“A Griz through and through” – Pease brings experience, passion, to new era of offense
4/5/2023 6:34:00 PM | Football
Way back in November of 2000, the Montana Grizzlies scored six touchdowns in a 45-13 playoff rout of Eastern Illinois, who came to Missoula with a sophomore QB named Tony Romo under center.
In the stands that day was Tom Moore, a legendary high school coach in the state of Washington who won 21 league titles and four state championships with the Prosser Mustangs, who had made an early exit from the playoffs that year.
As a graduate of both Eastern Illinois and Montana with time on his hands, Tom couldn't pass up the opportunity to see his alma maters square off, so he loaded up the family and made the six-hour drive to Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
With him that day was his sixth-grade son, a name football fans around the country would come to know well in the coming decades: Kellen Moore.
Kellen would eventually grow up to play for his dad and set state records as Washington's Gatorade Player of the Year at Prosser High.
He then went on to Boise State, where he became one of the most successful college football quarterbacks ever, putting up video game-like numbers and leading the Broncos to a 50-3 record in his four years as a starter – the first player in FBS history to win that many games. He was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy and is on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
After college, he went on to play six seasons in the NFL, with two spent backing up – as luck would have it – the very same Tony Romo in Dallas.
A student of the game with football in his blood, when he retired from playing he followed in his dad's footsteps and took up coaching in 2018. One year later, he became the Cowboys' offensive coordinator and, in March, moved to Los Angeles as the new OC for the Chargers.
It's a career that's taken him to the highest of football highs as one of the most elite QBs to ever play the game and an architect of NFL offenses, but he still remembers that day inside Washington-Grizzly Stadium as a kid.
"I always loved Montana," said Moore in a call with GoGriz.com.
"I went to that playoff game, and I loved it. Montana smashed them. Jimmy Farris caught a couple touchdowns, and Drew Miller was the QB. So, I always followed the Griz from afar, and I love the program."
***
On Friday, Montana will take the field for the annual Griz Spring Game with Brent Pease calling plays as UM's offensive coordinator, a role he was promoted to in the offseason after four years coaching wide receivers.
It's a position he's held before, not only at Montana but at some of the nation's premier programs.
Pease began his coaching career at UM after playing for the Griz, becoming the first Montana quarterback ever selected in the NFL Draft, picked up by the Minnesota Vikings in the eleventh round of the 1987 draft.
After helping lead Montana to its first national title in 1995 as an assistant, he was Montana's offensive coordinator from 1996 to 1998. During that time, he helped UM reach the 1996 national title game and mentored future Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame QB Brian Ah Yat.
Since then, he's served as the OC at Kentucky, Baylor, Florida, and UTEP, with a stop at Washington as well – some of the blue bloods of the college game.
And in 2011, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Boise State, where he and the upstart Broncos were a missed field goal away from an undefeated season… with Kellen Moore at quarterback.
As he gets set to enter his 28th year coaching, Pease is back in the coordinator chair at his alma mater and is looking forward to applying the lessons he's learned along the way and, in turn, lighting up the scoreboard with a potent offensive attack.
"It feels good to be back. I care about this school a lot, I care about these kids, and I care about this program. So, I'm definitely excited to be working for Coach Hauck," said Pease.
"I think a lot has changed since then. I think I've changed a lot since then. I think I've just learned a little bit more about how to approach teaching and your connection with the kids. I've also really learned a lot about what you're trying to get out of a total offense. I've definitely been humbled along the way, and I've learned a lot. But I think that's life, that's what coaching is all about, and I look forward to it."
***
When Chris Petersen named Pease Boise State's next offensive coordinator following the departure of Bryan Harsin in 2011, the Broncos were set up for success.
As the receivers coach for five seasons, Pease knew the offense. It was a well-oiled machine that had already put up gaudy numbers and catapulted BSU as high as No. 2 in the polls and helped make them the darlings of college football as the highest-ranked non-BCS team ever.
Moore had already thrown for nearly 11,000 yards in his first three seasons, and the idea of a new coordinator who had nearly a decade's experience playing quarterback and another decade coaching the position taking over in his senior season was appealing.
"'BP' was awesome to work with. It was really cool to have another guy in the building that played quarterback for a long time," said Moore.
