Justin Calhoun didn’t know he’d be a cornerback this season for the Montana Grizzlies until he reported to meetings on Monday. But the converted wide receiver already sounds happy to back on that side of the ball.
“I’m just excited to be playing on defense again,” Calhoun said after practice on Thursday. “I love offense, I love receiver, but it’s always a good thing to be back on the dark side.”
Calhoun was a defensive back his first three years in high school at renowned football factory Long Beach Poly in Los Angeles, but shifted to wide receiver as a senior and stayed there when he got to Missoula.
The redshirt junior posted 1,210 receiving yards combined over the last two seasons, including 42 catches for 625 yards and six touchdowns during a breakout freshman season in 2016. Calhoun told Montana’s coaches he was willing to switch to defense after spring practice this year, and that he thought he could help the Grizzlies as a defensive back.
When he met with coaches on Monday, they let him know about his new role.
Calhoun, who said he was excited but not surprised by the switch, has looked the part in two fall practices so far, although it’s difficult to draw any conclusions from that.
“I would say I still have to learn to be patient and control my eyes,” Calhoun said. “That’s what you have to do at DB, you have to be really good at controlling your eyes. So far, my eyes have been all over the place, and that’s probably why I haven’t been able to make the right reads when I want to.”
The move was likely an attempt to draw from a position of strength — even without Calhoun, the Griz return four receivers (senior Keenan Curran, junior Jerry Louie-McGee, sophomores Samori Toure and Samuel Akem) who played in every game last year — to solidify a position new head coach Bobby Hauck has called a weakness since taking the job in September.
Starting cornerbacks Markell Sanders left the team in December and Ryan McKinley graduated, leaving Montana without its two starting corners from last year. That left a depth issue in the secondary. UM’s coaches decided Calhoun was the best way to alleviate it.
“He’s got free hips and he runs well, and he’s not a timid guy, certainly, so those things add up,” Hauck said before Thursday’s session as temperatures at Dornblaser Field. “And then, necessity oftentimes makes you do things like that. He’s one of our best, if not our best, receivers, but that’s a deep spot and corner’s not.”
He’ll join a young unit that could be an issue for the Grizzlies this season. Lewis Cowans, Dareon Nash, Josh Egbo and Gavin Crow all saw action in 2017, but none played more than sparingly, or looked like a guaranteed starter coming into fall camp.
The Big Sky Conference is stacked with talented receivers, and their inexperience might be costly.
“We talk about the NBA being a make-or-miss league,” Hauck said. “[Cornerback] is kind of a position where you either make plays or you don’t, so they’ve got to make plays.”
Several of the corners, aside from being young, are also in their first years at the position, as the coaching staff has scrambled to get depth in the secondary.
Nash, who has looked good early in fall camp and drawn praise from coaches about his mindset, was a star wide receiver for California power Charter Oaks in high school, and came to Missoula as a wideout.
He switched after redshirting his freshman year, meaning this will be the second year on defense for the redshirt sophomore.
At first, Nash watched Youtube videos to familiarize himself with the techniques needed to play the position, and also learned from McKinley and graduated safety Justin Strong.
“It mostly came naturally, because I played receiver and I had a good understanding of what the receiver is going to do,” Nash said. “It was a big jump for me. I kind of trusted the process that I went through and trusted what the coaches were telling me. … I just kind of took it and ran with it.”
Former wide receiver Kobey Eaton also switched to defense in spring and will play his redshirt junior year at corner. He returned an interception 15 yards for a touchdown in the spring game.
Players have also been shuffled around in the secondary. Crow, for instance, was primarily a safety early in his career.
“It’s a lot of man [coverage],” Crow said. “A lot of being by yourself. Safety, you’ve got a lot of guys you can rely on in zone [coverage] and everything. I’m a zone guy, just coming from safety, I like playing zone.”
It’s unknown who’ll emerge from the group to claim a starting job, but the hope is that with the addition of Calhoun, the group won’t be quite as much of a question mark going into the season.
Cornerbacks coach C.J. Cox and safeties coach Shann Schillinger have pushed the defensive backs to think about changing the game and creating turnovers, often breaking huddles with a cry of “Playmakers!”
So far, it’s a mentality that’s suited Calhoun well.
“When you make plays on defense, I feel like it’s way more exciting than offense, because it doesn’t happen often,” Calhoun said. “It makes me hype. I’m waiting for mine. I just can’t wait until I get mine, because I know the defense is going to be hype when I get my first interception.”
AIRING IT OUT: JUCO transfer quarterback Cam Humphrey has not been shy about showing off his arm, which is looking like the best on the team, through the first two days of practice. He impressed during target throwing drills Thursday and has taken a number of shots downfield during offense-vs.-defense sessions. That’s led to a number of interceptions, but also some big plays, including a great throw to Toure down the right sideline in two-minute drills Thursday.
“We’ve been out here all of one non-padded day with Cam, so it’s kind of hard [to evaluate],” Hauck said before practice. “Cam spins it pretty well, and we’ll get to know the rest soon.”
Andrew Houghton is a freelance journalist providing Griz football content for Skyline Sports this fall.
