Montana
Montana State's Tommy Mellott wins the 2024 Walter Payton Award
Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott won the 2024 Walter Payton Award as the best offensive player in FCS football, beating out fellow top-three finalists Cam Miller (North Dakota State) and Targhee Lambson (Southern Utah). Mellott is the first Montana State player to win the award in its 38-year history.
PAYTON AWARD: Complete history of the top FCS offensive honor
Mellott received the Payton Award two days before playing in the 2024-25 FCS Championship game, his second appearance of his career. In 12 regular season games, the Bobcat quarterback completed 148 of 216 passes (68.5 percent) for 1,956 yards, 22 touchdowns and just one interceptions. He also ran for 640 yards and 11 touchdowns, leading Montana State to an undefeated record.
We Are All Witnesses⚡️@Tommy_Mellott #BobcatBuilt | #CATS pic.twitter.com/awenL3z6lc
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) December 15, 2024
Mellott is the 27th quarterback to win the Payton Award — the most of any position — since the award debuted in 1987. Quarterbacks have won the Payton Award in each of the last nine seasons and 20 of the last 21 seasons, with wide receiver Cooper Kupp’s 2015 win being the lone exception.
As the 2024 Walter Payton Award winner, Mellott joins an elite fraternity of FCS greats including Steve McNair (Alcorn State, 1994), Adrian Peterson (Georgia Southern, 1999), Brian Westbrook (Villanova, 2001), Tony Romo (Eastern Illinois, 2002), Cooper Kupp (Eastern Washington, 2015) and more.
UNBELIEVABLE 😱
TOMMY MELLOTT IS HIM.
📺 ABC@Tommy_Mellott | #BobcatBuilt pic.twitter.com/hUWw85AtgA
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) December 21, 2024
MORE AWARDS: Buck Buchanan Award history | Jerry Rice Award history
Top moments
See some more of Mellott’s top moments from 2024 below.
76-YARD CRIB CALL @Tommy_Mellott 🏠☎️#BobcatBuilt | #CATS pic.twitter.com/xFQwQMeSgx
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) November 2, 2024
𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗜 ⛽️@Tommy_Mellott x @tym4_ #BobcatBuilt | #CATS pic.twitter.com/0wLCBF8zvO
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) November 2, 2024
TOMMY MELLOTT MAGIC 😱@Tommy_Mellott x @Rohan_Jones2 pic.twitter.com/kmQWZuAh6V
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) November 17, 2024
ABSOLUTE DIME 🎯@Tommy_Mellott x @Rohan_Jones2 pic.twitter.com/mXNAQ6MZWV
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) November 23, 2024
50 Yard BOMB 💣@Tommy_Mellott x @tym4_ #BobcatBuilt | #CATS pic.twitter.com/GPCyCKnS5H
— Montana State Football (@MSUBobcats_FB) October 5, 2024
Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) is facing yet another lawsuit over allegations of unlicensed sampling — only this time, it’s centered on a video clip of the rapper’s infamous 2013 fight with paparazzi.
In a case filed Wednesday (July 15) in Los Angeles federal court, the celebrity news agency Bauer-Griffin claims that Ye, French Montana (Karim Kharbouch) and others used audio from the headline-grabbing incident in “Where They At,” released in 2024 off French’s Mac & Cheese 5.
The May 2013 video, which also features a pregnant Kim Kardashian, shows West charging at a photographer outside a Los Angeles restaurant and shouting “don’t take no photos” and a string of profanities: “All of you m*therf*ckers stop it, man!”
The clip appears prominently in the intro to Montana’s song — a use that the lawsuit calls “blatant and willful” copyright infringement.
“Given Mr. Ye’s history of numerous confrontations with paparazzi, the video was highly newsworthy,” the agency’s lawyers write in legal documents obtained and first reported by Billboard. “Listeners immediately recognized the audio sample that begins the infringing record as being copied from the video.”
Ye has been sued over a dozen times for allegedly using unlicensed samples and interpolations in his music, including a high-profile battle with Donna Summer. In May, he lost a jury trial over using an uncleared sample in an early version of the Grammy-winning “Hurricane” from Donda. He had testified at trial that he’s “very generous” about giving credit and compensation when it’s due, but that “a lot of people try to take advantage of me.”
In Wednesday’s complaint, Bauer-Griffin says the creators of “Where They At” showed no such respect to its rights in the video of the paparazzi incident, using it despite being well aware that sound recordings must be licensed when any amount is directly sampled into a song.
“In the music industry, copyrights are prevalent and well understood,” lawyers for the agency write. “Every defendant knew that they needed to have but did not have permission to use the audio sample.”
Reps for both stars did not immediately return requests for comment. The lawsuit also names as defendants producers Dem Jointz (Dwayne Abernathy Jr.) and BoogzDaBeast (Jahmal Gwin), as well Gamma, the label that released the song, and its distribution unit Vydia.
The confrontation at issue in Wednesday’s lawsuit was one of two high-profile scuffles with paparazzi that year for the rapper, who was then still known as Kanye West. Two months later, he clashed with photographer Daniel Ramos outside of LAX, resulting in a civil assault lawsuit that the star eventually settled two years later on the eve of trial.
As many celebrities have learned over the years, simply appearing in a photo or video does not give someone any legal rights to it. Ownership of such material is always retained by the creator — an inconvenient fact that has sparked lawsuits against Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa.
It’s unclear who filmed the May 2013 incident, which happened outside a Beverly Hills restaurant minutes after the star had also been filmed accidentally banging his head into a signpost while trying to avoid other photographers. But the rights to the footage have been owned by Bauer-Griffin from the beginning: When TMZ first posted it at the time, it came with a watermark crediting the agency.
“The infringing record has been widely distributed on various streaming platforms, in flagrant violation of plaintiff’s exclusive rights under copyright laws,” Bauer-Griffin’s attorneys write. “Plaintiff brings these claims to vindicate those rights.”
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