"I love BP as a person, too. He was awesome to me. I was fortunate we got him back from Indiana as the OC my senior year. That was absolutely spectacular. It was so much fun with him."
Spectacular is an understatement.
Moore and Pease engineered an offense that outscored its opponents 575 to 243 and, at 12-1, would have been undefeated if a field goal had not sailed wide against TCU to snap their streak of 35-straight home wins.
Moore completed a career-high 74.3 percent of his passes for 3,800 yards, and that was without the use of star receivers Titus Young and Austin Pettis. The Broncos finished the year, and Moore his college career, with a 56-24 trouncing of Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl.
For Moore, who now orchestrates offenses with some of the NFL's best QBs like Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert, it was a sign of Pease's ability to adapt to situations, always with a personal touch. A hallmark of what he believes makes a good coordinator.
"I think good coordinators put your players in the best position to succeed, and that's something he did an awesome job with," he said.
"Our senior year we didn't have Titus and Austin, so we played a little different. We played with a bit more tempo, and we played a little more of the spacing game to stretch people horizontally, where in previous years we were able to play more vertically with those guys.
"He did a really good job of recognizing where we were and being able to adjust. It was really, really good."
Pease now brings those abilities back to Montana. For him, it's a learned trait. Something that can only be measured from the sum of all his previous experiences. Stuff you can only learn in a place like the pressure cooker that is the SEC.
"Well, I learned there's a lot you don't know. I learned you've got to have really good players, and I've learned that you've got to do a good job teaching, connecting, and recruiting," said Pease.
"But I've also learned that you've got to have answers because, in the SEC, you can't just line up with a game plan and go through with it. There's constant adjustments drive to drive, first half to second half. Good coordinators at that level are always making adjustments, particularly defensive guys. So, I've come to understand that's something that always has to be part of the process."
How does that translate into a "style" of coordinator? Does it mean Montana's offense is going to crackle and flash like a backcountry campfire? There's no silver bullet.
But for him, the devil is in the details. If the details are being looked after, the teaching is being maximized, and the players have the best chance to succeed on a Saturday.
"I pride myself on the fact that I'm going to understand our scheme, how it's executed, and what people take away from it, and I'm going to understand what defenses are trying to do to us with their scheme on a week to week basis. I think that's my requirement. I think that's my responsibility. That's what I've learned along the way that it's a lot more than just running plays and expecting so-and-so to happen," Pease said.
"I'm very detailed. Probably detailed to a fault and a perfectionist in a way. I know that's maybe not reality all the time, but I think the kids understand that I care about them, and it's about a teaching process."
As one of the players that has been in the war room with Pease as they analyze defenses and build plans week-to-week, Moore remembers it was the same details and personal touch that helped him and the Broncos thrive in Boise.
"He was really good. I think he's got a really cool balance of, how would you describe it, fun and intensity. He does an awesome job, and I really loved it," said Moore.
"We played with some tempo, we played shift in motion, we did a lot of different things on offense, we were really creative with him, and I thought it was a really cool blend."
***
As Montana embarks on a new era of offensive football, the one advantage Pease has at UM over his previous stops might be passion. Passion for the place, his alma mater, and the program. His wife, Paula Good Pease, is in the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame, and his son Karsten ran track for Montana. Missoula is his adopted home.
Montana's offense will be operated by a new quarterback this season, with Sam Vidlak transferring in from Boise and Kris Brown looking to take the next step, among others competing for the starting job. They will have plenty of tools around them, however, with a corps of explosive young receivers like Aaron Fontes and Junior Bergen at their disposal and all five starters on the O-line returning.
With that combination of passion and experience, he has high expectations for this year's team.
"I laid it out to the guys like this. We want to be all about our standard. We want to cause as much confusion to the defense as possible. We want to have a great running game, and we want to have an explosive passing game. Those two feed off each other. We've got to have great quarterback play, and we've got to be really good in ball security," said Pease.
Moore has been to Montana. He knows how important football is to Griz Nation.
Even during the meteoric rise of Boise State in that era, Pease's passion for this place shone through. Now he gets to do what he loves in the place he loves with knowledge gained on the biggest stages. And for that, Griz nation should be excited for what's to come.
"Even at Boise State, BP was a Griz through and through. Every Saturday, I'd think our game at Boise State was important, but what was happening up in Montana was just as important, if not more important. He was all-in on the Griz, he was keeping everyone up to date, he was all about it," said Moore with a laugh.
