BOZEMAN, Montana — When Logan Jones crosses paths with Marcus Ferriter, there is an unsaid mutual respect even if most of the time the conversations are far from serious.
When Jones sees Brayden Konkol or Mitch Brott or Josh Hill, a simple head nod is all it takes to symbolize what this group of Bobcat fifth-year seniors have been through collectively.
“We’ve seen a lot of people drop,” Jones said in an interview earlier this month. “We are the only ones that made it. The coolest part of the deal though is that we are all Montana guys. That says it all about Montana’s toughness and the work ethic, how we are raised.
“It’s super cool to walk around and look at those guys in the eye and have that mutual respect and that mutual appreciation for each other because we have all battled it together.That’s one of the top two or three things out of my whole college career that I’m the most proud of is making it through with these guys and for those guys.”
A stellar high school career that started in controversy and ended with Jones leading Kalispell Glacier to their first-ever Class AA state championship helped set the stage. The following summer, Jones, Ferriter, Konkol, Brott, Hill, MSU sophomore defensive lineman Byron Rollins and former MSU quarterback Brady McChesney all represented as future Bobcats playing in the East-West Shrine game.
McChesney retired before exhausting his eligibility. Rollins went on a mission, delaying his career by two years. The rest of those players who signed with former Montana State head coach Rob Ash have made it until the end of their careers.
But Jones nearly did not get to experience one last ride with his fellow holdovers from a previous coaching regime. He almost was not among the last men standing from the Ash era.
Of Montana State’s six fifth-year seniors, only Jones broke into the lineup as a true freshman. But a cumbersome abdomen injury caused him to miss the first seven games of last season. The 5-foot-7, 186-pound ball of explosive energy returned for the stretch run and scored a touchdown in three straight games, including a score in MSU’s epic come from behind 29-25 victory over Montana in Missoula.
After playing in four games, Jones faced a decision. He could participate in the playoffs for the first time in his career but forfeit a fifth year of eligibility. Or he could use the new NCAA rule that a player can play in four games or less and still redshirt.
He took the risk and skipped the playoffs even though he had never played in the postseason before. Nine months later with his second senior year on the horizon, Jones said the only thing that was harder than being hurt for most of 2016 was watching MSU get destroyed in the Round of 16 in the FCS Playoffs from back home in Bozeman.
But now that his fifth and final season is winding down, Jones knows he made the right choice.
“I’m unbelievably happy that I came back for this year,” Jones said. “This year has been amazing. I have had a lot of fun. There have been some things that I wish I could change with a few of those losses. But I’m so thankful and I’m blessed that I got to be here another year and got to play a full season in my last season.
“I wouldn’t change it for anything. Being with these guys for one last right has been unforgettable.”
The lightning fast and cat-quick running back was one of the most unstoppable offensive weapons in the state during his junior and senior year of high school. He was a touchdown waiting to happen. Glacier head coach Grady Bennett told the Daily Interlake two years ago that he thought Jones’ stats “would’ve doubled if we actually had to give him the ball.”
He scored 23 touchdowns — 14 rushing, four receiving, four punt returns and a kick return — his senior year none the less as Glacier steamrolled the rest of the state. The Wolfpack outscored opponents 645-164 and won the state title game 56-19.
“Logan has been one of the most explosive guys here, one of the most explosive guys in high school, one of the most explosive guys I’ve seen play football or since I started playing sports,” said Hill, the Class AA Defensive Player of the Year and a classmate of Jones’ at Glacier. “He just has that mindset when he has the ball, he’s going to make something happen. He has great athleticism and the best balance I’ve ever seen.”
At Montana State, Jones established himself as one of the most dangerous kick returners in the league as a true freshman. He took a kickoff 100 yards to the house against Portland State. He earned honorable mention All-Big Sky honors. But he also burned a year of eligibly while registering only two offensive touches, 12 special teams touches and making six tackles on kick teams.
That Bobcat team failed to live up to expectations, posting a 5-6 record stamped by a three-touchdown loss to rival Montana at home to miss the playoffs for the second time in three years. Former MSU athletic director Peter Fields fired Ash less than 48 hours later.
As a sophomore, Jones found himself jammed behind Chad Newell, Gunnar Brekke and Nick LaSane in the running back rotation for new head coach Jeff Choate, who favored bigger, more physical running backs early on. Jones carried the ball six times for 39 yards and a touchdown while catching one pass for a 65-yard gain in a narrow loss at Sac State. He averaged 25.1 yards with a long of 53 on 10 kick returns as four different players fielded kickoffs.
As a junior in 2017, Jones started in five games at running back while also earning MSU’s Ken Amato Kick Teams MVP award He rushed for 106 yards on 28 carries and scored a touchdown. He caught five passes for 18 yards and a touchdown.
But he did not get to play a significant role in a Cat-Griz game until his first senior year. Last season, Jones scored touchdowns against Cal Poly, Northern Colorado and Montana while totaling 182 yards from scrimmage.
Jones’ 13-yard touchdown run with 2:19 left in the game helped MSU come back from a 22-0 deficit to post a thrilling, unforgettable 29-25 victory in Missoula.
“That was probably the coolest game I ever played in because my first two years, I never got to play in the Montana game,” Jones said.
Heading into last season, Jones prepared like he never had before. A player who had not gotten invited to fall camp two years earlier seemed primed to win MSU’s starting running back job. But then he tore a muscle in his abdomen and missed all of fall camp and all of the first two months of the season.
Jones stayed diligent in his rehab, eyeing the final four games of the season as a return date. He caught a 17-yard scoring toss on a fly sweep play from Travis Jonsen to open up a 49-point effort in a one-touchdown win over Cal Poly, the first of three straight victories to end the regular season for MSU. In a 35-7 win over Northern Colorado, he again scored from 18 yards out on a fly sweep play, this one pitched by Troy Andersen.
