Halloween is believed to be the day when the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead is blurred.

When the souls of those who passed, and the creatures from the other side are able to walk the earth next to the children in costumes that mimic the monsters they often fear most.

When the Carroll College football team steps on the field in Dillon today to face off with the University of Montana Western, it won't need to conjure a spell or open a vortex to a terrifying realm to release its hellhounds.

Instead, it only needs to look at its team to find the peaceful students, who, with little more than a couple of smudges of black grease beneath their eyes and the rush of game day, transform to the rampaging beasts of the gridiron.

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Garrett Thompson loves the sound of cool rushing water passing between his feet, which are lodged in the earth at the bottom of a creek.

Amid the heat of the day, surrounded by Montana's rigid peaks and bending grass, Thompson is easily lost in the moment, casting his fishing line upon the water and pulling it back to tempt an unsuspecting trout.

"It's the solitude," he says. "Standing in the middle of a flowing creek, the sound washes over everything. You just focus on one thing."

When the cool winds blow through Helena and the leaves change from bright green to auburn and gold, the sound of a babbling brook is replaced by the roar of a crowd. And Thompson's peaceful concentration adapts to a new occupation: crushing his opponent.

"It's a situation where you have to be sole-minded," Thompson says. "Maybe that's why I like football and fishing. In the same way, I just have to concentrate on one thing. I get to focus and lose myself."

It's something the best, and most intense football players are able to do.

To flip the switch.

To lose themselves in a barrage of violent hits and touchdown plays.

That transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, says Saints head coach Mike Van Diest, isn't something that can be faked.

"It's very genuine," the coach says. "And you have to have players like it."

For Thompson, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound senior defensive end, the change begins early on a game day morning, before some players are even awake.

Thompson likes to be the first one at the team breakfast, taking his seat in the Carroll dining hall by 8:30, nearly 45 minutes before the rest of the crowd shows up. He spends much of the rest of the morning in physical and mental seclusion. He'll often sit in his car in the building's parking lot, listening to music on his headphones and going over game notes.

He prefers not to listen to the tunes blaring in the locker room, and will find a place upstairs to calm himself.

At 10 a.m., his heart has already begun pounding, and he has to breathe easy to slow himself down. The excitement only builds up as the team goes through warm ups.

When Carroll's defense takes the field and Thompson slumps down in front of an offensive lineman, his metamorphosis is complete.

This Saint turns into something a little more devilish.

"You get your mind around it, then it's unleashed," he says.

Twisting and spinning, he tears himself from the grip of his opponent to make his way into the backfield. Other times, he turns his rage directly on the offensive line, like when he forced Rocky Mountain College offensive tackle James Kershaw right into the body of senior quarterback Kasey Peters.

"He got a sack on a bullrush; he completely pushed the tackle back into the quarterback," says Saints senior linebacker Mac Gordon. "That's pretty cool to have a sack without even touching the quarterback."

The most impressive thing, Gordon says, is how Thompson - who leads the team with six sacks and also has four tackles for a loss -and the rest of the defensive line never tires.

Like machines absent of a cut-off valve, they bring a relentless onslaught play after play. Always striking fear, and never slowing down.

That's when Thompson knows his teammates are in the zone. When they've run the defense through their head so many times that they no longer have to consider their next move, but act on pure predatorial instinct

. "I've learned from Van Diest that you do what you're supposed to do, when you're supposed to do it, and do it that way every time," he says. "That's what it takes to play here."

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Thompson isn't the only Saints player with the switch.

Each one has the ability to turn into his own creature, though a select few seem to have perfected it.

"I know my personality is different on Game Day," Van Diest says with a laugh.

He can tell when Gordon is focused on the game just by the quiet routine the linebacker goes through in game preparation. Each practice is steady buildup to the game, when Gordon gets to finally let loose.

"The game kind of takes you over," Gordon says. "You let it take you over.

"After that it becomes addictive and just a natural reaction."

Some players have to go to that place in their mind where they no longer think like a normal person, but develop a keen sense bent on destruction.

"Coach always says, you have the talent, you've had it since you were a freshman, but it's more about the mental toughness," says sophomore safety Teddy Morigeau.

"You have to just be able to block things out."

Morigeau says he used to be nervous out on the field. His lack of confidence often caused him to miss an assignment and let a receiver go by.

That's when he learned how to focus on his game, and turn his fear into motivation.

"You almost have to get a hate for what might be one of your buddies from high school," he says. "You look down upon them almost because it makes you more of a confident football player."

During a Saints fall scrimmage early this year, no one doubted Morigeau's fearlessness when he lowered his head against 6-foot-2, 240-pound junior tight end Bubba Bartlett.

The crash caused a shockwave that reached the top steps of Nelson Stadium, and also made teammates fear the worst for Morigeau.

"I thought he broke his arm," said senior defensive end Mike Ogrin.

While he lay gripping an arm on the field for a few minutes, Morigeau walked to the sideline a little later, lightly swinging it with enthusiasm.

What makes him willing to risk life and limb for the sport?

"Sometimes I just don't think about that. It seems like every spring ball since my freshman year I've come up against John Camino, heads up. I don't want to take him low, I get him as hard as I can," Morigeau says.

What are the results of a 5-9, 195-pound safety's collisions with the 6-1, 235-pound junior running back?

Well, "it's physics," Morigeau says.

Still, he won't be slowing down anytime soon.

Like Camino and Bartlett, offensive players can show that same crazy aggressiveness, though it might be tougher to show.

Ogrin sees it in his counterparts in the trenches. Offensive linemen are often sparring with defenders or absorbing blitzes to perserve their quarterbacks. And when guys like 6-3, 270-pound senior guard Luke Den Herder get trucking down the field on a screen pass, the blocks they put on defensive backs half their size simply seem sadistic.

The same goes for sophomore receiver Lat Wipplinger. Known more for his big blocks than two touchdown receptions this season, he felt the entire right side of his body go numb after cleaning the clock of a Rocky defensive end.

"I love it when you're running a route and (quarterback Gary Wagner) scrambles," Wipplinger says. "You find a back that's crossing the field and you take their head off."

While the pleasure they take inflicting pain might seem cruel, the players don't think of themselves as bad guys. After all, their dangerous alter egos mostly stay on the field.

"In every day life, you're not going to want to be like that. For one, you won't have too many friends," says the generally mild-mannered Ogrin, who Thompson says plays angry on every defensive down. "It's that one chance when you want to be really aggressive, and it's like you're in a fist fight and you actually get to hit someone."

Jeff Windmueller: 447-4065 or jeff.windmueller@helenair.com