after years as an assistant college football coach at Northern Arizona and Sacramento State Andy Thompson got his first crack as a head coach with sack State last season and to say the learning curve was steep would be an understatement a lot more people to serve and try to help it's something I'm very passionate about I love my job a lot but it's definitely a lot and so you got to be great with your time management and I've learned some things the hard way on where I need to put my focus and this year I'm feeling more comfortable um with that and I'm hoping to be a better head coach for all the players and all the assistant coaches Thompson has been at sack State since 2019 and has seen the Hornets program go from new kid on the Block in finding success to becoming a perennial contender in the Big Sky Conference under former coach Troy Taylor and with Thompson on staff the Hornets won three regular season Conference titles in 2019 2021 and 2022 while cracking into the playoffs for the first time and yearly ever since that includes last year when the team went 8 and5 overall and won a crucial playoff game on the road at North Dakota you know I think there's a lot of improvement you know we did some really good things and I'm proud of of the group that we had last year but we want to be more consistent we want to attack that conference Championship and obviously want to compete and we'd love to to make a run in the playoffs Thompson played for the Montana Grizzlies in the late '90s and early 2000s and was a member of um's 2001 Championship Squad s this past year included a visit to Missoula as head coach for the first time as the enemy as opposed to what he saw as a player I've been back quite a few times uh it was a little different as the head coach for sure in the fact that you got to manage even more things Washington Grizz Stadium I don't think you can say that Stadium without saying excitement there's great energy in there always in his first year Thompson took over a program with expectations Now High every season but going from a coordinator and assistant coach to now focusing on every took some adjusting but there's one thing he brought from his playing days at Montana to his coaching career I would say competitive Spirit one thing I feel like I learned there is you have to be ready to compete every day definitely learned a ton from those men and how to carry yourself and how you need to do things and um try to do it as competitively every single day as you possibly can saak state had five players named pre-season all conference and the Hornets were picked fifth in both preseason polls so it's on to year two for Thompson as he looks to keep the program trending in the right direction and surprise some teams this coming fall and so I'm excited to to watch them and be a part of of helping them you know go out and be their very best and I think a lot of guys have been doing that consistently and I think that's a huge part of hopefully later on success reporting in Missoula Kyle Hansen MTN Sports