When it comes to football, a cornerback is always underappreciated and rarely gets his due when he plays well, but his mistakes are always the first ones to come up in during a Sportscenter highlight reel. Such a demanding position usually requires a talented and experienced player to master it, but this year’s Commodore squad features two younger players at the starting spots.
Joel Caldwell, a redshirt freshman, and D.J. Moore, a true freshman, are starting in place of Josh Allen, a fifth-year senior with plenty of game experience, and Jared Fagen, a sophomore with numerous starts to his credit.
“Joel has been with us for a year and a half, so we felt that after a redshirt year and a spring that he would be ready to go,” said Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson. “D.J. came in during the summer, and during the preseason, he was making plays and doing what he was supposed to do.”
Johnson can certainly appreciate how difficult the job of a defensive back can be, since he was a defensive backs coach earlier in his career. His views of the cornerbacks’ responsibilities are still the same as they always have been.
“If you’re a cornerback, you gotta be a man,” Johnson said.
That often means being able to go up against an opponent who is significantly larger or more athletic than you and still keep that player from making a play.
Adding to the difficulty inherent in the position, Moore and Caldwell must replace Andrew Pace, who graduated last season. Pace was an excellent performer on the field and a team leader off the field, and his presence is surely missed by both the players and the coaching staff. But in spite of the enormous challenge set before them, both Caldwell and Moore have risen above the fray, each earning a spot on the first-team defense.
“All the work that we put in during the winter and the summer is really paying off,” Caldwell said. “We’ve been working really hard and putting it all out there during practice.”
Coach Johnson, known for his demanding practices, based his decision to shuffle his starting cornerbacks on their performances during his grueling practice sessions.
“We base all of our decisions on who plays based on how well they do in practice,” Johnson said. “We expect whoever is out there to perform. They’ve earned the position for right now. If they don’t perform, we’ll look to put somebody else out there.”
Johnson also made clear that his decision wasn’t so much based on being upset with Allen or Fagen, who were slated to start during the preseason.
“We’ve got confidence in Josh and Jared, and they’ll still have to go in there and play. They’re going to be a big part of our success if we have it.”
Caldwell played for Hoover High School in Hoover, Ala., where the MTV show “Two-A-Days” was filmed. He was a defensive standout for the 15-0 6A State Championship team that preceded the one on the show, and he admits that he felt a small change in the atmosphere surrounding this team than his previous one.
“Honestly, it was a big change for me to come here (for college) because we’ve got two full-time jobs,” he said. “The main difference, though, is that we work harder here and we’re hungrier. Whereas in high school, we just expected to go out and win. Still, though, we expect to win every game we play here.”
The old adage maintains that no man is an island. Clearly, the fellow who devised that quote never got the opportunity to play cornerback at the highest level of college football. When the opposing offense’s receivers run their routes and make their cuts, the defense’s cornerbacks are usually the most important players in pass coverage, and they often have to defend a player all by themselves in the open field. Commodore fans should be a bit more at ease knowing that they have two talented and capable players defending the flanks of the gridiron.
