BOZEMAN -- There was a lot of movement in the offseason in the Montana State football coaches' rooms. A handful of staffers left after last year for new homes and head coach Jeff Choate said he wanted to fill those gaps with former Bobcats. He did just that with Bobby Daly.
Daly joined the team in early January as an assistant head coach that is in charge of leading the linebackers. The former Helena Capital Bruin was an all-American linebacker himself for Montana State in the mid-2000s. He comes from a long line of Bobcats: His father J. played for MSU in the 1970s and his younger brother Brad won the 2013 Buck Buchanan Award for the top defensive player in the FCS. For Bobby, who spent the past six seasons on the staff at the University of Idaho, it feels so good to be back on home soil.
"I was one of them last time I was out here, but coming back has been a great experience thus far and I'm just trying to build on it as I go," said Daly. "There are a lot of valuable lessons I've learned as a player here that I'm doing my best to just communicate those to my guys. Hopefully they can learn from my mistakes and become better players and better people, really."
There is one thing Daly missed about being a player for the Bobcats: the feeling that the state of Montana is behind you, rooting for your success.
"The support in the full state, it's not just here in Bozeman. I can go to Billings and people are talking about Bobcat football. Helena, Great Falls, Missoula, Kalispell, people are talking about Bobcat football," said Daly. "It's trending, if you will. It's a hot topic here in the state and I'm just happy to be a part of it again."
