‘Really pumped up’: Red Lodge’s Owen Reynolds inks PWO offer with Montana football

The Red Lodge standout is pretty good on the football field himself, being named a Class B all-state selection this past season as a multi-tooled weapon for a Rams team which made the semifinals. His Division I dreams were docked a little bit, however, due to two meniscus surgeries in high school, and Reynolds said he expected any D-I interest to come in the form of preferred walk-on offers because of it.

But when the offers started rolling in — and both Montana State and rival Montana wanted him — Reynolds 180’d from his MSU fandom of the past and started leaning more and more toward the Bobcats’ fiercest rival.

And as of this week, after Reynolds officially signed a PWO offer to play football at Montana next fall, his full transformation into a Grizzly is now complete.

Reynolds was one of 16 players (eight of them Montanans) to officially be announced Wednesday as Griz signees on the first day of the early signing period, picking UM over the Cats and a host of other offers.

Ready to prove himself at the D-I level soon, Reynolds — whose coach at Red Lodge, John Fitzgerald, was a former Griz tight end — believes that he made the right choice.

“Obviously, you’d like to have a scholarship, but getting to prove yourself as a walk-on seems like a really great opportunity, and kind of to prove to yourself, as well, what you can do,” Reynolds said to The Billings Gazette and 406mtsports.com Wednesday evening. “So that’s kind of how I think about it.

“My family was never against it, they wanted me to go wherever I wanted to go, so it’s not like I was pushed to go to the Cats at all. The Griz, they kind of reached out a lot more than the Cats did throughout the season. … It just seems amazing down there. The games, the fans, the stadium, the facilities, resources, all of that. It seems really cool.”

Beside the Cats and Griz, Reynolds said he held offers from all of the football-playing NAIA schools in Montana plus Dickinson State (North Dakota), expressing a desire to stay in-state to other schools. Named a first team all-Eastern B offensive athlete and defensive back as well as a second team all-conference kicker with the Rams in 2023, Reynolds will play safety in Missoula.

Building up plenty of good film to show off on social media this past season as he stayed healthy and Red Lodge rolled unbeaten through its first 10 games of the year, Reynolds finally got an opportunity to shine and took it.

As for where he’s taking his talents next, he’s ready to be a full-blooded Griz and show what he can do to the UM faithful — even if his past allegiance says otherwise.

“I’ve always liked Missoula,” Reynolds said. “I mean, I grew up as a Cats fan, but just the winning tradition, the people, the city, it seems like a great place. … I’m really pumped up.”