MISSOULA — Montana is in the midst of fall camp and gearing up for its season opener versus Butler on Sept. 2 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
With the season just around the corner all eyes are on potential breakout stars and one for the offense is wide receiver Aaron Fontes.
"I’m feeling good about myself. I feel like I'm stepping up a big part for sure," said Fontes. "And not just me; Keelan (White) and Ryan Simpson, we're all stepping up all together as a unit to just make the wide receiver room and the whole team as a unit together get better."
After recording 384 yards and two touchdowns off of 35 catches last season, Fontes has the second most yards of all returning Griz receivers, and coach Bobby Hauck is expecting him to increase those totals this year.
"Well Aaron’s a guy with great abilities, he’s got good speed. He's a fearless guy and the weight room looks to be paying off for him," said Hauck. "So we're expecting good things out of him. You know he played really well for us a year ago too. So, the idea is that he'll continue to evolve and keep rolling."
And keep rolling is exactly what Fontes and the rest of the Griz are doing in camp despite the August heat.
"We out here, 97 degrees, we banging heads so you know there's probably a little hatred out here on the field," Fontes said with a laugh. "But you know, at the end of the day it's all love because we all got one goal, just trying to get ourselves better, get the team better, try to take the season one game at a time.
As for what Fontes expects from the team heading into his junior year?
"We're going make some noise this year. I mean, you know, we ranked however we ranked, and it doesn't really matter about that. It matters how the team is going to do," said Fontes. "We know we're going to execute. We’ve got one goal and it’s to win the Big Sky and then next after that, championship."
