MSU’s Choate: Andersen will redshirt

Montana State football coach Jeff Choate on Wednesday announced that all-purpose player Troy Andersen will redshirt the 2020 season after having surgery in May.

Andersen, who was all-Big Sky Conference at linebacker last fall, was due to have surgery in March for a “lower-extremity injury.”

“He might have missed some preseason stuff,” Choate said in a ZOOM meeting with the media Wednesday, which was reported by among others montanasports.com. “That surgery, because of COVID-19, didn’t occur until two and a half weeks ago, and talking to the doctors it sounds like we get him back at all, it will be in the playoffs.”

Andersen, a senior-to-be out of Dillon, missed the last four games of 2019 after suffering the injury against UC Da mid-November. He missed the Cat-Griz game and all of the playoffs.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle noted that Andersen had originally hoped the injury would heal in the offseason but had a setback during winter conditioning. He then scheduled surgery for MSU’s spring break only to have it delayed.

Andersen was the Big Sky’s freshman of the year in 2017 while playing running back, and scored a school-record 21 touchdowns while playing quarterback in 2018. He had 6.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles-for-loss last fall while the Cats went 11-4.

“He’s as talented of a football player that I have ever coached,” Choate said.

Under NCAA rules players can keep a redshirt season if they play four games or less during a season, so it’s conceivable Andersen might play toward the end of 2020 and keep a year of eligibility for 2021.