Columbus High School is facing South Dade in the 2015 Region 4-8A final, looking to advance to the Class 8A state semifinals for the fourth time in five years.
The Explorers take a first-quarter lead with a 32-yard touchdown run by their junior running back. He puts the game out of reach early in the third quarter, outracing two defenders in the backfield and taking off for a 67-yard score.
“The quarterback pitches it to him and he shoots up the sideline and just runs away from everybody,” says John Herron, the boys’ basketball coach at Miami Southridge at the time.
He leaves the game and immediately places a call to Randy Shannon, who’s in his first season as co-defensive coordinator at Florida. Herron is a UF alum and close friends with Shannon.
“I call Randy and say, ‘Man, I don’t know who this No. 5 is from Columbus, but y’all need to be on him.’”
“We already are,” Shannon says. “That’s C.J. Henderson. We offered him as a cornerback.’”
“Cornerback?!” Herron responds, in disbelief after watching Henderson’s 112-yard rushing night on eight carries in a 42-9 win.
“Yeah, he’s a running back now,” Shannon says, “but he’ll be a top-10 pick as a cornerback.”
The date was Nov. 27, 2015.
Four and a half years later, Shannon’s prediction rang true as Henderson was selected ninth overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2020 NFL Draft.
He’s the highest drafted UF defensive back since Joe Haden, his favorite player growing up. Like Henderson, Haden was also an offensive star in high school and didn’t make the switch to cornerback until arriving at UF. It took him just three full seasons of playing the position to warrant the No. 7 pick in 2010.
Henderson’s path to the NFL would follow a similar trajectory, but few saw it coming back when he was torching South Dade defenders in the playoffs. Following his junior season at Columbus, Henderson had a three-star rating and just two scholarship offers — albeit Florida and Miami.
“C.J. always wanted to be a corner on the next level, but he played running back at Columbus because he could get on the field quicker,” says his father, Chris Henderson Sr. “But he did so good early, he ended up getting stuck at that position.”
Due to his low ranking and lack of offers, Henderson even earned a nickname during the early stages of his recruitment.
“He was a ‘Shannon Special.’ People used to get on me about him all the time,” says Shannon, Henderson’s primary recruiter, who’s now the DC at UCF.
During his coaching career, he developed a reputation for taking under-the-radar prospects from South Florida who weren’t highly coveted or ranked, aka Shannon Specials. Henderson fell under that umbrella for his first three seasons at Columbus.
“A lot of people weren’t recruiting him at first,” Shannon says. “Nobody ever thought of him. Never knew who he was. For a while I heard, ‘Here’s another Shannon Special.’ That was because he didn’t have any corner tape.”
What he did have was sub-4.4 speed and a lengthy, 6-foot-1 frame. Henderson possessed the physical traits to play cornerback, but what about the skill set?
Shannon found his answer on special teams.
“Everyone looked at how he played running back, but I realized two things,” Shannon says. “No. 1, he was a very, very good track athlete. A lot of people didn’t know how good he was (10.40 100M). The second thing was, C.J. returned punts and kickoffs. When you return punts and kicks, that means you can stop on a dime. That’s what most people didn’t realize with him. His footwork was unbelievable.
“You would have to know, just by being in this business, how quick he is with his feet. The whole deal about being a defensive back is the transition. And when you see him return punts and kicks and his transition ability to go and stop on a dime and accelerate again, you know right then and there that he’s not a stiff, straight-line runner. He has the quickness and footwork to play corner.”
Henderson’s recruitment picked up during the spring of his junior year, with Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and LSU among the suitors. His offer list exceeded more than two dozen schools by the end of his senior season.
“All of a sudden, out of the blue, everybody jumped on him at the last minute,” Shannon says. “But it was always back and forth between us and Miami.”
Herron, who joined UF’s recruiting staff in June 2016, was worried about another program.
“Alabama was the one that scared me.”
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Henderson is the second member of his family to suit up in The Swamp.
