Hillard out for season
A dream of the entire Flathead Valley - and perhaps all of Griz Nation - may have been shattered Monday.
University of Montana running back Lex Hilliard is out for the season.
The former Flathead star who was on track to become the Grizzlies all-time leading rusher and, potentially, the school's second Walter Payton Award winner - next to Dave Dickenson - injured his foot at practice Monday afternoon in Missoula.
School officials did not say exactly what the injury was or how it occured. All that was released was that the injury requires surgery and Hilliard will redshirt this year.
The Missoulian reported the injury is a torn Achilles' tendon, that it happened in a non-contact drill and Hilliard underwent successful surgery Tuesday.
Hilliard did not return a voice mail Tuesday evening - neither did Montana head coach Bobby Hauck nor UM running backs coach Luther Carr. Hilliard's father, Elvis, said he had no comment.
"We're very disappointed for Lex Hilliard," Hauck said in a statement released by UM. "For him to lose his senior season, especially one he has prepared so hard for, is a hard pill to swallow. It's difficult to put into words just how bad that myself, our coaches and our players feel for Lex.
"Obviously this is a tremendous loss to our football team and certainly puts a damper on our championship aspirations since we lost our best player for the season."
The Griz did have great depth at running back.
Senior Brady Green brings his toughness and quickness back and will be joined by the two I-A transfers in Reggie Bradshaw (6-foot-0, 215 pounds) and Greg Coleman (6-1, 235).
Bradshaw and Coleman are both juniors. Bradshaw played for Louisville last season; Coleman played for Iowa State.
"Bradshaw provides us with a powerful, explosive backup and Green sees the field maybe as well as any of our running backs," Hauck said.
Coleman, who joined the Griz this summer, rushed for 419 yards last season. While starting for injured RB Stevie Hicks at ISU, Coleman had three straight games of 20 or more carries. He ran for 91 yards against Baylor and 104 against Missouri. He was recruited by the University of Michigan before getting into trouble in high school. He was suspended by ISU in January after an alleged assault, but was reinstated when the charges were dropped. He chose to tranfer after he was reinstated because of the damage that had been done through the press and public perception by the time the charges were dropped.
While getting reps beside Hilliard during the first week of practice, Coleman said he and Hilliard are a lot alike - in a lot of ways.
Behind the top three running backs are redshirt freshmen Brandon Utterback from Fort Benton and Thomas Brooks-Fletcher, sophomore Andrew Schmidt from Bozeman and true freshman Chase Reynolds from Drummond.
The 6-foot, 228-pound Hilliard is ranked second in UM history with 2,884 career rushing yards. He has also rushed for 34 career touchdowns. He needs 1,182 rushing yards to surpass Yohance Humphery, who helped lead the Griz to the 2001 national championship, as UM's career rushing leader. Hilliard rushed for 1,322 yards as a junior and 972 yards as a sophomore. He also needs 15 touchdowns to break Humphery's UM career record of 48 touchdowns. Hilliard scored 17 touchdowns as a sophomore - which tied a UM single-season record - and 12 last year.