Justin Ford and Montana had been circling each other for years.
The Griz staff first reached out to and offered the cornerback in 2018, when he was coming off a sophomore season at Golden West College that had him ranked among the top 100 junior-college prospects in the nation.
He didn’t make it to Missoula until 2020. That was after an initial commitment to and de-commitment from Kansas, and an injury-plagued redshirt year at Louisville.
It’s the kind of stuff sitcom relationships are made of — plenty of false starts and bad decisions before, hopefully, the right fit. Sam and Diane. Ross and Rachel.
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“Before I went to Louisville, I had an offer from Montana, eventually ended up going to Louisville,” Ford said. “I got hurt there, and that kind of opened the door back up to come back to Montana. So I had a couple of schools (offering me), but the relationship here was not comparable to anywhere else, so I knew this is where I wanted to be.”
The dreadlocked Ford speaks with plenty of confidence – the confidence that comes with prior experience covering Division I receivers. His head-nodding showdown with Sammy Akem might have been the highlight of a high-voltage first practice of fall camp.
The Grizzlies also added Oregon State transfers Omar Hicks Onu and TraJon Cotton in early 2020. Both played mostly safety at OSU but came to Montana with the intent of moving to cornerback.
“I think it happened more organically than anything, because we trusted the system,” Hicks Onu said. “We trusted coach Hauck, we trusted coach (C.J.) Cox when he was the DB coach here. … So just being here, me and TC, we’ve taken everything and we’re just trying to be part of the team now.”
In both 2018 and 2019, the Griz started a pair of converted wide receivers, Justin Calhoun and Dareon Nash, at cornerback. Calhoun and Nash were good athletes and played hard, but were stretched in Hauck and veteran defensive coordinator Kent Baer’s scheme.
The Grizzlies’ 3-3-5 has the defensive line primarily occupying blockers, which means they have to blitz to get pressure, which means the cornerbacks are often on an island in man-to-man coverage by themselves.
The No. 1 quality for a cornerback in Montana’s defense isn’t speed or strength or agility or experience, but pure talent — the ability to stick to a receiver and shut him down, give him barely a moment to breathe. If they can’t, the rest of the defense breaks down, a chain reaction of consequences that often leads to points given up.
One can imagine Baer or corners coach Ronnie Bradford channelling their inner Yoda when dispensing final instructions to the group. Do or do not, there is no try.
“A good corner can do a lot of things, you know, especially in the defense like this, where they put so much stress on us,” Hicks Onu said. “We take it with pride. We’re not mad about it. We’re not upset about it at all. We love the challenge. They told us, you know, we got it, we got to take care of our job.”
“We are pretty stubborn about doing that (putting guys on man-to-man island) regardless, so it won’t change much,” Montana head coach Bobby Hauck added. “But better players make you better and I’m hoping we can be consistent out at corner.”
Hauck has decried rule changes like the transfer portal and the one-time transfer exemption. But the Griz have used transfers to build up areas of the team like the offensive line (A.J. Forbes, Kordell Pillans, Moses Mallory), defensive line (Justin Belknap, Joe Babros) and, now, the cornerbacks.
Ford, Hicks Onu and Cotton don’t just have more decorated resumes than the rest of the corners on the roster. They also just look different, bigger and more mature than the young cornerbacks who have come up out of high school.
“If they are an older guy, it’s no different than junior college,” Hauck said. “If you bring in a transfer of any sort, they need to contribute. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.”
Hicks Onu has been playing across from sophomore Corbin Walker with the starters early in fall camp.
Ford and freshman Autjoe Soe are usually working with the 2s, and Cotton, who’s coming back from an injury and looks to be on a snap count in fall camp, has been with redshirt freshman Trevin Gradney on the third string.
In a couple of brief looks, they’ve been maybe the most improved position group on the team.
“They are guys who are natural corners, for the most part, and they have pretty good frames, long arms, good speed,” Hauck said. “To a man, they are pretty willing tacklers. That’s a good thing.”
Montana faces a slate full of all-conference receivers in the fall. The Grizzlies’ Big Sky schedule includes games against Eastern Washington (Talolo Limu-Jones, Andrew Boston, Freddie Roberson Jr.), Sac State (Pierre Williams), Idaho (Hayden Hatten) and Northern Arizona (Stacy Chukwumeze, Brandon Porter).
But lining up against those guys, on an island with no one behind them, is why Ford, Hicks Onu and Cotton came to Missoula.
“I’ve been asked to play man most of my career, and it’s just something you got to do at this position,” Ford said. “You can’t be afraid to go against the man in front of you. That’s what our job is to do. So it’s just second nature to me.”
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