“He’s an explosive guy and that first day back at practice last year, he made one catch on the sideline and he is so quick and light on his feet,” said Andersen, an unprecedented athlete who has played both offense and defense consistently this season. “He can get the ball in space and make a lot of people miss. He’s a blur.”
And Jones scored the deciding touchdown against Montana. Then he had to shut it down.
“That’s what it comes down to: what this program means to me and to us,” Jones said. “I don’t get my motivation from the game or anything else. It all comes from the 10 other dudes who are on the field and all the other guys who are on the sideline.
“And as it all winds down, you get this Bobcat merit, this stamp of honor. You went through it all together. You are part of that forever. And I wanted one more year.”
In the first summer with Choate directing the Bobcat program, Jones’ dedication to the game and love for his teammates was in question. Jones spent the summer in Kalispell working to help himself pay for school — he was not on a full scholarship — and playing on Flathead Lake. A couple of videos of him wakeboarding on Flathead Lake surfaced to the irk of his new head coach who expected his new charges to be bonding and working out together in Bozeman.
Choate did not invite Jones to fall camp in 2016.
“I basically told him don’t bother coming back from Flathead Lake a couple of years ago and he ended up not having his scholarship back,” Choate said last November. “I give the kid a lot of credit.
“Most guys would’ve said ‘to heck with it’ and walked away and probably point the finger at me and think it was my fault. But I think he’s such a better person because he’s pushed through that.”
As Choate has gotten to know his players on a personal level, he has formed a special bond with the seven fifth-year seniors. The group are the only holdovers from a 2015 recruiting class, the last signed by Ash, of 31 prospects. They all reference each other when talking about how they made it to the end of their collective journeys.
“As I’ve gotten to know Logan, one of the things I wasn’t really tuned in to early on was what happened to him when he was younger, having to go through the loss of his mother,” Choate said in an interview in September. “And how that affected him and how he’s processed that in a different way. He’s had to go through some discipline things to realize that he probably needed football more than football needed him.
“And now he’s come out the other end. Now he appreciates what the game has given him.”
Jones lost his mother when he was in fifth grade. Looking back on it now, he admits that he had a hard time processing the loss because he was so young. But it also had an impact on his subconscious and his long-term psychology.
“When you start losing things, you start to realize life is a lot shorter than you think,” Jones said. “That really only happens when you lose loved ones.
“And when you are younger, you start to get this mindset that I’m going to do this because the biggest thing I am scared of is having a regret.
“I hear that all the time, people saying to live without regrets. I’ll never be mad that I went out and had a beer with one of my buddies. I’ll never regret that. I try to make the most of my life, really, every day. I’ve seen people live with regrets. I want to make sure that I enjoy every day in life because it’s so short and you have to enjoy every day you can, every way you can.”
Jones is the first to admit he was immature when he first got to Montana State. That immaturity exploded in a vicious and, some say, overblown hazing scandal involving Jones as a main culprit early in his time at Glacier High School. The incident hit newspapers statewide and almost derailed Jones’ promising athletic career. But Bennett went to bat for his players.
“Was it wrong? Yes. Should they have been disciplined? Totally yes,” Bennett told the Flathead Beacon last August. “On the flip side, it was totally over-sensationalized and blown to a proportion that was way beyond what it was.
Jones has incrementally grown y ear after year. And he gives a ton of credit for his maturation to Choate.
“I’ve tried to grow as a man and becoming somebody of character, which is something that Choate has constantly batted into my brain,” Jones said. “His culture, ever since he came in here, Day 1, the biggest thing he’s been about is culture. And he has these things he’ll do every Friday. He calls it the art of manliness. He will get us lessons, philosophical things that help us realize where we are going with our lives.”
All that evolution personally and athletically have helped set the stage for a breakout final season in MSU’s backfield. With sophomore starter Isaiah Ifanse largely unavailable and Andersen battling a variety of injuries, Jones has risen to the top of the depth chart once again. And this time, he has put his talents on display for the rest of the Big Sky.
He rushed for a career-high 167 yards, including an 87-yard touchdown, one of two scores on the day in a 23-14 MSU win at Western Illinois. He rushed for 101 yards and two more scores in the first half against Norfolk State. He followed that up with 18 carries for 74 yards against Northern Arizona in a 49-34 Bobcat win.
Jones got his ribs dinged midway through the season, causing him to miss the North Dakota game (a 16-12 MSU loss) and total 21 carries for 141 yards against Cal Poly, Sac State andSouthern Utah.
He bounced back in a big way with 122 yards and a touchdown on a 451-yard rushing effort by the Bobcat offense in a 45-14 win at Northern Colorado. This season, he leads the Bobcats with 667 yards on just 97 carries. He has scored six rushing touchdowns and caught a fly sweep he took 55 yards against NAU.
“He’s like a Danny Woodhead,” MSU captain wide receiver Kevin Kassis said. “He’s so fast, has such good speed and balance and vision, he just makes it look effortless.”
Jones will have one last chance to show that speed against Montana on Saturday in Bozeman.
On an evening earlier this month, Jones found himself thinking out loud while talking to Konkol, his roommate, about the future. The two dreamed about the days when football did not consume all their time. Jones even joked that he might want to move to Alaska.
“But then I stopped myself and told Brayden, ‘There’s still a few more things I want to get done as a Bobcat,” Jones said. “Like beat the Griz like we have the last three years.
“Let’s be champions again, start putting rings on our fingers, the big stuff, the stuff we all came here for. This group of guys, we are all winners. We have all won state championships in high school. We thought that was cool but this is the big time. This is where I always wanted it to happen.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
