Indiana's Courtney Messingham to be Montana State offensive coordinator
Indiana quality control assistant Courtney Messingham will be Montana State’s new offensive coordinator, according to a source.
It’s a return to the role of offensive coordinator for Messingham, who served in that role at Iowa State from 2012–13. He brings a wealth of experience from 25 years of coaching.
After playing quarterback and defensive back at Northern Iowa, Messingham served as the offensive coordinator at St. Ambrose University in Iowa from 1991–92 and at Iowa Lakes Community College from ’93–95. He then worked at Truman State from ’95–99, including serving as offensive coordinator for the last two years.
Messingham moved to Missouri State in 1999, coaching wide receivers for a season before taking on offensive coordinator duties for the next three years. He became the head coach at Upper Iowa in 2003 and stayed for two years before becoming the receivers coach at Southern Miss from ’05–06 and running backs coach and recruiting coordinator in ’07.
Messingham returned to Missouri State in 2008 as the special teams coordinator and receivers coach before he joined Paul Rhoads’s staff at Iowa State in ’09. Messingham coached tight ends for two years before moving to receivers coach in ’11 and taking over as offensive coordinator in ’12.
He now joins the staff of new Montana State head coach Jeff Choate, who was hired earlier this month. Choate came to the Bobcats from Washington, where he served as the Huskies’ defensive line coach and special teams coordinator for the past two seasons. He coached All-America honorees Danny Shelton and Hau’oli Kikaha last year and rebuilt Washington’s defensive line to help the Huskies lead the Pac-12 in total defense (349.9 yards allowed per game) and scoring defense (17.8 points allowed per game) this season.
Choate replaces Rob Ash as Montana State’s head coach. The Bobcats went 5–6 under Ash this season, his ninth with the program. That was Montana State’s first losing season since 2001.