His father played at Miami Southridge, which tied Orlando Evans in the 1991 Class 5A state title game at Florida Field. The Spartans head coach that season was Don Soldinger, who had two stints as a Miami assistant and coached running backs Edgerrin James, Willis McGahee, Clinton Portis and Frank Gore, among others.
Soldinger served as a father figure to Henderson, who didn’t grow up with his dad in the house. He went on play for Cincinnati, but the Hurricanes have always been his team.
“I’m a huge UM fan,” Henderson Sr. says. “They won the national championship when I was in high school. And my coach came to our high school from UM and then he went back, so I was feeling them. My kids grew up with a UM bathroom in the house.”
C.J., however, rooted for the in-state rival. He wore No. 5 at Columbus and UF because of Haden, who starred for the Gators when Henderson was in middle school.
“Florida has always been his favorite. That was just a childhood crush,” Henderson Sr. says of C.J. “When he was in junior high, he created a Facebook and the University of Florida was the picture on his page. So UF was his dream school.”
Henderson’s first recruiting visit to Florida, a Junior Day event in January 2016, had him ready to give his pledge. His father advised against it, encouraging C.J. to wait so he could see other schools before committing.
But just two weeks later, his son was a Hurricane.
“He went on a visit to UM and it was the same thing, he wanted to commit,” Henderson Sr. says. “I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ So it wasn’t like I did at Florida. I know that. I was happy, but he was the one making the decision. That’s what he wanted, and I was OK with it.”
Shannon and defensive backs coach Torrian Gray, Henderson’s secondary recruiter, continued their pursuit, getting him back on campus in the spring and summer. Also helping their cause was the hiring of Herron, who went to middle and high school with Henderson’s mother, Prudence.
A few weeks after attending Florida’s win over North Texas, Henderson backed off his commitment to Miami.
“Our whole deal was, we kept recruiting him but we didn’t talk football,” Shannon says. “We just talked about everyday life situations. Every now and then we would mention the good things we had at Florida and what he wanted to accomplish. I think he believed what we were saying and wanted to be a part of that. But it kept going back and forth between us and Miami.”
Enter Nick Saban.
The Crimson Tide turned up the heat on Henderson in the final months of his recruitment, hosting him for an official visit on Jan. 17. Herron, like Shannon, thought the decision would come down to the Gators and Hurricanes, but his trip to Tuscaloosa added a new threat.
“When C.J. went to Bama,” Herron says, “he got back and hit me up and was like, ‘Coach, I don’t know now.’ Him and his mom were impressed with the program Saban has and all the first-round picks.”
Saban had produced 18 first-rounders at Alabama to that point. Along with the seven first-round picks from his LSU tenure, he had 25 to his name.
After some research, Herron informed Henderson that only two of Saban’s first-rounds picks were actually cornerbacks — Kareem Jackson (2010) and Dee Milliner (2013). Shannon produced twice as many first-round corners at Miami.
“Once he saw that, it brought him back down,” Herron says.
Florida hosted Henderson for his last official visit the following weekend and landed a commitment from him in Jim McElwain’s office. He wanted to keep it silent until National Signing Day, to which the staff agreed.
But in the days leading up to his ceremony, Henderson began wavering. He had a strong bond with Miami cornerbacks coach Mike Rumph, one of Shannon’s four first-round picks at UM.
“Coach Rumph was what C.J. was trying to be,” Henderson Sr. says. “Former cornerback, first-round draft pick, played several years in the league. He wanted to be just like him.”
Most coaches will tell you recruiting is all about relationships. But with Henderson, he ultimately took relationships out of the equation to reach a decision on the eve of his announcement.
“A day before signing day,” Henderson Sr. says, “he finally came and told us, ‘I really thought about it and if all the coaches left both schools and everything changed, where would I rather be? It’s Florida.’ He thought that was a better fit, and he just went with his heart.
“It ended up being a wise choice, because the day after he signed with Florida his position coach (Gray) left for the Washington Redskins. We talk about that all the time. He went through a lot of changes in college, but he was able to handle it because he picked where he wanted to be.”
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