CHOTEAU — This past Saturday will go down as one that Choteau's Dax Yeager will never forget.
The junior announced his verbal commitment to the Montana State football program.
"I've been a Bobcat fan for the longest time now, so it's kind of been a dream come true to be a Bobcat," Yeager said at Choteau High School during track and field practice on Thursday. "Coach (Brent) Vigen, all of his staff have made me feel super welcomed, so it's just progressed and progressed, and then junior day last Saturday was the day I decided I wanted to be a Bobcat."
Yeager is the first Montana commit in the 2027 recruiting class for Brent Vigen and the Cats. He said since making the announcement he has received an outpouring of celebratory messages.
"It's been awesome," Yeager said. "Going through the community and everyone telling me congratulations, and especially like my family and my friends, them being super proud, it just makes me feel so good."
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Yeager said it's always been his goal to play football in college.
"But once I got to like my freshman, sophomore year of high school, I figured I wanted to take that next step and play (Division I)," Yeager said. "So I decided to work extra hard and now I'm here."
He added that it was a long road to get to where he is.
"I've spent a lot of like late nights lifting, coming out (to the field) with (the) quarterback, running routes," Yeager said. "Just a lot of work going in. It feels great that it's finally paid off."
Yeager will play defensive line at MSU, something he said may be an adjustment.
"Throughout my high school career, I've been mainly utilized on offense," Yeager said. "But this year — for my senior year — I'm going to focus on defense so I can get that jump start going into my college career so I can hopefully get playing earlier."
On the topic of adjustments, Yeager will go from playing 8-Man with Choteau to, of course, regulation 11-man with the Cats. He said he's already been in touch with MSU players who took similar paths.
"They said it's like definitely an adjustment, for sure," Yeager said. "But the main part is just like learning the playbook because like all the concepts from like 6-Man and 8-Man and 11-man, they have some similarities, but for a lot of the time they're a little different. So it's just mainly learning the playbook I've heard. So I'll have to get used to that, but I'm looking forward to it."
On one of his recruiting trips, Yeager got to do a shoot while holding the recent FCS national championship trophy.
"It was pretty awesome, but hopefully I'll be doing that here on the team in a few years, holding one that I won," Yeager said.
And if he could go back in time and see the reaction of his younger self finding out he'd be a Montana State Bobcat someday:
"Little Dax would be screaming excitement, he'd be so happy," Yeager said.
