How Seneca Valley CB, Albany commit, Julian Hunt’s self-talk paid off: ‘You have to say it to yourself’
BUTLER TWP — Julian Hunt trusts the man in the mirror.
The Seneca Valley senior cornerback/receiver, an Albany commit, enters each Friday night thinking he’s better than whoever’s lining up across from him. Since his days in pee-wee football, he even has a habit of looking at his reflection before games — as he applies his eye black — and telling himself things he’d want to hear after the game’s over.
“I’ll look myself in the eyes,” Hunt said earlier this month at Butler Eagle Football Media Day, held in the gymnasium at Butler Senior High School. “Because no one else, I can’t tell them what to tell me, because it doesn’t work. You have to say it to yourself. ... Because if I just said, ‘I’m the best guy, I’m not gonna do this (or that),’ it’s just thoughts.”
The self-talk stops there, but the chatter certainly doesn’t.
The coverman who Raiders teammate and close friend Josiah Edwards describes as a lockdown corner enjoys bickering with opponents — within bounds, of course.
“I think it’s just saying dumb stuff, because it kinda throws them off the game (and) you’re sitting there laughing the whole time,” Hunt said. “You start a conversation and then act like you don’t care about it afterwards. I think that really gets in somebody’s head. ... Be like, ‘I like your cleats, where’d you get those from?’ And they’ll start telling you, and you be like, ‘No, I don’t care.’ And you just walk off.”
A season ago as SV went 4-6 under first-year head coach Don Barclay, Hunt put his money where his mouth was. Despite missing three games due to injury, he posted 19 tackles, three pass breakups and an interception. His impact told a more well-rounded story than his numbers.
“He could shut down half the field, and there were a lot of teams that had trouble with that,” Barclay said. “So as he develops and really embraces that role, I think it will help the whole team out for us.”
Hunt will be lined up on the left boundary as a cornerback but will roll back to safety in Cover 2 schemes. If the Raiders have their way, it will be him, his task and tumbleweeds on that side of the field.
“They trust me to be 1-on-1 with no safety help over the top,” Hunt said.
“As a safety, I can put my trust in Julian,” Edwards said. “It’s almost like he’s taking a load off my back.”
Hunt said he “had almost every PSAC offer, and then I had (Robert Morris), as well — another D-I school.” By getting his commitment to Albany out of the way, he can focus on playing for the love of it.
