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Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright runs drills with quarterback Jordan Reed during fall football camp on Aug. 5 at Bobcat Stadium.
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright chats with head coach Brent Vigen, right, during fall football camp on Aug. 5 at Bobcat Stadium.
Montana State quarterback Sean Austin throws a pass as offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright watches during fall camp Monday, Aug. 22 at Bobcat Stadium.
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright speaks at a press conference on Aug. 5, 2021, at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.
Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott runs through a drill with offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright during fall camp on Aug. 22 at Bobcat Stadium in Bozeman.
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright talks to reporters during a press conference at the Bobcat Athletic Center on March 22.
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright runs drills with quarterback Jordan Reed during fall football camp on Aug. 5 at Bobcat Stadium.
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright talks to reporters during a press conference at the Bobcat Athletic Center on March 22.
BOZEMAN — Joe Moorhead felt like a proud father as he watched Tommy Mellott complete a pass to Lance McCutcheon.
Mellott and McCutcheon were playing for Montana State in the Football Championship Subdivision title game on Jan. 8 against North Dakota State. Moorhead, who became Akron’s head coach a month earlier, was watching mainly because MSU offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright previously coached under Moorhead.
On the first play of the FCS title game, McCutcheon lined up behind Mellott in a pistol formation. McCutcheon, now a wide receiver with the Los Angeles Rams, then motioned out to the left slot, leaving an empty backfield. Mellott took the shotgun snap and ran a few steps up the middle.
“He’s going to run the ball,” ESPN’s play-by-play voice Dave Fleming said on the telecast.
Fleming wasn’t the only one who got fooled. NDSU’s linebackers sprinted toward Mellott, leaving McCutcheon wide open down the middle. Mellott fired the ball to him for an 18-yard gain.
Moorhead calls that play “nail pipe,” or “screw pipe” when it’s run to the right side. It has produced many big plays during his 25-year coaching career.
“House just dressed it up with a different formation and got them in an unbalanced check,” Moorhead told 406mtsports.com last week. “That was a pretty sweet play.”
Housewright, 33, said the majority of MSU’s offense comes from Moorhead, and it resulted in many moments like that pipe play during Housewright’s first year as an OC. But those moments were surrounded by subpar offensive performances, for which Housewright takes much of the blame.
Housewright is using those bumps as learning opportunities and motivation heading into his second season with the Bobcats, who open 2022 play at home Saturday against McNeese State.
“If we struggle I don't care what necessarily, what you guys say,” Housewright said to reporters on Aug. 5. “It’s about (the players). I want them to succeed, and that's what hurts most when you go into a game and you don't score or I emotionally don't do something that I should have. … (There’s) motivation, yes, but motivation for them.”
After practices this fall, Housewright threw on some boxing gloves and sparred with a punching bag in the Bobcat Athletic Complex weight room. While football was his main focus growing up in Ashland, Ohio, he also boxed.
“I always felt it was great for quarterbacks because it's very similar with the footwork and the conditioning and endurance with the upper body,” Housewright told 406mtsports.com on Aug. 22. “And then, obviously, you’ve got to be able to think while you're doing it.”
Housewright started at QB for three seasons at Ashland University and earned a first-team Division II All-America honor in 2012, when he completed 67.2% of his passes for 3,071 yards, 32 touchdowns and four interceptions and led the Eagles to an 11-1 season.
Housewright then became a graduate assistant at Miami (Ohio) in 2013 and ‘14 and coached receivers at Wittenberg in 2015. He returned to Ashland the next year and coached wideouts, then coached defensive backs there in 2017 and became an offensive graduate assistant at Wyoming in 2018.
Moorhead met Housewright a decade earlier, when he was the OC at Akron and Housewright was in high school looking for college offers.
“We still joke around to this day that I didn't offer him the scholarship that he wanted,” Moorhead said with a laugh.
Montana State quarterback Sean Austin throws a pass as offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright watches during fall camp Monday, Aug. 22 at Bobcat Stadium.
But Moorhead didn’t remember Housewright when he saw Housewright’s name come across his desk in 2019. Mississippi State hired Housewright’s now-wife Geri the previous year to be its coordinator of soccer operations, and Housewright moved with her to Starkville.
Housewright reached out to the Mississippi State football program prior to the 2019 season, expressing interest in joining the coaching staff, and he reunited with Moorhead, who was beginning his second season as the Bulldogs’ head coach. Housewright impressed Moorhead so much, he was hired as an offensive quality control coach.
Housewright complement his boxing-inspired competitive fire with an “excellent football mind,” Moorehead said.
“Creativity, inquisitiveness, the ability to connect with his players, putting together a game plan that allows his kids to be successful based on their abilities,” Moorhead added. “Playing the position of quarterback allows you to see the games through a broad lens, and I think that's one of the benefits of him doing that as a college player.”
Mississippi State fired Moorhead after the 2019 season but he was hired by Oregon in 2020 to be the Ducks’ OC. Housewright joined Moorhead in Eugene as an offensive analyst.
“I specifically brought him to Oregon with me, and that's when we really started working together on a daily basis and gave him more responsibility and valued his input,” Moorhead said, adding, “Seeing how much he bought into our system, how much he understood it, how much he was able to convey his thoughts in a very clear and concise manner, how well he got along with the kids in a relationship-driven business, that was one of the most impressive things.”
