A bright start for the Lights

The 2016 season is rapidly approaching for the Montana State University-Northern football team and this past Saturday, the Lights took to the field for a live scrimmage just two weeks ahead of the season-opener against Rocky Mountain College.

The scrimmage, which pitted the offense versus the defense, lasted for more than an hour and saw the offense take part in a number of six-play stints starting at around its own 40-yard line.

The offense, which has looked much smoother than it did in fall camp a season ago, struggled throughout the scrimmage as the defense held the offense without a score. The Lights defense forced one turnover and pressured the quarterbacks effectively throughout. The Northern offense was limited to nothing but punts and one turnover on downs that came near the red zone.

“I think we got what we wanted out of it,” Northern head coach Aaron Christensen said. “It was time for us to go live and get a thud tempo. We got about 12 reps for our starters and some got six. We wanted to see what guys could do live and get some things on film, so we can see what we need to do to prepare for our next game.”

Jess Krahn, the incumbent starting quarterback for Northern, had a solid, but modest day, going 3-for-7 for 21 yards. His longest completion of the day came to Kagan Khamaneh, who nabbed a 15-yard reception on the third drive of the day for the No. 1 offense, a drive that reached the 31-yard line of the defense before stalling.

Yet, even though the Lights offense failed to produce any points, Northern was still effective when it came to running the football and senior back Zach McKinley showed himself to be in midseason form, as he rushed four times for 22 yards, including a long gain of 13 yards. The running game was also solid for the second-team offense as Jett Robertson and Trey Blanchard consistently grinded yards and combined for close to 50 on the day.

“I thought we did a good job of running the football,” Christensen said. “I want to see our passing game work a little better and we need to do a better job of pass protection, but we ran the ball well and running back right now, is one of the deepest spots on our team. We have Zach, who obviously, has done a lot of great things already; Jett Robertson played some for us last year and Trey (Blanchard) came in at semester and he has done a great job, so there really isn’t a lot of drop off at that position from one guy to the next.”

On the defensive side of the ball, the Lights continued to put together a strong camp and no one looked better than All-Frontier defender Tyler Craig, who finished the scrimmage with a sack and bevy of quarterback pressures. Jordan Brusio, a former defensive end who is making the transition to linebacker, also made his presence felt by creating multiple pressures on the quarterback, while also corralling McKinley for a loss on the second offensive series.

“We (offense) have problems with Tyler Craig every day in practice,” Christensen said. “We will have to watch the film, but you could see the pressure today. He did a great job and Pat Barnett and Brusio, those guys are tough, and as a head coach you want to see your defense putting pressure on the quarterback.”

Christensen said that while he was pleased with the pass rush, he thought the defense as a whole did well, particularly when it came to limiting big plays down the field, something the Lights struggled to do a season ago.

“I thought the secondary did a nice job,” Christensen said. “Last year, we gave up way too many big plays and, today, I thought those guys did a nice job of playing the ball and preventing those chunk plays.”

The Lights are continuing fall camp this week. Northern will be on the field twice a day for the rest of the week, at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. MSU-N will open its 2016 season at home against Rocky Mountain College. Kickoff at Blue Pony Stadium for the Aug. 27 game is set for 1 p.m.