Brent Swaggert (2017) - Hall of Fame - Montana State University Athletics

Brent Swaggert

Induction:
2017

   When spring drills began at Montana State in 2003, The team’s offensive line faced turmoil. Two returning starters would miss the spring with injuries, transfers that would help fill gaps in the fall had not yet arrived on campus, and the other five returners battled injuries throughout the spring.
   And then there was Brent Swaggert, a returning All-America left tackle who generally learned the position he was playing on a given day after arriving at practice. Moving from tackle to guard, from side to side, Swaggert was the baling wire and duct tape that allowed Bobcat coach Mike Kramer and first-year offensive line assistant to get through the spring with a functioning offensive line.
   “He was our rock,” Kramer said simply, and that statement looks even more starkly true now than it did at the time. By the time his senior season was behind him Swaggert had started a school-record 48 consecutive games (a distinction he shared with teammate Jon Montoya), earned First Team All-Big Sky honors twice, and become the first Bobcat offensive lineman in the two-platoon era to earn All-America honors three times.
   Swaggert’s more important work, though, was what he accomplished with his teammates. Part of Cliff Hysell’s final recruiting class, Montana State’s 1999 high school signees formed one of the greatest classes in Bobcat history. That group, which included Swaggert and another of tonight’s inductees, Corey Smith, along with many other future Bobcat stars, guided Montana State football through the 0-11 season in 2000 to a promising five-win season in 2001 to the thrilling back-to-back championships in 2002 and 2003. Swaggert and so many of his teammates stayed through the difficult times to enjoy the sweetness of ending a long losing streak and hoisting trophies.
   And through it all, Brent Swaggert was a rock.