Rookie Alford set for spot in Bombers secondary

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/08/2021 (1497 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DeAundre Alford didn’t start playing football until his senior year of high school and went on to play at Division II Tusculum University, but that didn’t stop the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from naming him to the team.

With holes to fill in the secondary, the Bombers brought in no shortage of options as they had 27 defensive backs in training camp. But when the dust settled on Friday and the team made their final cuts, Alford, a 23-year-old from Griffin, Ga., was one of three CFL freshman corners to make the squad. Former XFL standout Deatrick Nichols and Josh Miller, a Ball State product who tried out for the Detroit Lions as an undrafted free agent in 2019, are the other two.

“It just feels good to know I come from a small school. A lot of guys on the team don’t even know where Tusculum University is,” Alford told the media after Sunday’s practice.

“It made me want to go harder just being around a lot of guys coming from Division I football or Power Five schools. So, it just makes (making the team) feel even better coming from that small school.”

Alford grew up playing basketball but made the switch to football in Grade 12 look easy as he was named Spalding High School’s team MVP after leading the region with seven interceptions. Alford had an offer to play Division I at Jacksonville University from head coach Jerry Odom, but soon after Odom took a job at Tusculum in Tennessee, and Alford decided to follow him.

“I always knew I was athletic so I could play any sport. Whatever I put my mind to I feel like I can achieve (it),” Alford said.

“So once I started playing football, I had my mind on becoming a professional athlete, and I’m here now.”

In Alford’s 40-game college career between 2016 and 2019, he finished with a school record 40 passes defended and 195 interception return yards, as well as 10 interceptions (third most in school history) and 140 tackles. Alford had his eyes set on the NFL, but the pandemic severely hurt his chances of making it as he had several pro days get cancelled. Alford said he posted a video online of his college highlights and it went viral and caught the attention of the Bombers, leading to the team reaching out to his agent.

Luckily for Alford, he and his agent didn’t hear a word from the Bombers on Friday.

“No one told me anything. We just knew, if you didn’t hear anything back from (the team), you kind of knew you were good… A couple of my peers, the people that aren’t here, I saw them leaving so it was kind of like ‘OK, I’m still here.’ But no one told me like ‘OK, you made the team.’… I’m not gonna lie, I was just in my room and had my phone on mute. Whenever I would get an alert I didn’t even want to look down,” he said.

Alford and Nichols were practising with the first-team defence on Sunday, one that features CFL veterans in Brandon Alexander at safety, Nick Taylor at boundary halfback, Mike Jones at boundary corner, and Josh Johnson at the hybrid dime-back spot. Alford and Nichols could be busy on Thursday when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats come to town for the season opener as quarterback Jeremiah Masoli will surely want to try to test the CFL newcomers.

Alford was asked what the Bombers have told him, Nichols and Miller to focus on as they try to get accustomed to the Canadian game.

“Pretty much what they want us to focus on is being able to fit in with everyone else around us… Whatever my role is, or Deatrick’s or Josh’s role, we just want to come in and fit in as one,” he said.

“We’ll do whatever we have to to fit in and make plays and just be a Blue Bomber.”

While Alford, Nichols and Miller stood out in training camp, head coach Mike O’Shea, and everyone else for that matter, will have to wait until Thursday at the earliest to truly see what they can do.

“They’re all athletic. They all have a fair bit of quickness and ball skills. The one thing we’re sort of missing is really figuring out whether they can tackle, whether they can finish, without the benefit of exhibition games,” O’Shea said. “But you see enough in the footwork drills to say they can get the job done.”

 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31