"It's really cool to see him back there."
In the stands that day was Tom Moore, a legendary high school coach in the state of Washington who won 21 league titles and four state championships with the Prosser Mustangs, who had made an early exit from the playoffs that year.
As a graduate of both Eastern Illinois and Montana with time on his hands, Tom couldn't pass up the opportunity to see his alma maters square off, so he loaded up the family and made the six-hour drive to Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
With him that day was his sixth-grade son, a name football fans around the country would come to know well in the coming decades: Kellen Moore.
Kellen would eventually grow up to play for his dad and set state records as Washington's Gatorade Player of the Year at Prosser High.
He then went on to Boise State, where he became one of the most successful college football quarterbacks ever, putting up video game-like numbers and leading the Broncos to a 50-3 record in his four years as a starter – the first player in FBS history to win that many games. He was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy and is on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
After college, he went on to play six seasons in the NFL, with two spent backing up – as luck would have it – the very same Tony Romo in Dallas.
A student of the game with football in his blood, when he retired from playing he followed in his dad's footsteps and took up coaching in 2018. One year later, he became the Cowboys' offensive coordinator and, in March, moved to Los Angeles as the new OC for the Chargers.
It's a career that's taken him to the highest of football highs as one of the most elite QBs to ever play the game and an architect of NFL offenses, but he still remembers that day inside Washington-Grizzly Stadium as a kid.
"I always loved Montana," said Moore in a call with GoGriz.com.
"I went to that playoff game, and I loved it. Montana smashed them. Jimmy Farris caught a couple touchdowns, and Drew Miller was the QB. So, I always followed the Griz from afar, and I love the program."
***
On Friday, Montana will take the field for the annual Griz Spring Game with Brent Pease calling plays as UM's offensive coordinator, a role he was promoted to in the offseason after four years coaching wide receivers.
It's a position he's held before, not only at Montana but at some of the nation's premier programs.
Pease began his coaching career at UM after playing for the Griz, becoming the first Montana quarterback ever selected in the NFL Draft, picked up by the Minnesota Vikings in the eleventh round of the 1987 draft.
After helping lead Montana to its first national title in 1995 as an assistant, he was Montana's offensive coordinator from 1996 to 1998. During that time, he helped UM reach the 1996 national title game and mentored future Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame QB Brian Ah Yat.
Since then, he's served as the OC at Kentucky, Baylor, Florida, and UTEP, with a stop at Washington as well – some of the blue bloods of the college game.
And in 2011, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Boise State, where he and the upstart Broncos were a missed field goal away from an undefeated season… with Kellen Moore at quarterback.
As he gets set to enter his 28th year coaching, Pease is back in the coordinator chair at his alma mater and is looking forward to applying the lessons he's learned along the way and, in turn, lighting up the scoreboard with a potent offensive attack.
"It feels good to be back. I care about this school a lot, I care about these kids, and I care about this program. So, I'm definitely excited to be working for Coach Hauck," said Pease.
"I think a lot has changed since then. I think I've changed a lot since then. I think I've just learned a little bit more about how to approach teaching and your connection with the kids. I've also really learned a lot about what you're trying to get out of a total offense. I've definitely been humbled along the way, and I've learned a lot. But I think that's life, that's what coaching is all about, and I look forward to it."
***
When Chris Petersen named Pease Boise State's next offensive coordinator following the departure of Bryan Harsin in 2011, the Broncos were set up for success.
As the receivers coach for five seasons, Pease knew the offense. It was a well-oiled machine that had already put up gaudy numbers and catapulted BSU as high as No. 2 in the polls and helped make them the darlings of college football as the highest-ranked non-BCS team ever.
Moore had already thrown for nearly 11,000 yards in his first three seasons, and the idea of a new coordinator who had nearly a decade's experience playing quarterback and another decade coaching the position taking over in his senior season was appealing.
"'BP' was awesome to work with. It was really cool to have another guy in the building that played quarterback for a long time," said Moore.
"I love BP as a person, too. He was awesome to me. I was fortunate we got him back from Indiana as the OC my senior year. That was absolutely spectacular. It was so much fun with him."
Spectacular is an understatement.
