Sean Opland is living proof that hard work and dedication will be rewarded. The senior at Troy High School recently verbally committed to play football at Montana State University.

“It’s always been my dream to play college football,” Opland said. It’s huge for me. I’ve put in a lot of work to get to this point. Brendan Miller, my coach and friend helped get me in the weight room my eighth grade and freshman year. I gained 17 pounds of muscle in three months. He helped me expose my talents my sophomore and junior year as well.”

Opland verbally committed to play at Montana State, but he will officially sign his letter of intent in February on National Signing Day.

Opland said he liked the environment at Montana State.

“I went to five different camps this year,” he said. “All of them were cool and the coaches were all nice. But, there was something about Montana State. The staff is awesome. The field is great. The players were all nice when I was down at the MSU camp. I like the whole program. I also know they have a really good engineering program. The Fish and Wildlife program is good too. Those are my top two programs that I’m thinking of right now. But, there could be something else that comes up.”

Last year for the Trojans Opland played running back and linebacker. In his final season with the Trojans he will be playing quarterback and linebacker.

“I will be playing quarterback this year,” he said. “We don’t have a quarterback this year, so I stepped up and will be playing quarterback this year. I will still be playing linebacker on defense.”

Opland said he is unsure of what position he’ll be playing at MSU.

“I don’t really know what position they will have be playing there,” he said. “I never really got what they were going to have me play when I was at their camp. Head coach, Rob Ash, didn’t mention it to me. He just said that they’d be happy to have me on the team.”

Opland said he picked Montana State because he felt like he fit into the program.

“There were other schools that were interested,” he said. “I felt like I fit in at Montana State. I really like the facilities and the people down at MSU.”