2015 Frontier Preview: Offensive linemen pave the way again

The Frontier Conference has turned into a pass happy league over the past few years thanks to a slew of talented throwers, wide receivers and wide-open offensive schemes. But with the majority of the teams in the league dealing with inexperience at the quarterback position, it’s safe to assume more importance will be placed on the ground game in 2015.

Of course, if any team wants a model for success in the Frontier it just has to look at Carroll College. The Saints once again earned a share of the conference championship last season and did so with a devastating ground game that averaged a league-high 223 yards per game.

That has been Carroll’s modus operandi for the past decade and a half. The Saints run the football, play great defense and get good solid play from the quarterback. That formula has earned Carroll plenty of trophies and, with an offensive line that should be among the best in the conference in 2015, it’s easy to see why the Saints are the odds-on favorite to win the Frontier again.

Throughout the conference, four offensive lineman earned All-Conference honors and are returning this season, and two of them reside on the Carroll campus in Helena. Josh James, a 6-6, 310-pounder, earned First-Team honors a year ago and, along with Ryan Armstrong (6-4, 303), the Saints will have the size and skill up front to dominate.

While Carroll pounded the rock better than any Frontier team in 2014, the University of Montana-Western also relied heavily on running the football and, in large part thanks to a solid offensive line, the Bulldogs racked up 209.1 yards per game a year ago. Western will return two prominent starters from their offensive line in First-Team All-Conference returner Will Thacker, as well as senior Caleb DeGroot. Those two will try to help the Bulldogs build on a 6-5 campaign that saw them place fourth in the Frontier a season ago.

Yet, a good offensive line can do more than run block and when it comes to spread offenses like the ones employed by Southern Oregon or Rocky Mountain College, pass protection can be just as important, if not more so. A season ago, SOU finished fourth in sacks against per game just behind Carroll, with just 1.7 per game and considering the Raiders threw the football more than 40 times per game, that number is pretty impressive.

And despite the fact that three-time Frontier Conference Player of the Year Austin Dodge will no longer be quarterbacking the defending national champion Raiders, doesn’t mean their air assault on the rest of the league will cease. That means a revamped offensive line that includes Max Proudfit, a 2014 Second-Team All-Conference selection, but will be without graduated seniors Drew Gibson and Ronald Rylance, who each earned All-Conference honors a year ago, will have its work cut out for it.

The only team that threw more passes per game than the Raiders last season was Rocky and even though star quarterback Bryce Baker is gone, the Bears are sure to continue to air it out and will need great protection from a front five led by Dylan Johnston.

Quietly, Eastern Oregon also put together a heck of an offensive season in 2014, finishing fourth in the Frontier in total offense and first in sacks allowed per game at just 1.2. The Mountaineers were one of just three teams to surpass a 2,000 yards rushing and passing last season and will look to achieve that again behind an offensive line that features top returnee Mitch Steffler.

The College of Idaho, which made an impressive debut in the Frontier a season ago by winning three conference games, relies heavily on the ground after averaging 205.2 yards per game last season to go along with 30 rushing touchdowns, which each ranked fourth in the league. The Yotes will look to continue to cause havoc for defenses running behind an offensive line that features returning starters Greg Dohman and Andrew Galloway.

Ryan Stemple, a junior who attended Missoula Big Sky will lead the way for the Montana Tech offensive line as the Orediggers try to recover from a campaign that saw them finish dead last in total offense.

And last but certainly not least are the Montana State University-Northern Lights, who will be a much different team than a season ago due both due to graduation and a coaching change.

Aaron Christensen is the new head man for the Lights and he would like nothing more than to pound his opponents into submission with the dynamic rushing duo of Zach McKinley and Mario Gobbato. The Lights won just three games a season ago but boasted a ground game that averaged 4.8 yards per carry.

With last year’s starter quarterback Travis Dean gone, the Lights will rely even more on their big-time runners to put points on the board and in order for that to happen, the MSU-N offensive line, which will be led by tackle Pete Morales, will need to be up to the task of opening holes for its two talented running backs.

The Northern offensive line can also be excited about the chance to play for a coach like Christensen, who is old school and will be looking to establish the run as much as anything else when his team has the football.

The offensive line is always an essential but overlooked group of players and while dominating in the trenches is always a prerequisite for winning football games, with the absence of so many signal callers from 2014, winning that battle up front will prove even more important for Frontier teams looking to contend for the conference crown.

Editor's Note: This is the third installment in the Havre Daily News' series on the top returning players in the Frontier Conference. For a look at the top defensive linemen in the league, see Friday's HDN.