BOZEMAN, Montana — Rylan Ortt had never seen anything like it and doesn’t know if he ever will again.
In the 2022 version of the Treasure State’s fiercest rivalry, Montana State exploded out of the gates, forging a surgical six-play, 75-yard drive to take a quick 7-0 lead over the hated Grizzlies.
On Montana State’s first defensive possession, Nolan Askelson stuck Malik Flowers across the middle for a minimal gain on the Grizzlies’ second play from scrimmage. Then the hard-nosed inside linebacker tackled Nick Ostmo by himself two plays in a row, no easy task given Ostmo’s burly 220-pound frame.
Then Askelson felt his right knee give out. He limped to the sideline, but did not want to accept what he knew to be true.
“His toughness is incomparable and nothing will ever knock Nolan down,” Ortt, a junior safety for Montana State, said in October, about 11 months after Askelson’s Cat-Griz knee injury.
“Nolan makes the first three tackles of the game, then he tears his ACL. He’s on the sideline telling the trainers slap a brace on it, try to get one more rep. He goes out, gets one more rep, makes the tackle. Then he couldn’t go anymore. But that was one of the coolest things I’ve seen playing college football.”
A season-ending knee injury can turn into a career-ending knee injury when you’re a fifth-year player who suffers the setback in the middle of November.
“I know last year when he got hurt, especially the timing being mid-November and surgery is early December, I think you look at that timeline and think, ‘Do I really want to do this? Do I want to push it to come back?’” Montana State third-year head coach Brent Vigen said. “It took him a few weeks to sort that piece out in his head.
“(I’m) thankful he did, not only for his play on the field but also his leadership and his example he sets and the way he represents what we want to be about.”
Askelson certainly had doubts. He’d already lost time during the 2019 season and lost all but two games of the 2021 season to injuries. But his dedication to his teammates and his passion for representing Montana State on behalf of the Magic City and Billings Senior High and as a part of MSU’s linebacker lineage was enough to inspire him to return.
“It was a long one, a tough road,” Askelson said. “When it first happened, there was a lot of uncertainty whether I’d ever play football again to be honest at that point. I’m not really sure all I’ve done to my knee, but I knew I had a long road of recovery ahead of me that I’d already done a few times.
“But I looked around at my teammates, looked at the guys in the locker room that have given so much to this program and in that same sense, have given so much to me, so I gave everything I could to get out there with these guys again because I love those guys so dang much. These are my brothers for life.”
Put together the accelerated timeline of his recovery and his on-field performance while shouldering the pressure of wearing Montana State’s legacy 41 number, and Askelson’s senior year is almost unbelievable.
It’s not just that Askelson rehabbed intensely and diligently enough to make it to his sixth and final season wearing blue and gold. It’s that Askelson came back at such a torrid pace, he was ready to roll before fall camp even started.
Montana State linebackers coach Bobby Daly said he tried to help limit Askelson’s reps during fall camp. And Daly planned on slow-playing Askelson early during MSU’s non-conference schedule. But Askelson blew all timelines out of the water.
Not only was he a full go by the season opener, he has been a stalwart in the center of Montana State’s defense all season. His playmaking, production, leadership and ability to represent MSU while wearing the Bobcats’ vaunted No. 41 legacy jersey landed the Billings product on the first-team All-Big Sky Conference list.
“I was super excited for Nolan when he got that honor because he deserves it,” Montana State junior defensive end Brody Grebe, himself a first-team all-conference selection, said earlier this week. “He’s been a great leader, a great player this year and every play, every snap, he’s done a great job getting everyone lined up, calling out plays, and overall just flying around.
“He attacked his PT like a warrior all spring, all summer long and pushed himself to get back. I don’t think anybody deserves it more than him.”
The last name Askelson has been a part of the state of Montana’s sporting lexicon for more than a decade.
Back in 2011, Ben Askelson, Nolan’s older brother, hit a walk-off home run to lift the Billings Little League team to the West regional championship in the Little League World Series, sending the squad from the Magic City to Williamsport, PA.
Ben went on to be a standout for Billings Senior football, before the Broncs turned a corner and had their best run since Pat Dolan was the head coach back in the late 1980s and into the late 1990s.
Nolan Askelson and one of his childhood best friends Gabe Sulser were on Billings Senior’s 2015 Class AA runner-up team. The following two seasons, the duo helped spearhead back-to-back state championship runs, giving Senior its first two state titles since 1979.
