Blue Hawks' Hayden Hanks signs with Boise State

Combine a weight room fanatic with a massive frame and a laser-focused determination and what do you get?

In this case you get a scholarship to play football for Boise State University.

Fortunately for Sanders County high school football fans incoming senior Hayden Hanks has one year left as a Blue Hawk before he reports to the perennial power Broncos and their trademark blue field.

Hayden became Boise’s first official recruit of the 2024 football class when he recently inked a letter of intent to take the aforementioned qualities, along with a solid academic record, to the Division I Broncos.

“We (Hanks and BSU) have been in contact for awhile,” Hanks said during a break in his daily weight room session at Thompson Falls High. “They invited me to their Spring game this year and I really liked the coaches and players.”

And with that, the opportunity to play for a successful D-I program was an autograph away. The 6-3, 265 pound Hanks, who has been a force on both the defensive and offensive lines at T Falls, was recruited as a defensive lineman by the Broncos.

It is a position he loves to play.

“I’ve always liked the physicality of the line,” he said. “You fight play after play and I’ve always liked that part of the game.”

No doubt Blue Hawks football coach Jared Koskela has been a happy guy with Hanks size and dedication to learning his position and improving his skills.

“He is a perfect defensive lineman,” Koskela told an Idaho reporter in response to the signing. “He is not a defensive end who’s able to run anybody down from the inside, but he can run them down from the backside.”

As an offensive linemen for T Falls, Hanks was the anchor on the team’s line, most often dominating the inside while dictating the direction of the upcoming play just by lining up.

Hanks was a key factor as a sophomore in the Blue Hawks’ Montana Class B-8 state championship. His size and quickness created nightmares for opposing coaches. And he says he did not have much trouble switching to the 11-player game when T Falls moved up to that level last year.

“I didn’t see it as much of a change (going from 8-player to 11- player),” he said. “The basics of the position are pretty much the same and I think my ability to run helped me adjust quickly to the 11-player game."

Hanks, who will major in business during his time in Boise, said the mental aspect of the game is something he enjoys as much as the physical nature of the beast.

“A lot of playing on the line is being able to move quickly and I’ve worked hard on learning that part of the game,” he said. Combining quickness with strength, Hanks can bench press 380 pounds already, is a line coach’s dream come true.

Before signing with the Broncos Hanks took recruiting trips to several Big Sky schools including Montana, Montana State and Idaho. In the end signing with BSU was an inevitable conclusion to the recruiting process.

“I liked those other schools, but the chance to play at the BSU level was too much to pass up,” Hanks said.

“I’ve been fortunate to have been supported and coached by the staff here at T Falls,” he said. “The whole town has been very supportive and I’ve been able to play with some really good teammates”.

The Blue Hawks open the 2023 season with a home game August 25 versus Conrad.