Chad Montgomery had a lot of fond memories playing football for the tradition-rich Bellevue Tigers.
The 40-year-old 2001 Bellevue graduate helped the Tigers to a 23-3 record under head coach Charlie Coleman and two appearances in Class A region championship games in 1999 and 2000. Montgomery lettered all four years and earned All-Conference honors as a sophomore, junior and senior. The 1999 team finished undefeated in the regular season winning the Region 3, District 5 championship before losing to Beechwood in the region championship. Montgomery called Bellevue his dream job.
“Bellevue football at one time was a premier program in Class A. That was one of the things they were excited about just trying to get all the alumni and support behind us. That was the reason for bringing me on,” Montgomery said. “I live and breath Bellevue football. I just really enjoyed my time there and it was something I always wanted. I’m going to pour my heart and soul into it. I get goosebumps just sitting there thinking about what I’m going to say to the kids. I’m just going to talk to them about how the stands were full and the track was 10 people deep. I’m excited it’s fallen into my lap. It’s time.”
The Tigers have two 1A state championships in 1977 and ’79 with state runner-up finishes in ’76, ’80, ’81 and ’90. But the Tigers have struggled lately going 1-27 the last three seasons including an 0-9 mark last year. Their last win came at their home Gilligan Stadium on Sept. 17, 2021, 36-6 over Gallatin County.
“At a small school, it does go in cycles. It’s been down the past couple years,” said Jim Hicks, Bellevue Athletic Director. “But we do feel it’s starting to trend upward. With Coach Montgomery being a Bellevue grad bringing in some fresh ideas coupled with that rich tradition that he was a part of, it’s really going to be a good scenario for us.”
Bellevue made the second round of the Class 1A playoffs every year from 2009-14. The Tigers last made the third round of the playoffs in 2009.
The Tigers have not had a winning season since posting 7-5 records four straight years between 2011-14. The ’14 season is also the last time the Tigers have won a playoff game.
The Tigers had to cancel the rest of the 2022 season after a 46-0 home loss to Dayton on Oct. 7. Bellevue started the season with 19 players. But the Tigers found themselves down to 15 because of injuries.
Montgomery ran into that situation in his final season at Dayton in 2018. The Greendevils had to forfeit two games and did not partake in the playoffs that season.
Montgomery served as head coach at Dayton for eight seasons. The Greendevils finished 13-74 during that time, losing in the first round of the Class A playoffs those first seven years.
“I enjoyed my time there. We had a lot of good kids. We did a lot of good things there,” Montgomery said. “The win-loss record didn’t always reflect that. They’re all appreciative of that. They all stay in touch with me and they’re all great young men because of the things we were able to instill in our program down there.”
Montgomery has not coached the last three years after serving as an assistant in 2019 under Randy Borchers at Cooper.
Montgomery said Hicks had a meeting with the returning players. He said Hicks told him 30 kids are showing interest. Bellevue High has about 85-90 boys total in the four grades.
“Before I took it, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t just going to be 15 kids going out,” Montgomery said. “Obviously, that would have been hard to take that on. I’m going to try to get into the school building in the next couple days and see if I can get in there, talk to kids and see where everyone is at. If I can get 30 of them, that’s a pretty decent number.”
Montgomery said he and his staff tried to teaching the right way to tackle keeping their heads to the side of people. He’s aware more precautions need to be taken.
Like any new coach, Montgomery said the schemes will be based off personnel. But he’d like to implement the Shotgun Power Spread offense. During his playing days, Bellevue ran the three-back, Power-I offense that features double tight ends trying to run over opponents. Montgomery learned ways to outflank opponents at Cooper.
“I’m a big fan of being as balanced as we can. I would love to run the ball 60 percent of the time and throw it 40,” Montgomery said. “Obviously, if we can run it more, it would be like 70-30. I like the ability to take the ball and put it in the quarterback’s hands to make it an 11th man you have to defend on the field. When you’re under center, sometimes you don’t have to account for the quarterback all the time.”
Then defensively, he plans to implement the 3-3 Stack formation with new defensive coordinator Dustin Trimnell, who served as an assistant at Newport Central Catholic last year, and Coleman will be an advisor. He likes five-man fronts, but admitted that is hard to do with so many teams running spread offenses these days.
“If we have a bunch of smaller kids, we’ll have to flood the field with more linebackers and defensive backs,” Montgomery said. “If we get a bunch of big kids, we can obviously put more people up front.”
Montgomery will be the third head coach in three seasons for the Tigers after last year’s head coach Dave Brausch stepped down a few weeks ago. Inconsistent line play on both sides of the ball has contributed to Bellevue’s lack of success in recent years.
Opponents outscored Bellevue, 348-26 this year. The Bellevue offense rushed for 326 yards and passed for 359 for averages of 46.6 and 51.3 yards per game. Then defensively, teams ran for 1,737 yards and passed for 562 for averages of just more than 248 rushing and 80 rushing. Freshman quarterback Tristan Woodyard often had a few defenders near him after snaps in the loss to Dayton.
“We have to beef up on our offensive line,” Montgomery said. “We have to get kids who will get after it and body up on somebody, teach them fundamentals, technique and do the best we can. If we need to get under center and do a little misdirection, that’s what we’ll have to do to slow people down. We’ll have to be disciplined. We’ll have to be creative with what we do.”
Montgomery has been in education for 16 years. He is currently involved in Behavior Intervention at RA Jones Middle School in Florence.
Bellevue graduates eight seniors from last year’s team including center/defensive end James Long. The Tigers are in virtually the same district as last year’s Class A, District 4. Dayton and NewCath will also be with them in Class A, District 3. Newport joins those three taking Ludlow’s place after moving down from Class 2A.