Sulser was the darling, a three-time first-team All-State selection as an offensive Swiss Army knife who scored more than 50 touchdowns during his high school career. Askelson was a versatile star himself, earning first-team all-state recognition at outside and inside linebacker, plus nods at running back as a junior and quarterback as a senior.
Askelson earned Class AA Defensive Player of the Year honors after he’d already committed to Montana State, and a partial scholarship offer as a junior quickly accelerated to a full scholarship once he joined the Bobcats.
In 2018, his first year in Bozeman, he blocked a punt in MSU’s 35-14 first-round FCS Playoff win, the first postseason victory at MSU since 2012 and the first playoff win under head coach Jeff Choate. The following week, Askelson made three tackles against North Dakota State, yet still maintained his redshirt status since he played in just four games.
The following January, Daly returned to his alma mater to coach the linebackers. Daly himself hails from Helena and was a walk-on who turned into an All-Big Sky and All-American player under Mike Kramer and Rob Ash.
He was instantly struck by Askelson’s polish, instincts, work ethic and personality. Those traits have shown through ever since, even with the 2020 season being called off and Choate bolting for Texas, and even with Askelson breaking his foot a few games into 2021 and the torn knee against Montana.
“When I got here in 2019, Nolan was a freshman and he earned the starting job coming out of fall camp,” Daly said. “Some injuries happened and some different things happened to get to a point where, as we were finishing the year, he was no longer a starter, then he comes back the next year, and he gets better.
“He gets hurt in 2021, he comes back and he’s better. He gets hurt in 2022, he comes back and he’s better.
“His work ethic, his perseverance have shown through to get him to this point. And he’s playing at a very high level right now.”
Ty Gregorak coached linebackers and coordinated some of the Big Sky’s best defenses between his 12 seasons at Montana and his three at Montana State. He was Askelson’s linebackers coach when he first arrived on campus in 2018, Gregorak’s final season coaching college football.
These days, Gregorak moonlights as a color commentator on the Bobcat TV broadcasts and serves as a lead analyst at Skyline Sports.
Gregorak’s final season at Montana State was Askelson’s first season with the Bobcats. He saw Askelson’s potential right away and has watched it grow in the following years.
“You want to have that guy, a guy like Nolan, at linebacker,” Gregorak said. “He’s so deserving of anything that comes his way because he’s a Montana guy.”
“He understands the defense, he understands concepts, and he diagnoses it all,” Gregorak said. “He’s had great coaching throughout his career and he’s had to overcome a lot.”
“He’s a sharp dude, he’s well spoken, great family. What an admirable young man and what a career he’s put together for the ‘Cat defense.”
Askelson has burst onto the scene multiple times, encountering setbacks only to then reemerge again. In 2019, as a redshirt freshman under Daly’s tutelage, Askelson earned his way into the rotation alongside studs like Josh Hill, Troy Andersen and Callahan O’Reilly.
In 2020, Askelson and so many other college football players had to deal with the uncertainty of a global pandemic. And that cloudy time certainly played an influence in Choate leaving for Texas early in 2021.
That following fall, Askelson was primed to be the third linebacker in a rotation with Andersen, a future NFL Draft pick, and O’Reilly, a multiple-time All-Big Sky selection. But two games in, he busted his foot, costing him the rest of the campaign.
And his season stopped abruptly last November, even though Montana State rolled to a 55-21 win over the rival and then won twice more to advance to the FCS Playoff semifinals for the third year in a row.
“I don’t know if there’s been a senior class with this much success, and Nolan has played a big role all along,” Daly said. “He was in a semifinal in 2019. He was in a national championship in 2021 and a semifinal in 2022. And we have big dreams and aspirations for this season and he’s a big part of that.”
“His leadership, being a captain is a big reason why the program is where it is. He’s gone through so much personal adversity and he went through a coaching change in the middle of his career. That’s something that I experienced and the first two years of Rob Ash did not go nearly as well as the first two years of Brent Vigen. That’s without a doubt a credit to the leadership of Nolan and the senior class.”
Montana State’s super seniors have talked individually and collectively about enjoying the moment as they soak in their final seasons together. Before the Bobcats took the field for their last guaranteed home game against Eastern Washington, Askelson challenged the team.
“Before the game, Nolan challenged us,” senior defensive end Ben Seymour said. “He said, ‘Everyone is going to give us their best shot because we are one of the top teams in the country.’ But he said, ‘It doesn’t matter what their best shot is. What’s our best shot? Let’s give them our best shot.’
“I think we gave them that today and it’s because Nolan challenged us. And we responded.”
