The Gophers wide receivers sat in a meeting last November, game-planning for Northwestern, when coach P.J. Fleck interrupted to call Phillip Howard into his office.
Suddenly, those college students reverted back to high school boys when one of their classmates had to meet with the principal. They all looked at each other with not-so-subtle smirks, basically communicating, "Uh oh, Phil, you're in trouble!" with their eyes.
Howard, though, knew he hadn't done anything wrong. And Fleck, indeed, wasn't singling him out for punishment. Instead, it was to ask his player to make a big sacrifice.
"He was like, 'All right, here it is: I want to move you from receiver to [defensive back],' " Howard said. "… Pretty much a man-to-man conversation. And I told him, I'm willing to do whatever, whatever it takes. And here we are."
Here is coming off Howard's first career interception at Rutgers on Saturday, which he nabbed on his first defensive snap of the game. As mainly a special teams contributor, it was a breakthrough for the former Cooper star.
The defense certainly celebrated as if Howard's interception was a game-saving play in the Super Bowl instead of a second-quarter snag in an eventual blowout victory. That's because his teammates know what Howard gave up and how hard he worked to adapt to his new position.
Fleck was pretty blunt in his reasoning for moving Howard, telling the player he was going to have a difficult time playing behind Tyler Johnson, Rashod Bateman, Chris Autman-Bell and Demetrius Douglas. At the time of the switch, the Gophers were thin at defensive back because of injuries, but Fleck also felt cornerback suited Howard. Now, the coach said, Howard has been a key player this season despite going largely unnoticed.
"He's got great feet, really loose hips," Fleck said. "… When you have a wideout playing corner, you can make more plays because they have more natural ability to catch the ball."