Q&A with Stephen Bissainthe and Henry Muter, Middlebury Football 2018

I had the pleasure of sitting down at lunch with Stephen Bissainthe from Arlington, Massachusetts and Henry Muter from Lexington, Massachusetts, two members of the Middlebury College football class of 2018, and both are eager to start their college football careers. Bissainthe is a 6’5″, 235 lbs. defensive end, while Muter could employ his 5’11”, 220 lbs. frame either at linebacker or on the defensive line.

Joe MacDonald: What was your high school football experience like?

Henry Muter: I went to Lexington High School. I guess football was not that big. I guess it was just a normal high school. We played in a pretty good league. Competed at a pretty high level.

Stephen Bissainthe: I went to BB&N (Buckingham, Browne and Nichols). It’s a private school, and I think private school ball is a little different. You can recruit a lot of guys, so you get a lot of big guys in that league and a lot of Division-I guys. It’s a competitive league, but at my school in particular football is taken seriously. Our head coach is big on making sure we have a successful program.

JM: What’s your best high school football memory?

HM: My best high school memory is probably Thanksgiving. It’s a tradition in Massachusetts where all the public schools play Thanksgiving morning. So we crushed our rival on Thanksgiving, which was Burlington.

SB: We didn’t have Thanksgiving games in the ISL, but we do have a rival, Belmont Hill. We play them every year, it’s the opening game, and this past year we beat them in overtime. It was the first series in overtime, we were on defense, one of my boys got a pick six to win the game, so it was kind of crazy.

JM: Did you play other sports in high school?

SB: I did play basketball for a little bit. But I don’t anymore.

HM: I played rugby.

JM: What was your recruiting process like and how did you end up at Middlebury?

SB: My head coach has a lot of connections to coaches across the country. I mentioned that I wanted to play college ball but I wanted an academic experience as well. So I talked to a bunch of NESCAC schools, like Bowdoin and Amherst and stuff like that, and I came up to Midd about a year ago. I don’t know, it was just a little different. The coaches gave me more attention here. It was a little more intimate experience than some other schools. I like the campus, I like the state of Vermont.

JM: Was there a moment when you knew that Middlebury was the place you wanted to go?

HM: Yeah, I ended up doing a recruiting trip when it came down to, more or less, Middlebury and Trinity. One of the big moments, Trinity’s usually a dominant team in the NESCAC, but Middlebury came in and beat them at home, so that was a great moment when I was like, ‘Middlebury has both the academics and they’re beating them in football.’ So that was a cool moment.

JM: How do you guys feel about head coach Bob Ritter?

HM: He seems like a great guy. He saw me a lot in the recruiting process. He’s given me routine calls, asking how were holidays and how’s everything going. The program’s doing well, the players like him.

SB: From what it seems, I think he’s a genuine guy. He means very well. He’s really, I don’t know, he took the time to know me personally. A lot of the coaches I’ve talked to, I don’t know, they didn’t really go the extra step like Coach Ritter did. That’s part of the reason I decided to come here, I liked a coach that I could relate to.

JM: Have you gotten to know any of your future teammates?

SB: Not personally, but I’ve met some of the players through overnights and stuff like that. They seem like a really good group of guys.

JM: Do you know anybody who you will be playing against next year in the NESCAC?

HM: Yeah, one of our big rivalries was with Reading High School, and one of their star linebackers is going to be at Trinity. Honestly, the NESCAC has a lot of guys come from Massachusetts. So there’s a lot of guys who I’ve played against that are on the Middlebury football team now or who I’m going to play against in the future.

SB: Yeah, a lot of guys I played against come here, because it’s an [Independent School League] kind of feel. But a lot of my teammates are going to other NESCAC schools. We had a couple kids go to Bates, Amherst and a couple other schools in the NESCAC.

JM: How would you describe yourself as a player?

HM: Fast, tough, ferocious, smart. Kind of like, having to know that you can’t always just crash through. Understanding your skills and technique and playing tough.

SB: Tenacious, maybe? I don’t really know what that even means. I’m just an intense kind of guy. I’ve always liked the banging heads on lockers and things. But I don’t know if that’s going to translate to this level. But I can play with intensity.

JM: What do you think the biggest difference will be between high school and college competition?

HM: I think size. I think in high school you could kind of just use your athleticism to run down someone and knock them over, but you’ve got to understand that with these offensive linemen you’ve got some 300 pounders up there, you can’t just rush them over, you’ve got to be smart. They’re all big.

JM: Which of you two runs the faster 40?

HM: What did you run?

SB: I haven’t run an official 40, but like 4.7, 4.8.

HM: I ran like a 4.8, 4.85 on grass.

SB: So we’re the same.

HM: Yeah, we’re the same.

JM: Well, we’ll see what happens in the fall.

 

Thanks again to Henry and Stephen for taking the time to sit down with me.

Both Henry and Stephen were listed on this Boston Herald report of national letters of intent back in February.

Check out some of Henry’s big hits.