Lights set out to rebuild defensive line

The Frontier Conference is one of the toughest leagues in NAIA football. Year in and year out, the conference seems to have a slew of national contenders.

In recent years, Carroll College, Southern Oregon, Montana Tech and Eastern Oregon have all made runs in the NAIA playoffs. Over the years, the Frontier has been so good, because it has boasted some elite offenses, which means if you are going to win games, you not only have to score points, you have to stop others from scoring them too.

Last season, Montana State University-Northern had a solid defense, even though it allowed a league-worst 431 yards per game. But with stars like Tyler Craig, Jordan Brusio and Pat Barnett, the Lights were tough and capable. Those three players were the top sack producers for the Lights in 2016, combining for 12 sacks and 18 tackles for loss.

Craig, who was a two-time All-Frontier selection, earned First-Team honors in 2016 with 52 total tackles, five sacks and eight tackles for loss. All three have since graduated, leaving Northern defensive coordinator Jake Eldridge with some big shoes to fill in his front seven.

"Those guys were obviously here for a long time and played a lot of downs for us," Eldridge said. "They had lots of stats and accomplishments, so replacing that production is going to be tough, but we have some young kids in the program, kids that have seen some action in the last couple of years."

While Brusio and Craig both were essentially outside linebackers in the Lights 3-4 scheme last season, Northern does return two veteran players on the interior of their three-man line. One is Mitch Harmon, who had seven tackles in 2015 and five in 2016. Another returnee is sophomore Elijah Dennison, who started a couple of games a season ago in his first season with the program.

"Those two guys are the guys that have the experience and the veteran leadership," Eldridge said. "The guy we have coaching them, Darold Debolt, he knows how to get those guys ready and get them to understand what they need to do to be successful. A lot of it with (Craig, Brusio and Barnett) was them being tough, physical, effort-type guys. We have done a great job with that in the past and that's something we expect to continue."

Harmon and Dennison can help fill the void left inside by Barnett, who was an important run defender, but in terms of replacing the sack production of Craig and Brusio that could fall to Josh Wright, who originally signed with Lights back in 2014, but is now ready to make a contribution.

"He was a guy that was highly recruited out of high school," Eldridge said of Wright, who had 18 sacks his senior year in high school and was the King County Defensive Player of the Year in 2013. "He had some (NCAA) Division One opportunities in terms of being a walk-on and he has been with us before. He ended up leaving for a semester because of some family issues, but we have him back and we have been really excited about him for a couple years. Now everything has kind of lined up for him; he's ready to play and he's healthy."

Of course, with every program, the Lights are going to need some young players to step up and there are a slew of redshirt-freshmen well positioned to do just that, such as Ian Sparrow (6-0, 235), Ronnie Chavez (6-2, 235) and Josh Jacobson (6-3, 280), who are all competing for snaps on interior. Another redshirt freshman, Jake Norby of Chinook, is seeing snaps at outside linebacker/edge rusher for Northern, behind Kyree Johnson, another player, who will be counted on to generate sacks next fall.

"I think the name of the the game is getting as many athletes out there as you can get," Eldridge said. "And I think that we have done that. I think we have a lot of talented, young athletes out there on defense ,and that's something we are really excited about having."

The Lights are finishing up spring practice this week and will hold their annual spring game this Saturday on the practice field on the MSU-N campus.