup October 22 at Northern Arizona.
Stitt said Monday during Montana’s weekly news conference that Louie-McGee injured the knee during a loss to Cal Poly, but continued to play through that game and Montana’s 43-20 win over Southern Utah on October 1. Following Montana’s win over Mississippi Valley State on Saturday, that Stitt characterized Louie-McGee as a someone who “you’ve got to take his pads away” to stop from playing.
Montana did just that, keeping Louie-McGee on the sidelines in warm-up gear for the Grizzlies’s 67-7 win over the Delta Devils. In Louie-McGee’s absence, junior James Homan started at the ‘Z’ receiver position and led the team with six catches for 69 yards and touchdown late in the second quarter.
“Now we have to move James to Z, which was the plan all along if we ever needed him,” Stitt said.
Sophomore Caleb Lyons also contributed six catches for 39 yards in Louie-McGee’s absence. Lyons and senior running back John Nguyen shared punt return duties. Montana released its two-deep depth chart for Sacramento State on Monday evening showing Nguyen will again take over those responsibilities during the Grizzlies’ final home game of October.
A redshirt freshman from Coeur d’ Alene, Louie-McGee was a standout on the scout team last season before wowing Griz fans with myriad highlights during 2016 spring practice. Louie-McGee was awarded a scholarship in the offseason and then became a must-see player during fall camp.
In Montana’s second game at Northern Iowa, Louie-McGee cemented his growing reputation with a start-and-stop punt return that saw him weave through UNI for an 81-yard touchdown that helped Montana upset the then third-ranked team in the nation.
Two weeks later, Louie-McGee caught a school record 21 passes in a 42-41 loss at Cal Poly and was named the STATS FCS National Freshman Player of the Week.
“Jerry is a tremendous player, but his biggest attribute is taking a play that used to be a 5-yard gain and turning it into 60 and a touchdown,” Stitt following Louie-McGee’s record-breaking performance. “The things that we see on tape, we pause it and say, OK, that would have been the end of the play last year. Now, he ends up turning that into 10, or 15, or even 60 and a score.”
Through five games, Louie-McGee is Montana’s leading receiver with 41 catches for 366 yards and two scores. His 10.3 catches per game leads the FCS.
