BILLINGS — As an outside linebacker wearing No. 25, Brandon Fisher helped the Montana Grizzlies reach consecutive FCS national championship games in 2008 and 2009.
Now as a coach, Fisher's goal is to slow Montana's offense in an effort to pull off what would be a big playoff upset Saturday night.
Fisher is the defensive coordinator at Tennessee State under Tigers head coach and 1995 Heisman Trophy winner/ex-NFL star Eddie George. TSU (9-3) will visit Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Saturday for a first-round postseason matchup under the lights against the 14th-seeded Griz (8-4).
Kickoff is scheduled for 8:15 p.m. and the game will be televised on ESPN2. It's the first matchup between the programs.
It will also be a homecoming for Fisher, who came to UM from Franklin, Tenn., in 2005 and played during one of the most successful eras of football in Griz history. He helped Montana reach consecutive national championship games in 2008 and 2009.
By the time he departed in '09, UM had completed a four-year stretch in which it went 51-6 overall, 31-1 in Big Sky Conference games and won four league titles. All of that, of course, came in the Bobby Hauck's first stint as head coach.
Fisher spoke to The Tennesseean about the culture he remembers at UM.
"Everything that touches that program is done with a championship mindset," Fisher was quoted. "No shortcuts are taken. Everything is done with a championship mindset. ... I've seen it up close."
Fisher was hired at Tennessee State in 2021 — and in no way is that surprising or random. Fisher has obvious Tennessee roots, and his father Jeff was head coach of the NFL's Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans franchise that drafted Eddie George out of Ohio State and made a trip to Super Bowl XXXIV in the 1999 season.
Brandon Fisher spent eight seasons as an assistant in the NFL ranks prior to serving as a defensive analyst at Auburn in 2020. He was also the defensive coordinator at Southern Utah when the Thunderbirds were in the Big Sky Conference.
But the Griz connection is what stands out this week.
"He knows us well," Hauck said of Fisher during Montana's weekly press conference on Monday. "It's rewarding to watch Brandon doing such a great job, except now we've got to try to move the ball against him."
"Brandon was a guy that was always a really smart football player, tough guy, was able to direct traffic on the defensive side of the ball," Hauck added. "He grew up around football and it's very innate to him what's going on out there."
The Tigers are co-champions of the Big South-OVC Football Association. Fisher's defense is allowing just 22.8 points per game, and ranks second in its conference in yards allowed at 334.9 per game.
TSU has the No. 1 passing defense in the league at 195.8 yards per outing.
The winner of Saturday's game will advance to face No. 3 seed South Dakota State — the two-time defending national champion — in the second round on Dec. 7 in Brookings, S.D.
Montana, a year removed from a run to the title game in Frisco, Texas, is looking to bounce back from last week's 34-11 loss in the 123rd Brawl of the Wild to rival Montana State.
"We have high hopes for success in the playoffs," Hauck said. "But in order to achieve we have to find a way to get past a very good, well-coached Tennessee State team."
And get past a former Griz cohort in the process.
