Inside the Helmet with Newcomer Michael Montgomery
8/5/2025 10:51:00 AM | Football
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Single game tickets are now available to the general public. The Golden Eagles host seven opponents this season, including a pair of in-state foes to start the season. Season tickets are still available for as low as $99 for all seven home games. Fans are encouraged to buy now as Section E and South End Zone are approaching sellouts for Mississippi State. The To The Top Terrace, a group opportunity with food and beverage included, is sold out for the Mississippi State game and approaching a sellout for Jackson State. Visit SouthernMiss.com/Tickets to buy today.
Inside the Helmet with Newcomer Michael Montgomery
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The Southern Miss football team is almost a week into fall camp as they prepare for the season opener against Mississippi State on Aug. 30. The Golden Eagles have practiced daily since last Wednesday, except when they went to New Orleans on Sunday to take in a New Orleans Saints practice.Â
Today, we catch up with Portland State transfer Michael Montgomery. The junior linebacker comes to Hattiesburg as an FCS Football Central and Stats Perform FCS Freshman All-American during the 2023 season. In 2024, he led Portland State with 80 tackles after having 69 as a true freshman.Â
What made you choose Southern Miss?Â
Coaches -- before I even got down here, I had a super good relationship with Coach [Jason] Semore, our defensive coordinator. He recruited me back when he was at Georgia Tech, and I ended up going somewhere else out of high school. And when I entered the portal after last season, he was the first person to hit me up. He texted me telling me it's time, and I came down here the next day and signed.
What was your first impression of Hattiesburg and the football program?
It was amazing, honestly. From the viewpoint of the state as a whole, it's huge. It's just different in so many ways. The facility, the practice equipment, the passion the coaches have, everything is just so much better. And Coach [ Charles] Huff runs this program like an NFL team, so it's huge.
What was the transition like moving down here?Â
The move was long. I drove down here from Seattle, so that was a long drive. But the transition here was smooth. For the first couple of days, I stayed over at a teammate's house, and then eventually I got my own place. Moving in was nice and easy. Everything here has just been super, and everything here is just so professional. It's kind of hard to mess up here. You've got to purposely mess up to mess up. Everything here is planned and mapped out for you. You download Teamworks, and it tells you, be here, be here, be here, and be here. Then it tells you this time, this time, and this time. If you do what you're supposed to do, do it the right way all the time, it's super easy.Â
How has it been bonding with the defense?
The defense has been good. Our defense is really merging together as a brotherhood, especially during fall camp. Even the coaches, beyond the business part, which is football, we're really getting connected together as people. That's kind of just making our defense stronger overall, so that's huge. I feel like every single week or so, we all train together. The linebackers get up at 7 o'clock in the morning on the sand over there at the beach volleyball facility and work out together. We also eat dinner together and we go to church together, so it's a huge brotherhood for me in that aspect. I feel like as a linebacker unit, even trickling down to the whole defense and even touching the offensive side of the ball, that we have been bonding really well.
What's been your favorite moment of fall camp or summer workouts?
My favorite moment has just been the grind. Literally, thinking to myself, one of our standards on defense is to suffer well, and here out at practice, that's what you're doing. You're suffering. Whether it's defense, special teams, back to defense, back to 7-on-7, back to team run, back to special teams, back to team run, and then conditioning at the end. It's just a whole bunch of suffering well, and that's what you need to do to be great. Just embracing the suffering is the biggest and the best moment, and I can really feel that when I'm out on the practice field. Sometimes it gets the better of me, but that's why we work.
What's your mentality going into your first season at Southern Miss?
My mentality personally is to lead, have influence on the defense, and do my job all the time. We need to be executing and communicating well. As a linebacker, you have to communicate, and just knowing the ins and outs of the defense and offense is important. Once you know defense, the only thing left to learn is offense, and once you learn offense, it helps you from a defensive standpoint. It helps you adjust the calls and know what to get into. We double-call a lot of calls. So, if it's open, we want this, and if it's closed, we want this. So having that many double calls means our linebackers have to know what they're looking at in order for the defense to have success.
Do you have any pregame rituals or routines, or even day before the games that you do every week?
No, I don't really have anything I particularly do, but for one, it starts in practice. So the things I do for practice, I'm going to do during the game. I don't really have anything huge particularly, but whatever I do in practice, or before practice, I'm going to do during the game. I just eat whatever they serve us, as long as I eat before the game, I'm straight.
If you weren't playing football, what would your career path be, or what sport do you think you could also play instead of football?Â
My career, if I didn't play sports, I would just be school -- I would be majoring in business finance. If I didn't have football, I would be wrestling. I won state my junior and senior year of high school for wrestling. I wrestled at 220 pounds, but in college, there is no 220-pound weight class, so I would either have to lose weight or gain weight. And I'm not wrestling at 285, so I would have to lose weight. I guess something that maybe surprises people is I like to fish, and I like to play chess. I'm really good at chess -- I love chess.Â
What is your favorite football memory all time?
Probably my favorite all-time football memory is from my senior of high school. We were playing Lake Stevens, the number one team in the state at the time in 4A. It goes up to 4A where I'm from. We were a 3A school, and they won the state championship the year before. In the last drive of the game, I got an interception to seal it. I actually had two picks that game, so I had a pick to seal it, and we were ranked number one in the state after that. That is probably one of my best all-time memories for sure.
