As if he was sitting in his favorite recliner, A.J. Butler was cozy at the tailback position on the UNM football team his freshman year in 2009.
Now his role on the Lobo football has taken an uneasy turn, but maybe not for the worse.
“I got so comfortable at running back, and I made good plays last year,” said Butler, who carried the ball 50 times for 177 yards and a touchdown. “But (head coach Mike) Locksley approached me about the situation.”
Butler is talking about the UNM safety “situation.” The Lobos are low on depth at the safety position this year, after two of the Lobos’ starters Frankie Solomon and Frankie Baca graduated.
Before spring practice began, Locksley approached Butler about switching from the backfield to the secondary.
Butler said he embraced the idea with open arms.
“I played the position throughout high school,” Butler said. “So, I am familiar to it, and I know how to play it. The thing that I have to get better at is learning the defensive schemes, the plays and the coverage. This is so I can go out there and play the position, just like I played running back.”
Still, shouldn’t playing safety require more thought out process than hitting holes created by offensive linemen, like it did so easily while playing running back? It probably does, and that’s why Butler was asked to switch positions, Locksley said.
The Lobos’ head coach said Butler is one of the more intelligent football players on the team.
“That is one of the reasons why we felt we could make that move with him,” Locksley said. “He’s a talented running back and athlete. So, with us being thin in the secondary … it’s been a smooth transition thus far, and I think he has a chance to be a pretty good player over there on the defense.”
For Butler, he said that’s debatable, but instead of taking brutalizing hits, he can start dishing them out now.
“As a running back, (I) take hits and make sure I don’t take a big lick to hurt myself,” Butler said. “But at safety now, I have to get back in coverage and make sure I come up to support the run and make hard hits, also.”
Perhaps what might be more difficult for Butler during his shift is getting used to his new coaches, defensive back coach George Barlow and defensive coordinator Doug Mallory.
But so far, he’s handled it easily, Barlow said.
In fact, Barlow said, the sophomore is already proving himself in defensive backfield.
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“He understands the offense, and all he has to do now is understand what we are doing with our defensive schemes,” Barlow said. “But I think the game will slow down pretty good for him, because he has an idea of what the offensive is trying to do to us (as a defense). His transition has been pretty good so far. There were some guys out there that were totally lost. He wasn’t lost out there and has a feel for what is going on.”
