Two-way players are rare in college football, but one year after Travis Hunter won the Heisman Trophy in his wildly productive final season at Colorado, another potential standout could emerge in 2025 as a contributor on both offense and defense. At Vanderbilt, defensive back Martel Hight is poised to expand his game this fall and line up at wide receiver in addition to his duties in the Commodores’ secondary.
To prepare Hight for the challenge of taking reps on offense and to learn how to properly deploy a player with such an expansive skill set, Vanderbilt conferred with the coach who just produced the most dynamic player in the country. Commodores coach Clark Lea said his staff took pointers from Colorado’s Deion Sanders, who not only oversaw Hunter’s climb to stardom but also shined as a two-way player himself at the college and NFL levels.
“Coach Kill has had conversations with Coach Prime at Colorado to talk about what their approach was,” Lea told CBS Sports’ Richard Johnson on Monday at SEC Media Days. “We’ve spent time on it as a staff, too, just talking about ‘Hey, what does this look like for us?’ What’s most important to me is we have a guy that has the ability to tip the field — where is he going to make the biggest impact for us?”
Hight’s workload will shift on a week-to-week basis, Lea said, depending on where he can make the biggest impact. Vanderbilt plans to use him in a 50-50 split between offense and defense, but he could see a more lopsided split if matchups and performance dictate a need to emphasize one side of the ball.
“What is the amount of time that we use for him on offense, on defense? Those are important questions for us to answer,” Lea said. “We don’t want to run him into the ground, but we need him to impact…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/vanderbilt-sought-advice-from-deion-sanders-as-db-martel-hight-prepares-for-two-way-role-with-commodores/
Author : Carter Bahns
Publish date : 2025-07-14 18:36:00
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