The Ducks went 4-3 in the COVID-shortened 2020 season but finished 12th in the FBS in yards per play. Upping that average was a 32-yard touchdown pass from Tyler Shough to Travis Dye in a win over UCLA. The play Moorhead called on that TD was “screw pipe.”
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright speaks at a press conference on Aug. 5, 2021, at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.
Housewright was hired to be MSU’s OC and QBs coach under first-year head coach Brent Vigen in February 2021. Vigen was Wyoming’s OC before coming to Bozeman, so he worked with Housewright in 2018.
Even though Housewright had never served as an OC or even as a Division I position coach, hiring him was “a no-brainer,” Vigen said in February 2021. Housewright had earned Vigen’s trust because he’s “very sharp, has a good sense for offense and defense,” and worked under Moorhead, Vigen added.
“We see offense being played in a similar fashion — being balanced but spreading the ball to a lot of playmakers, really being able to utilize the quarterback in different ways depending on his skill set, but still being grounded in the run game,” Vigen said at the time.
That balance and run focus were on display in MSU’s first six games last fall, five of which were wins. But fans and media began to question the offense after a 13-7 win at Weber State on Oct. 15. The Cats tallied 222 total yards, including just 76 passing. QB Matthew McKay handed the ball off to Isaiah Ifanse on a read-option play for few, if any, yards up the middle on seemingly every snap during the second half.
Housewright said he trusted McKay “wholeheartedly” after that game, but that trust clearly eroded as McKay struggled the rest of the regular season. Mellott replaced McKay and shined in a 20-13 win over Idaho. A week later, McKay completed less than half of his passes for 108 yards in a 29-10 loss at rival Montana.
McKay entered the transfer portal less than two weeks later, after he had been demoted to backup.
Housewright has taken responsibility for the offensive struggles and hasn’t blamed McKay publicly. It’s impossible to measure exactly how much each person contributed to the issues. One thing is clear: the offense improved once Mellott became the starter.
Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott runs through a drill with offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright during fall camp on Aug. 22 at Bobcat Stadium in Bozeman.
The now-sophomore from Butte was an electric and willing ball carrier who punished defenses if they focused too much on the run, as he showed on the "nail pipe" play. The 38-10 FCS title loss to NDSU might’ve gone differently if Mellott didn’t get hurt on the opening drive.
“You have a guy like that in the heat of the moment when things are going wrong, you're just going to do what you're supposed to do: make the right decision, know what the right from wrong is,” Housewright said Aug. 5. “Maybe because that's what we've taught him.”
One of the many things Housewright learned from Moorhead was to not take the job home with him. But the stress of last season often prevented him from being as good of a husband as he wanted to be. His relationships with players suffered too.
This year, Housewright is striving “to do a better job with my wife” and try to make things more fun for his players, he said in March.
“You get to a point where you want to be miserable all the time, but you're still dealing with kids,” Housewright added. “Football is very important, don't get me wrong, but life's important too.”
Vigen was the OC at Wyoming for seven years and at NDSU the five seasons before that, so he can relate to Housewright. Vigen “intervenes when he needs to,” Housewright said, but has empowered his OC during their MSU tenures. Housewright is often struck by how much Vigen listens to a guy who just started his coordinating career.
“Your first time through as a coordinator is a learning experience, and then it needs to continue to be a learning experience,” Vigen said Monday, adding that Housewright “did a good job of really evaluating the good and the maybe not so good from last year and even how he went about things. What I do appreciate about him: he is a constant learner.”
Housewright understands how the playmakers fit best in MSU’s offense, Vigen added.
“He's done a really good job from one year to the next in going about that process and then continuing to both lead a group of grown men in the coaching staff but then the younger men in that room as far as the offense goes,” Vigen said, adding, “We anticipate that we're going to have an explosive offense this year.”
Montana State offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright chats with head coach Brent Vigen, right, during fall football camp on Aug. 5 at Bobcat Stadium.
Housewright wants his Moorhead-inspired offense to get his playmakers in space, one on one with defenders. Housewright has blended a run-pass option attack with a large dose of downhill running plays mainly because of Ifanse, an All-American who thrives rushing between the tackles. That run-first, read-heavy approach opens up space downfield for MSU’s receivers.
“Ultimately, we're trying to use the field — all 100 yards and 53 ⅓ — as much as we can every game,” Housewright said.
Mellott praised Housewright’s creativity. He’s shown Mellott the many ways a QB can read defensive players and manipulate defenses: through screens, inside zones, etc. Housewright’s boxing background has come through too.
“He's a competitor,” Mellott said Aug. 4. “Super energetic. He pushes people and he says it how it is. He gets you ready for those Saturdays where there's everyone behind you or no one behind you. He makes you much more resilient for sure, but he's super supportive.”
Housewright is focused on this season and said he loves Montana, so a lengthy stay in Bozeman is certainly possible. But coordinators as young, talented, ambitious and well-connected as him rarely stay in one place for long.
“He has all the tools and abilities to be a very successful FBS coordinator,” Moorhead said. “One day, that guy's going to run his own program as a head coach.”
Email Victor Flores at victor.flores@406mtsports.com and follow him on Twitter at @VictorFlores406
Tommy Mellott tops the QB depth chart for the first time during the regular season.
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