That afternoon, MSU rolled Eastern Washington 57-14. That win, MSU’s eighth this season, likely sewed up a Top 8 seed and the bye that MSU secured last week despite losing its regular-season finale 37-7 to Montana in Missoula.
Seymour’s anecdote about Askelson is one of countless examples of the out-spoken way Askelson has led the Bobcats over the years.
“He’s a guy who’s as outspoken as anyone on our team and I think he can speak to his own experience of maturing and what this four, five, six years should look like and how you come out on the other side a man,” Vigen said. “I do think that’s the case with Nolan.
“He’s as strong a leader as we have on this team and he is playing his best football. That’s what you want.”
Daly said Askelson has been instrumental in McCade O’Reilly’s acclimation to the starting lineup with Danny Uluilakepa out with an injury for a few weeks. Daly said Askelson, who’s a mathematics major, spends as much time in the film room — as much as 20 extra hours a week — as any player Daly’s ever coached.
“Nolan is everything you want in a leader on your football team,” Ortt said. “He’s a high character guy, hardest worker in the room, cares so much about his teammates, cares so much about the program.”
The work ethic, the diligence of preparation, the love for the state of Montana — that’s what made Askelson the perfect choice to carry on the No. 41 legacy at MSU.
Although Grant Collins passing the jersey to Brayden Konkol officially started the tradition, Helena’s Brad Daly wore the garment before Collins, so a Montana-made stud has donned it for more than a decade.
Askelson earned the honor when R.J. Fitzgerald and Vigen decided he was the man to represent a jersey symbolic of Montana being the 41st state added to the union.
“He wears 41 for a reason,” Vigen said. “This place matters to him so much being from Montana, and that’s apparent in how he can articulate it to the guys and that’s a great reason why he came back and wanted to finish it up on his own terms.”
“You could see the pure joy on his face when I asked him about the jersey. I wanted to run it by him first and he was like, ‘Absolutely.’ He’s been here for six years, so he’s seen four other guys wear it, what it meant to them and how they represented it. Now you are carrying that on.
“I think it’s a responsibility more than a pressure, a responsibility that he was honored to carry on and I’m really pleased with how he’s went about that since that day.”
It’s a responsibility that Askelson has relished.
“It’s a true honor, for sure,” Askelson said. “To look back at the guys who have worn it before me and to think I get to be mentioned with them, that’s pretty special. Those are all guys I looked up to and respected but who were also great players and great leaders.
“It’s been pretty special when little kids come up and they know me, but they don’t really know me, they know the number and say what’s up or they are wearing my jersey, it’s pretty special and something I’ll never forget.”
Montana State’s charge at another national title push hit a few speed bumps over the last month. First, Idaho played keep away and emerged with a 24-21 win over the Bobcats in Moscow to derail Montana State’s Big Sky winning streak.
Still, MSU had a chance for a second straight outright Big Sky title with a win over the rival Griz in Missoula.
Instead, the Bobcats now have to put that blowout loss in the rearview and focus on the Bison of North Dakota State.
Askelson has been trying to enjoy his last ride since the very beginning of this season, a campaign he fought so hard to return for.
“You want to soak it in, but you have to stay focused and keep working, moving forward and you can’t really stop,” Askelson said. “You can definitely take time to appreciate it, but you have to keep your eyes up and keep moving forward. I’m just trying to soak in the time with all these guys. I just love this damn team so much man, I love all my teammates.
“My days of playing football are winding down, so I have to get in as much as I can.”
Askelson grew up in the largest city in Montana, but Billings is still rural compared to most of the country. Throughout his career, he has had a chance to meet many different people from many different walks of life. And during his last year, a year he worked so hard to come back for, he’s gotten an opportunity to lead young men.
Regardless of what happens on Saturday against NDSU, that’s the indelible lesson he will take from his time at Montana State.
“I’ve learned so much,” Askelson said. “Just growing as a man, learning who I am, and my values and what I believe in, being around so many different coaches who have different philosophies but also being around different teammates who are from so many different backgrounds is truly a blessing. I’ve been able to interact with so many different people from so many different backgrounds, hear so many different sides of things, learn from people and how they view the world.
“Being able to take all that stuff in and build your own identity and your own beliefs and that’s really shaped who I am. That respect, that work ethic, the culture we have here, you have to be tough and you have to work hard and you have to show respect to everybody. Those interactions, being able to deal with people, those are definitely things I’m going to take into the real world and be able to apply every day.”
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