Moore and Pease engineered an offense that outscored its opponents 575 to 243 and, at 12-1, would have been undefeated if a field goal had not sailed wide against TCU to snap their streak of 35-straight home wins.
Moore completed a career-high 74.3 percent of his passes for 3,800 yards, and that was without the use of star receivers Titus Young and Austin Pettis. The Broncos finished the year, and Moore his college career, with a 56-24 trouncing of Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl.
For Moore, who now orchestrates offenses with some of the NFL's best QBs like Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert, it was a sign of Pease's ability to adapt to situations, always with a personal touch. A hallmark of what he believes makes a good coordinator.
"I think good coordinators put your players in the best position to succeed, and that's something he did an awesome job with," he said.
"Our senior year we didn't have Titus and Austin, so we played a little different. We played with a bit more tempo, and we played a little more of the spacing game to stretch people horizontally, where in previous years we were able to play more vertically with those guys.
"He did a really good job of recognizing where we were and being able to adjust. It was really, really good."
Pease now brings those abilities back to Montana. For him, it's a learned trait. Something that can only be measured from the sum of all his previous experiences. Stuff you can only learn in a place like the pressure cooker that is the SEC.
"Well, I learned there's a lot you don't know. I learned you've got to have really good players, and I've learned that you've got to do a good job teaching, connecting, and recruiting," said Pease.
"But I've also learned that you've got to have answers because, in the SEC, you can't just line up with a game plan and go through with it. There's constant adjustments drive to drive, first half to second half. Good coordinators at that level are always making adjustments, particularly defensive guys. So, I've come to understand that's something that always has to be part of the process."
How does that translate into a "style" of coordinator? Does it mean Montana's offense is going to crackle and flash like a backcountry campfire? There's no silver bullet.
But for him, the devil is in the details. If the details are being looked after, the teaching is being maximized, and the players have the best chance to succeed on a Saturday.
"I pride myself on the fact that I'm going to understand our scheme, how it's executed, and what people take away from it, and I'm going to understand what defenses are trying to do to us with their scheme on a week to week basis. I think that's my requirement. I think that's my responsibility. That's what I've learned along the way that it's a lot more than just running plays and expecting so-and-so to happen," Pease said.
"I'm very detailed. Probably detailed to a fault and a perfectionist in a way. I know that's maybe not reality all the time, but I think the kids understand that I care about them, and it's about a teaching process."
As one of the players that has been in the war room with Pease as they analyze defenses and build plans week-to-week, Moore remembers it was the same details and personal touch that helped him and the Broncos thrive in Boise.
"He was really good. I think he's got a really cool balance of, how would you describe it, fun and intensity. He does an awesome job, and I really loved it," said Moore.
"We played with some tempo, we played shift in motion, we did a lot of different things on offense, we were really creative with him, and I thought it was a really cool blend."
***
As Montana embarks on a new era of offensive football, the one advantage Pease has at UM over his previous stops might be passion. Passion for the place, his alma mater, and the program. His wife, Paula Good Pease, is in the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame, and his son Karsten ran track for Montana. Missoula is his adopted home.
Montana's offense will be operated by a new quarterback this season, with Sam Vidlak transferring in from Boise and Kris Brown looking to take the next step, among others competing for the starting job. They will have plenty of tools around them, however, with a corps of explosive young receivers like Aaron Fontes and Junior Bergen at their disposal and all five starters on the O-line returning.
With that combination of passion and experience, he has high expectations for this year's team.
"I laid it out to the guys like this. We want to be all about our standard. We want to cause as much confusion to the defense as possible. We want to have a great running game, and we want to have an explosive passing game. Those two feed off each other. We've got to have great quarterback play, and we've got to be really good in ball security," said Pease.
Moore has been to Montana. He knows how important football is to Griz Nation.
Even during the meteoric rise of Boise State in that era, Pease's passion for this place shone through. Now he gets to do what he loves in the place he loves with knowledge gained on the biggest stages. And for that, Griz nation should be excited for what's to come.
"Even at Boise State, BP was a Griz through and through. Every Saturday, I'd think our game at Boise State was important, but what was happening up in Montana was just as important, if not more important. He was all-in on the Griz, he was keeping everyone up to date, he was all about it," said Moore with a laugh.
"It's really cool to see him back there."
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