After helping guide Lost River football to back-to-back 1A 8-player state championships in their junior and senior seasons, Connor Dunlea and Joel DeJong will get to pursue even more hardware as college players.
Dunlea has signed with NAIA Montana Western, while DeJong has committed to NCAA Division III George Fox.
“We’re certainly really proud of Connor and Joel both,” Lost River head coach–and Connor Dunlea’s father–Dennis Dunlea said. “I think they’re good fits at the schools they’re going to. I think they’re going to do great.”
Connor said he hadn’t given much thought to playing in college until a conversation with Gold Beach assistant coach Blake Sentman, a former Montana Western player, at a football camp last summer. Sentman told Connor he had the ability to play at the college level and encouraged him to look into Montana Western and similar programs.
Connor had been looking at schools in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas when he and his family traveled to Dillon, Montana to visit Montana Western. On the way back from Dillon, he decided he would either play there or at fellow Frontier Conference school Southern Oregon, which also recruited him heavily.
Connor said he liked both football programs “pretty much equally”, so it was ultimately location that led him to choose the Bulldogs.
“Dillon is a lot like Lost River,” Connor said. “Montana is really beautiful, and I kind of just wanted to get out of Oregon.”
Connor joins a Montana Western program coming off its first outright Frontier Conference championship since 1995 and fifth-ever NAIA playoff appearance. The Bulldogs had the No. 3 offense in the NAIA last season, averaging 465.5 yards per game. Besides the team’s success on the field, Connor said he was drawn in by a program culture that reminded him of Lost River’s.
“They’re just hard working,” Connor said. “They’re just tough.”
Connor started at running back and defensive back at Lost River and was also the Raiders’ kick and punt returner. He recorded 1,263 rushing yards, 994 return yards (first in Oregon), 16 total touchdowns and 10 interceptions (tied for first in Oregon) in his senior season. Connor said he intends to compete for the return jobs at Montana Western and could play defensive back or wide receiver for the Bulldogs, depending on which position better suits him. Academically, he plans to major in business administration with a minor in farm and ranch operations.
Connor said signing to play college football marks the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. That isn’t the case for Joel DeJong, though.
DeJong didn’t start playing football until his freshman year at Lost River and only did so after a healthy amount of peer pressure.
“A lot of my friends [said] ‘Hey dude, you should try this out. It’s a lot of fun,’” DeJong said. “They all loved it, so I thought I would just give it a shot.”
It took some time for DeJong’s talent to develop.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing my freshman year, and my sophomore year was a big learning experience,” DeJong said.
By his junior year, DeJong was excelling to the point of attracting attention from college coaches; George Fox running backs coach Todd Shirley attended Lost River’s 2022 1A[8] semifinal win over Powder Valley and spoke with him afterward.
Although DeJong went on to post a team-high eight tackles in the Raiders’ state championship game win over St. Paul the next week, he said his recruiting was “pretty quiet for a while” after the initial conversion with Shirley. Then, new NAIA program Simpson (which is set to play its inaugural season this fall) invited DeJong on an official visit. DeJong said he enjoyed the visit to Simpson but felt most at home after visiting George Fox.
DeJong said George Fox being a Christian university checked an important box for him and, like Connor at Montana Western, he found the Bruins’ culture resembled Lost River’s.
“Some of the principles were kind of like [Dennis] Dunlea’s principles,” DeJong said. “And I love Dunlea.”
That won’t be the only similarity between DeJong’s high school and college teams; he’ll also be reunited with former teammate Nathan Dalton, who graduated from Lost River in 2023 and appeared in three games for George Fox as a freshman last season.
“I’m excited to go play with him,” DeJong said.
George Fox restarted its football program in 2014 after a 46-year absence. The Bruins have enjoyed moderate success since their return, amassing a 43-36 record with a 33-25 mark in NWC play. However, last season saw George Fox finish below .500 for the first time since 2015 at 4-6.
“Nathan…and some of the players were saying that it was a rough year, but they said that they’re feeling pretty good about this next season,” DeJong said.
DeJong started on the offensive and defensive lines at Lost River and led the Raiders with 59 tackles in his senior season. He said the Bruins coaching staff has projected him as a linebacker or defensive end. Academically, he intends to major in kinesiology and exercise science.
“I’m really excited to take this next step in life,” DeJong said.
DeJong, Connor and Dennis Dunlea all said no coaches ever expressed concern about their–or any Lost River players’–ability to succeed in 11-player football at the college level after playing 8-player in high school.
“I don’t really know that I’ve ever had to address that,” Dennis said. “If you can play football, I don’t think it matters how many guys are out there.”
On his visit to Montana Western, Connor learned that a significant number of the Bulldogs’ players also came from 8-player or even 6-player high school teams (those versions of the game have a strong presence in Montana because of the state’s sparse population). He said that fact combined with his experience playing 11-player football before high school means he shouldn’t have any problem keeping up with his new teammates.
“I’m not worried about it and I don’t think the coaches are either,” Connor said.
DeJong said George Fox coaches told him about previous recruits from 8-player high school teams who had “really just excelled” with the Bruins and that they “weren’t too worried about” his ability to adapt. Shirley, the George Fox coach who made initial contact with DeJong, has plenty of his own experience with that version of the game; he coached 8-player teams at Powers (2002-2006) and Cove (2007-2010).
More than any other attributes Connor and DeJong have, Dennis said their love for “the grind part” of football will help them succeed at the college level.
“My biggest concern for small school kids going to play in college is that it’s not easy,” Dennis said. “You’ve got to earn [playing time] all over again, and it may take you years to do that, so you’ve got to love it.
“You’ve got to love the practice part of it, the work part of it, the weightlifting part of it. You’ve got to be good students. I’m confident that those guys…have what it takes to do that.”
Montana Western opens the 2024 season at home against Eastern Oregon at 1 p.m. Sept. 7. George Fox has yet to release their 2024 schedule.