Single game tickets are now available to the general public. The Golden Eagles host seven opponents this season, including a pair of in-state foes to start the season. Season tickets are still available for as low as $99 for all seven home games. Fans are encouraged to buy now as Section E and South End Zone are approaching sellouts for Mississippi State. The To The Top Terrace, a group opportunity with food and beverage included, is sold out for the Mississippi State game and approaching a sellout for Jackson State. Visit SouthernMiss.com/Tickets to buy today.
Inside the Helmet with Newcomer Michael Montgomery
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The Southern Miss football team is almost a week into fall camp as they prepare for the season opener against Mississippi State on Aug. 30. The Golden Eagles have practiced daily since last Wednesday, except when they went to New Orleans on Sunday to take in a New Orleans Saints practice.Â
Today, we catch up with Portland State transfer Michael Montgomery. The junior linebacker comes to Hattiesburg as an FCS Football Central and Stats Perform FCS Freshman All-American during the 2023 season. In 2024, he led Portland State with 80 tackles after having 69 as a true freshman.Â
What made you choose Southern Miss?Â
Coaches -- before I even got down here, I had a super good relationship with Coach [Jason] Semore, our defensive coordinator. He recruited me back when he was at Georgia Tech, and I ended up going somewhere else out of high school. And when I entered the portal after last season, he was the first person to hit me up. He texted me telling me it's time, and I came down here the next day and signed.
What was your first impression of Hattiesburg and the football program?
It was amazing, honestly. From the viewpoint of the state as a whole, it's huge. It's just different in so many ways. The facility, the practice equipment, the passion the coaches have, everything is just so much better. And Coach [ Charles] Huff runs this program like an NFL team, so it's huge.
What was the transition like moving down here?Â
The move was long. I drove down here from Seattle, so that was a long drive. But the transition here was smooth. For the first couple of days, I stayed over at a teammate's house, and then eventually I got my own place. Moving in was nice and easy. Everything here has just been super, and everything here is just so professional. It's kind of hard to mess up here. You've got to purposely mess up to mess up. Everything here is planned and mapped out for you. You download Teamworks, and it tells you, be here, be here, be here, and be here. Then it tells you this time, this time, and this time. If you do what you're supposed to do, do it the right way all the time, it's super easy.Â
How has it been bonding with the defense?
The defense has been good. Our defense is really merging together as a brotherhood, especially during fall camp. Even the coaches, beyond the business part, which is football, we're really getting connected together as people. That's kind of just making our defense stronger overall, so that's huge. I feel like every single week or so, we all train together. The linebackers get up at 7 o'clock in the morning on the sand over there at the beach volleyball facility and work out together. We also eat dinner together and we go to church together, so it's a huge brotherhood for me in that aspect. I feel like as a linebacker unit, even trickling down to the whole defense and even touching the offensive side of the ball, that we have been bonding really well.
What's been your favorite moment of fall camp or summer workouts?
My favorite moment has just been the grind. Literally, thinking to myself, one of our standards on defense is to suffer well, and here out at practice, that's what you're doing. You're suffering. Whether it's defense, special teams, back to defense, back to 7-on-7, back to team run, back to special teams, back to team run, and then conditioning at the end. It's just a whole bunch of suffering well, and that's what you need to do to be great. Just embracing the suffering is the biggest and the best moment, and I can really feel that when I'm out on the practice field. Sometimes it gets the better of me, but that's why we work.
What's your mentality going into your first season at Southern Miss?
My mentality personally is to lead, have influence on the defense, and do my job all the time. We need to be executing and communicating well. As a linebacker, you have to communicate, and just knowing the ins and outs of the defense and offense is important. Once you know defense, the only thing left to learn is offense, and once you learn offense, it helps you from a defensive standpoint. It helps you adjust the calls and know what to get into. We double-call a lot of calls. So, if it's open, we want this, and if it's closed, we want this. So having that many double calls means our linebackers have to know what they're looking at in order for the defense to have success.
Do you have any pregame rituals or routines, or even day before the games that you do every week?
No, I don't really have anything I particularly do, but for one, it starts in practice. So the things I do for practice, I'm going to do during the game. I don't really have anything huge particularly, but whatever I do in practice, or before practice, I'm going to do during the game. I just eat whatever they serve us, as long as I eat before the game, I'm straight.
If you weren't playing football, what would your career path be, or what sport do you think you could also play instead of football?Â
My career, if I didn't play sports, I would just be school -- I would be majoring in business finance. If I didn't have football, I would be wrestling. I won state my junior and senior year of high school for wrestling. I wrestled at 220 pounds, but in college, there is no 220-pound weight class, so I would either have to lose weight or gain weight. And I'm not wrestling at 285, so I would have to lose weight. I guess something that maybe surprises people is I like to fish, and I like to play chess. I'm really good at chess -- I love chess.Â
What is your favorite football memory all time?
Probably my favorite all-time football memory is from my senior of high school. We were playing Lake Stevens, the number one team in the state at the time in 4A. It goes up to 4A where I'm from. We were a 3A school, and they won the state championship the year before. In the last drive of the game, I got an interception to seal it. I actually had two picks that game, so I had a pick to seal it, and we were ranked number one in the state after that. That is probably one of my best all-time memories for sure.
Players Mentioned
LB
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