Charles Demmings is built different

Vikings 5th round pick elected to stay at Stephen F. Austin, demonstrating how his approach separates him from the pack

Photo courtesy Stephen F. Austin athletics. By Erika Cruz

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By Matthew Coller

A much-discussed development in this year’s NFL Draft was the lack of FCS players that were selected.

For the first time since 1978, no FCS player was taken in the first three rounds of the draft and by the end of Day 3, 239 of the 257 draft picks came from the FBS schools.

What happened? In past years, the third day of the draft was often a treasure trove of underdogs from schools who don’t often play on network TV.

The explanation is simple: The combination of players being able to transfer at will, NIL money and revenue sharing has created a situation where it makes sense financially for very good FCS players to look for FBS opportunities where they can make more money. The FCS level is being treated like a minor league by power four schools.

One of the few players drafted in 2026 that didn’t chase a bigger stage and more dollars was Minnesota Vikings fifth-round draft pick Charles Demmings, a cornerback from Stephen F. Austin who elected to stay at his FCS university for five years despite having opportunities to move up.

Only a few minutes after getting the phone call from the Vikings that he would be joining Minnesota’s secondary, Demmings explained why he elected to stick with the Lumberjacks for his entire college career.

“NIL is getting super big around college football and I had those opportunities, but I had to ask myself, ‘what meant the most to me?’ And that was leaving the legacy and being a fountain, not a drain,” Demmings said. “Instead of looking for greener grass, build your own garden. Everything that SFA gave me…it was part of my story and I don’t look anywhere else or look at anyone else’s story.”

The interesting thing about Demmings ending up at SFA is that it wouldn’t have happened under normal circumstances.

When the Vikings’ fifth-rounder was in high school, he didn’t play varsity football until his senior year.

When Demmings was a junior, he decided that he was going to focus on track. The football program at his high school Mesquite Horn had been struggling so he chose the sport that could potentially net him a Division I scholarship. At the NFL Combine, Demmings’ track background was on display with his 42-inch vertical and 4.41 40-yard dash.

He was talked into playing as a senior and immediately Mesquite Horn co-defensive coordinator Cody Alexander, who now runs the popular X’s and O’s Substack Match Quarters, knew he was dealing with someone with unique traits.

“He comes out and it’s just like, he’s an alien,” Alexander said on the Purple Insider podcast. “He’s just an absolute alien. And this was in a conference that had Division I players all over the place and he definitely stood out.”

Once Demmings got on the field, his natural talent was unmistakable.

“He definitely stood out,” Alexander said. “He made a one-handed grab falling backwards where he was completely parallel to the ground and just snatched it out of the air. I mean, the kid is an absolute freak.”

But it wasn’t just Demmings’ physical gifts that were noticeable to Alexander in high school, it was also his attitude.

“He’s a big believer in manifesting things by talking about it,” Alexander said. “He’s always been that way. He’s been one of my favorite football players I’ve ever coached. I only got to coach him for a year, but it was like, man, he’s such a special kid.”

During Demmings’ senior year, Alexander tried his darndest to help the explosive defensive back get a scholarship to a Division I university.

“The only reason why he went to SFA is because he did not play his junior year,” Alexander said. “I begged everybody. I called everybody that I know in Power Four, and even some smaller colleges and I was like, ‘you have to sign this kid, he’s going to play in the league.’”

The offers that Alexander was begging for never arrived, so Demmings chose to attend the FCS school that believed in him.

When he first arrived as SFA, however, he didn’t get on the field much. He only saw 15 plays in his first year (2021). His first season getting more work didn’t go seamlessly either. Demmings allowed a 110.7 passer rating into his coverage in 2022 and had a 49.3 PFF coverage grade.

The reason so many folks believe in the Vikings’ new cornerback is that he’s always getting better. Following his rocky start as a sophomore, Demmings took off.

In 2023, he emerged as a full-time starter for SFA and began making plays. He was targeted just 38 times in 273 coverage snaps and had two INTs and four pass breakups while allowing on 18 receptions and a 72.7 passer rating.

When Mike Mutz arrived there to take over the defensive coordinator job in 2024, it was already clear that SFA had an up-and-coming player. Under Mutz, he took his game to a new level. In 2024, Demmings was incredibly good, giving up just 18 receptions in 43 targets with five PBUs and two INTs.

Following that season, Demmings put his name into the transfer portal but ultimately withdrew and decided to stick with SFA and play out his final season.

“Stephen F. Austin was the biggest school that had offered him [out of high school], so he always felt, ‘Stephen F. Austin believed in me when really not a lot of other people did,’” Mutz told Purple Insider over the phone. “I think he deep down, leaving the legacy and having an opportunity to win a championship burned so much hotter than taking a bunch of money from these quote-unquote bigger schools.”

Part of the equation for Demmings was that the Lumberjacks team had gained momentum and it appeared going into 2025 that their team might be near a breakthrough. In 2023, they only won three games and zero in conference but in 2024 they saw a major turnaround with a seven-win season and four Southland Conference wins.

Mutz believes that Demmings saw the potential in what the team could do in 2025 if he stuck around.

“The thing that resonated was, he wanted to be talked about at SFA for the next 40 years,” Mutz said. “It was really important to him that he could leave footprints in the sand, essentially like the dinosaurs did millions of years ago. We’re still talking about that now, right? That’s what he did, he left footprints in the sand that will be talked about at SFA for probably the next 40 years.”

