Former Florida State defensive back Javien Elliott's been defying the odds for so long now, it's almost second nature.
A week after the Seminoles' 2014 BCS National Championship Game victory over Auburn and three years after Elliott's dad, Jay, first placed a phone call to the FSU athletic department seeking to sell the team on his recently graduated son's services, Florida State finally came calling with a priority walk-on offer.
A year after that, Elliott was pulling down ballcarriers and creating havoc as a member of the vaunted FSU secondary.
And now, after just one season with the 'Noles, after 10 collegiate games, six starts, four tackles for loss, two forced fumbles, one interception and a sack, Elliott is planning for the 2016 NFL Draft.
"Playing football for so long and for it to be my dream, it just didn't feel right. But I knew I didn't want to give up on my dreams," Elliott told Headlines and Global News recently of what it was like coming out of high school without being offered. "Just comparing myself to other players, it was like 'where did I go wrong?'
"It was definitely depressing."
Elliott, despite a successful four years at Rutherford High School, wasn't sure he'd even get the opportunity to play football again, let alone for Jay's favored Seminoles.
"I just wasn't exposed," Elliott said. "I come from a small town, it was very - not rare - but people don't make it out to play sports, especially football around where I'm from."
But through three years at Tallahassee Community College, training on his own and playing intramural flag football just to keep his competitive juices flowing, Elliott proved he was willing to work to make his dream a reality.
And following that BCS championship, head coach Jimbo Fisher and FSU finally saw what Jay and Javien had known all along - Elliott could play.
"I'm more of a football player than I am an athlete," Elliott said. "I'm athletic, but - running a 40 and all that, I'm good at, but when it comes to on the football field, I'm a whole different person, because I just feel free on the field. I feel like I can do anything anybody else can do."
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You'd probably excuse guys like Tyler Hunter, another former Seminole defensive back headed to the NFL, and Elliott if they were a little awestruck every time they took the field for FSU. Really, how many people get to say that they operated as part of a defensive secondary with future NFLers, some even bona fide stars, like the Vikings' Xavier Rhodes, or soon-to-be first-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft Jalen Ramsey?
Not many.
But for guys like Hunter and Elliott, Keelin Smith and Lamarcus Brutus, the lesser known of the FSU defensive backs attempting the leap from college athlete to professional, it's just par for the course, just another day at the office.
That doesn't mean they were lulled by the stature of their defensive counterparts though. No, what makes Hunter and Elliott attractive to NFL teams is likely their proven ability to play alongside players like Rhodes and Ramsey, to fill their duties, knowing that the other guys will fulfill their own as well.
"I just focus on myself," Hunter said. "I know that everybody just needs to do their job. Focus on yourself and don't worry about what the other people are going to do, just know that they're going to do their job and you've got to trust in yourself that you're going to do your job."
And Elliott, the guy who spent a few years playing flag football - "I wasn't trying to impress people," Elliott said, adding that he "just wanted to stay active," before admitting, finally, that yes he was by far the best player on the field - at a community college, feels the same.
Even if that first practice after he'd landed at FSU was a bit on the nerve-wracking side.
"I didn't know how I would do or how - when you watch them play you go, 'Oh, they're all top recruits, they're all fast, they're all athletic,' and I didn't really have that confidence then, in my first practice," Elliott admitted. "It was very fast and I had to catch on, but even from my first practice I know, OK, I'd be able to compete with the players that they had."
After that, it was just getting used to the speed, the pace of practice and the game. Getting used to seeing Ramsey and Brutus and competing with, playing alongside them, every day.
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But for guys like Elliott, Hunter and Smith - FSU's "other" defensive backs - the jump to the NFL isn't going to be an easy one.
Hunter has dealt with a number of serious injuries, including a neck issue early in his sophomore season that nearly robbed him of not just that year but the game altogether. And Elliott's odds-defying luck, especially at just 5-foot-10, 184 pounds with good, if not necessarily special, athletic traits, is going to run out eventually and may be unable to overcome the NFL where every player has something about their game that sets them apart.
Really, the only reason Elliott got his opportunity to shine last year was a spate of mid-season injuries, including to Hunter and rising Seminoles star Trey Marshall. He made the most of them, put good work on tape, but still, Elliott's climb to the NFL will be tougher than most.
