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League's top rushers return to carry the rock
Northern's Izayah Boss runs the ball against Rocky Mountain College at Lights Stadium this past spring. In the shortened spring season, Boss ran for 145 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
To say the Frontier Conference has, over the years, produced great running backs, would be putting it much too lightly. For as long as football fans can remember, some of the elite running backs in the NAIA always resided in the Frontier.
And with a full slate of fall games this season, the league should be poised to feature some great rushers once again.
The Montana State University-Northern Lights certainly want to be a great running team. It's something head coach Andrew Rolin has always believed in, and, on the Northern roster, Andrez Trahan-Proctor was heading towards being that guy. But, an injury last year will sideline Trahan-Proctor for this coming season, so the focus on the running attack will turn to sophomore Izayah Boss. In the Frontier's spring season, Boss showed flashes of brilliance, rushing for 145 yards and two touchdowns.
While Boss is an up-and-comer at Northern, Carroll College has no such issue. Junior Mathew Burgess returns for his third year with the Fighting Saints, and in the spring, he earned First-Team All-Conference and NAIA All-American honors by rushing for 671 yards in just five games. Another All-Conference running back from the spring to watch is Eastern Oregon's John Lesser, who ran for 85 yards per game and three TD's for the Mounties, while Rocky Mountain College senior Dawson Shick also earned All-Conference honors back in the spring. Shick rushed for 105 yards in four games for the Battlin' Bears.
Of course, there are also some teams that didn't play in the spring, and, that may mean some people are forgetting one name when it comes to Frontier running backs. But, fans will soon be reintroduced to Montana Tech's Blake Counts.
In 2019, the bruising running back from Kalispell rushed for 839 yards and eight touchdowns on his way to All-Conference honors as a freshman. Now, Counts will not only finally get back on the gridiorn, he'll likely be one of the best running backs in the Frontier, if not the country, for Tech head coach Kyle Samson.
Editor's Note: This is the seventh in the Havre Daily News' series of the top returning players in the Frontier Conference
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