Bobcats’ Murray to Miss 2018 Season
By Danny Waldo
The opening kickoff of the 2018 college football season is still over a month away, but the Montana State Bobcats have already suffered their first loss, as Chris Murray will miss the 2018 season due to academic issues the University announced recently.
“Chris is obviously an important part of this team,” Choate said, “but everyone that enters this program and this University knows that academics are the top priority. This will be a year for Chris to get his priorities in order and raise his academic work to the standard that MSU and this football program demand.”
Murray, the two-year starter for coach Jeff Choate was named the Big Sky Conference Freshman of the Year in 2016 after making his presence known midway through the season, gaining 1,638 yards of total offense, the third-most in school history by a freshman. He was named as a HERO Sports FCS second-team All-American coming into the 2018 campaign.
“Let me be clear: Obviously, he’s our starting quarterback. This is a big loss,” Choate added. “It’s not like we ignored him. We did everything we could to support him and make sure that he was in a position to succeed academically. … He’d be the first one to say, ‘You know what, this one’s on me. And I’ve got to accept responsibility for it.’”
Murray has not participated in player run practices or seven-on-seven drills recently, and he addressed his teammates regarding his situation back in June, but his fate wasn’t determined until just recently. However, it appears that this was a situation that Choate and his staff have been anticipating for some time as they added two more quarterbacks to the roster in this year’s recruiting class, including former Oregon Duck Travis Jonsen.
“You can see if you read between the lines, we kind of saw this coming,” Choate said. “We added another arm, we’ve planned in the best way that we could to be able to address this. I think there will be really good competition at the quarterback position.”
Choate indicated that there will be an open quarterback competition when the team opens practice for the 2018 season on August 3rd. “We’re going to have a situation where we can have a true quarterback competition,” Choate said. “And I think that’s going to be healthy for our team. Whoever the young man is that ends up winning that job I think is going to be embraced by the team and be ready to lead us.”
Danny Waldo is a local freelance writer covering Montana State Bobcat and Bozeman Hawk athletics.
