New Northern coaching staff brings plenty of experience

Under new head coach Jerome Souers, the Montana State University-Northern football team will be looking to turn things around as a program. But if Souers and the Lights are going to become a winning program, they will need the help of the rest of the coaching staff that Souers has assembled.

Steve Broussard will take over as offensive coordinator as he will try to bring life to the MSU-N offense. Broussard has been involved at multiple levels of football, including a playing career in the NFL as a running back for the Atlanta Falcons, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Seattle Seahawks from 1990-1998.

After finishing his playing career, Broussard has coached at multiple high schools and colleges. At the collegiate level, Broussard has served as either a running backs coach, a wide receivers coach or a special teams coach at Portland State, Washington State, Arizona State, UCLA and SMU. Over the past five years, Broussard has served as the head coach at Fort Vancouver High School, St. Monica High School and St. Bernard High School.

Timothy Davis, the new offensive run game coordinator for the Lights, also has a lengthy resume. From 1983 to 1987, he served as a graduate assistant at Wisconsin and Arizona. Then from 1988 to 2004, he served as the offensive line coach at Walla Walla, Idaho State, Utah, Wisconsin and USC. During his three seasons at USC, the Trojans won a pair of national title games.

Davis then served as an assistant offensive line coach for the Miami Dolphins from 2005 to 2007. Davis then returned to college ball where he has served as an offensive line coach at Minnesota, Utah, Florida, SMU, Northern Arizona and most recently at Southern Oregon University.

Joe O'Brien will serve as the Lights' associate head football coach and defensive coordinator. In college, O'Brien played defensive line at Santa Clara University and then Boise State University. He then played three years in the NFL, the Arena Football League and the World League of American Football. As a coach, he has served as an assistant football coach at Boise State, Northern Arizona University and Montana State University.

Brian Smith has been hired as the Lights' special teams coordinator/linebackers coach. Before coming to MSU-N, Smith worked as a scout for ten years in Canadian football. He also served as an assistant coach at colleges such as Fresno State and Washington.

Ted Rivera will serve as the assistant defensive line coach for the Lights. Previous work as an assistant coach includes time at Santa Clara University and UC Berkeley, the latter of which he worked under future NFL head coach Steve Mariucci. Ryan Gatch will also serve as an offensive assistant for the Lights after serving as the head coach of the Havre High football team for the past few seasons.

With this coaching staff, the Lights will be led by coaches with experience across many levels of football. The Lights will need to learn from that experience as they try to start competing in the Frontier Conference this fall.