But just as Hunter fought through that neck injury and overcame the subsequent surgical procedure and the knee injury that caused him to struggle during his final collegiate season, just as Elliott kept hope alive through three lonely years at Tallahassee Community College, these guys won't give up easily.
"Just got to work hard," Hunter said. "Every single day come in ready to work, because everybody's fighting for a position and you've got to come in and be ready to contribute to the team however you can, whether it's special teams or defense or whatever."
Hunter, a strong safety once viewed as a likely high pick in a future draft, failed to stand out again in either the 2014 or 2015 seasons. Despite his versatility and big-play ability as a punt returner, his production simply tailed off. And when he hurt his knee prior to 2015 and followed it with a concussion mid-season, Hunter's Seminoles career suddenly took a turn he never expected.
Ultimately, Hunter, despite once sharing the team lead in interceptions with Rhodes, a former first-round pick in his own right, finished his last year at Florida State with just 26 tackles and a lone interception.
"I didn't really feel explosive," Hunter said of his lackluster 2015, using a term that was once how NFL prognosticators described him. "I wasn't really my same self as before."
If he's going to make the leap to the NFL, Hunter will have to prove to the league's evaluators that he's all the way back. Because the film study and the instincts are still there - but teams want to know if the athleticism is as well.
As for Elliott, though he's got all the heart in the world, he suffers from the most common affliction among NFL hopefules - ordinary size and skills that just don't stand out.
Elliott ran an unofficial 4.41 40 at 5-10, 184-pounds. For a corner or nickelback - which is how teams showing interest in Elliott view him - he'd have been .09 seconds faster than the combine average.
A good showing to be sure and one that, combined with his productive pro day, certainly turned a few heads, but it's a time that just isn't going to have NFL personnel men buzzing, especially when it comes attached to just six collegiate starts and that slight frame.
Just don't tell Elliott that.
"I just have a passion for the game and I love to go out there and play football," Elliott said, shrugging off the suggestion that his size may concern NFL decision-makers. "To be able to play at such a high level, you want to go out there and be the best.
"So yeah, I do have a chip on my shoulder. But I don't have that chip on my shoulder because I'm a little guy, or a smaller guy."
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Hunter considers himself a smart player, takes pride in his film work, his ability to understand situational football.
"I just know the game," Hunter said. "I have a pretty good recognition of what the offense is going to do in certain situations."
Elliott's all about imposing his will, wants the offense to know he's there.
"I'm not afraid of coming up and making tackles," he said.
Both skillsets that plenty of teams will covet come draft day and the hours immediately thereafter. But it may not be enough, unless Hunter can prove that all of his injury issues are behind him, unless Elliott can prove heart matters more than size.
Perhaps Smith, a player once viewed as the heir apparent to Rhodes who was never quite able to break into the Seminoles' starting lineup, has the best handle on things. Conversations with former FSU standouts-turned-NFLers like Vince and Karlos Williams provided the fifth-year senior a blueprint that he, and maybe Hunter and Elliott, can follow for success.
"They told me it's important to have a strong mental mind set," Smith said via text. "That's very important because you're going to have some up and downs. Also, to just play football and be willing to make sacrifices to be great."
The game of football is, if nothing else, an act of attrition. Sacrifices, losses - they're part of the fabric of the game.
Elliott may be small, but he's the kind of guy who will scratch and claw his way onto an NFL roster. The kind of guy willing to do whatever it takes, fill whatever role available to keep his hope, his dream alive.
"Competitive. Physical. I look at myself as someone who doesn't want to let a pass get caught on me," Elliott said, pausing to look for further words to describe himself, before landing back where he'd begun. "I'm just very competitive. I'm very physical."
Competitive fire is what's going to get these guys an opportunity in the NFL. It's not pedigree, and it's not talent - at least not talent alone.
It's the unmeasurable - the "want to," the will, the desire to see it through, to play the game the right way.
And it's what Elliott, Hunter and the rest of FSU's "other" NFL draft hopefuls believe can keep them on a football field.
"I just do it because I love to play the game," Elliott said. "Because that's how I am as a person."