The 2025 season turned out exactly how Demmings hoped it would, both for himself and for the program. They went 11-3 overall, 8-0 in the Southland Conference and defeated Abilene Christian in the second round of the playoffs in an epic 41-34 game.

You’ll never guess who put the bow on the victory with an epic play to close the game.

“We talked about all we need to close the game out is one takeaway, just one takeaway — everybody was talking about it on the sidelines, and sure enough, they were foolish enough to throw on him,” Mutz said. “The final play of his career, he goes up and picks the ball off in the playoffs, and unfortunately landed and knocked his shoulder out. But the final play of his career won the biggest playoff game that had been played to Stephen F. Austin since 1995. So, I will never forget that memory as long as I live because it was such a great way to close out a career.”

Demmings’ final stat line for 2025, per PFF, was 37 times targeted, 18 receptions allowed (48%) with one touchdown given up, four interceptions and six pass breakups and a 39.8 QB rating allowed. So he either had a PBU or interception once every 3.7 passes in his direction.

On draft night, Demmings mentioned having played in different defenses throughout his college career. By the time he was a senior, Mutz gave him an island role as a boundary cornerback, a role inspired by some of the greats at the position.

“Growing up, I watched in 1994 what the 49ers did with Deion [Sanders],” Mutz said. “They pretty much said, ‘all right, Deion, you’ve got so-and-so, everyone else were playing 10-on-10. That allows you to double somebody else, add a guy to the box to play the run, account for the quarterback if it’s a quarterback run-driven game.”

Mutz said that teams often use formations with three receivers to one side and put their best receivers on the boundary in college so Demmings’ job would be to take that player out of the game.

That doesn’t mean teams didn’t try to get something going against him.

“We knew we had an attack dog there and so wanted to press him up and basically dare people to try and throw a deep,” Mutz said. “Every once in a while they may have completed one, but most of the time it was incomplete pass and it was the end of the road for those guys… a lot of people tried it early in the game. ‘Oh, is he as good as advertised?' Two incompletions, yeah, he’s better. Okay, let’s do something else.’”

While his career ended as the Deion Sanders of the Lumberjacks, the benefit of Demmings developing over a number of years and growing from a part-time player to the No. 1 shutdown corner was that he saw a number of different roles during his time at SFA.

“Throughout my whole career at SFA, I went through a couple different schemes but it gave me a lot of tools in my toolbox,” Demmings said. “But I love press-man [coverage].”

As important as Demmings’ dominant performance when any QB dared to test him, his leadership stood out just as much to his coach.

“That senior group was just so special and so spectacular but he was the voice on that team,” Mutz said. “Nobody knows the commercial anymore, but it’s like when EF Hutton talks, people listen. When Charles spoke, you could always hear a pin drop.”

Where does Demmings’ attitude come from? It’s one thing to stay with the school that brought you but another to become that team’s unquestioned leader and driving force of energy.

“He completely trusts God’s plan for him and when you do that, it’s not that you don’t have troubles, it’s just you get over them quicker and that is his superpower,” Mutz said. “It’s his faith in God, his faith in himself, and his family. And he walks it and lives it every day. His attitude, his energy, they’re infectious.”

Mutz continued…

“Some people are energy vampires. He is an energy giver. He electrifies the room and the people around him. Because not everyone’s going through something but he positively affects all the people around him.”

Demmings’ remarkable disposition was on display on draft night. Everyone is excited to be drafted but he displayed a controlled enthusiasm that suggested he views reaching the NFL as just the beginning of his journey rather than the final goal.

So how did a player who was focused on track until his senior year end up with this type of leadership and commitment to improvement?

“I can tell you exactly when I knew that football went from a habit to a love and a passion: It was April 14th, 2022. And that was the day I surrendered my life to Christ because I understood from that point that I was going to, I was never going to live my life for me again,” Demmings said. “I was going to do everything I could to serve the person next to me.”

The Vikings spent a lot of time in the pre-draft process getting to know Demmings and his memorable personality. They saw him at the Senior Bowl, met with him at his pro day and spent time with him via Zoom call leading up to the draft.

“His personality kind of jumps out at you, his energy,” Vikings director of college scouting Mike Sholiton. “I’ve already gotten a text from my wife that wants to buy his jersey. So, you know, there’s just a lot of excitement and bringing in new energy, a lot of talent…we’re feeling good about the person as well as the talent.”

While it does speak to Demmings’ character that he elected to stay with SFA, there is a drawback, which is that he will have to make a bigger leap in terms of the talent that he’s going against than players who went to colleges like Florida or Michigan.

In terms of where he will need to make his biggest gains, Mutz said:

“I would think probably the sheer volume of the X’s and O’s. In college, you’ve got to carry a lot of defense, but nowhere near what the strain is on the NFL guys because they do football all day long. Our guys still have 15, 18 hours of class to go to. So I think that’ll be really, really big to learn all the packages. I’m sure that they’ve got a nickel, a dime, a dollar, a penny and all that.”

He continued…

“So there’s different roles and different jobs in all of them. So I think that’ll probably be the biggest change. And then, of course, competition. You were covering really good Division I athletes at SFA. Now you’re covering the most elite athletes in the United States. And so the adjustment there of covering [Justin] Jefferson every day is only going to make you better.”

Demmings’ former coaches agree that he’s going to take on the challenge with the same exuberance as he did in college and his game will continue to elevate.

“I just think his best football is way ahead of him,” Mutz said.

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