Montana Grizzlies center Cade Klimczak receives waiver, returns for 7th season

He received a waiver from the NCAA for a seventh season and will be using that opportunity to suit up for the Grizzlies, the school announced Monday. It'll be his second season at UM after he transferred from Central Michigan.

Klimczak started in all 14 games in the 2024 season, taking over at center in the third game and starting there the final 12 games. He had opened the season with two starts at left guard before swapping spots with Liam Brown.

Klimczak told the Missoulian and 406 MT Sports this past fall that he had the possibility to return in 2025 because of a medical waiver.

"I could apply, but I don't know," he said. "I think this would probably be the last one. Six years is a lot of football. So I think this would be it."

The medical waiver stemmed from an injury during his fourth season at Central Michigan in 2022.

"I had a knee injury," he said. "I tore my ACL in a scrimmage. That was a long rehab, like nine months. Just tried to approach every day with a positive attitude and do the best I could at the rehab. The strength came back slowly but surely, so just kept working every day and saw the little progress and built on it."

Klimczak walked on at CMU in 2019 and redshirted, which didn't affect the four seasons he could play. He played in six games in 2020, a season which also didn't count toward his eligibility because of the NCAA's COVID waiver.

He appeared in 10 games in 2021 and 10 contests in 2023 at CMU, where he played in 26 games and made five starts across five years. It was that fifth season, after returning from the ACL injury, when he earned a scholarship.