406MTSports recently profiled Havre High School head football coach Jake Eldridge. The article came out with his beginnings in Helena, attending Capital High School and becoming a 1999 state champion and all-state player as a punt returner and defensive back.
Eldirdge talked about how his coaching days came to be, going from Montana State to Montana State University-Northern as a player before transitioning to running backs coach under his former coach Mark Samson, which led to a promotion to defensive coordinator for seven straight seasons.
Following a musical chairs of coaching moves, Eldridge was replaced at his position and would have to look for work elsewhere, which he said to 406MTSports was the lowest point in his coaching life.
“When I was let go from (Northern) after being there for 10 years, it felt like my world was crashing down,” Eldridge said. “I didn’t really know what I was going to do. That’s a scary situation to be in as a coach at the college level and you’re trying to provide for your family and all of a sudden, you have to find something else to do.”
After moving to Box Elder for a substitute teaching position thanks to his wife, an opening for the school’s head football coach became available and he was immediately hired. He stayed on for few seasons before moving back up to north Hill County and taking a defensive coordinator position with the Blue Ponies in 2021. When the school parted ways with head coach Ryan Gatch, it was Eldridge who assumed the head coaching duties the very next year, where his team was (6-4) and clinched a playoff berth.
“We knew we were going to be young and we knew we’d take our licks,” Eldridge said of his 2023 campaign, which ended with a (7-4) record and a trip to the state playoff semifinals. “We got beat up a couple of times by some pretty good teams but we learned and developed and we were playing our best football the last 3-4 weeks of the season. That’s what you want as a coach.”
Eldridge will begin his third year at the helm and will first deal with fall sports practices, which kicked off this past Friday.
