Sometimes a successful athletic career requires a GPS kind of rerouting.

Former Northwestern Lehigh football star Justin Homes has played for four different head coaches and has had to learn four different offensive systems and three different positions.

After stops at Kent State and Marshall, he played his senior year at Pitt, where he recently caught six passes for 100 yards in a loss to East Carolina at the Go Bowling Military Bowl game.

“I only had 30 yards at the half,” said Holmes. “In the second half, I was open underneath the secondary and our quarterback targeted me more often.”

At Pitt, he finished the season with 28 receptions for 301 yards and four touchdowns. At Kent State for two years, he caught 20 passes for 188 yards. And at Marshall, he caught one pass for 11 yards.

Holmes was a wide receiver and linebacker for his first two years at Northwestern under head coach Josh Snyder before switching to quarterback as a junior and senior.

“We had Devin Bollinger as our quarterback during Justin’s first two years,” said Snyder. “Our philosophy is to place the best athlete behind the center and we picked him to replace Bollinger and the transition Justin made was very fluid.”

Holmes’ statistics at Northwestern were outstanding.

He caught 36 passes for 901 yards and 14 touchdowns.

At quarterback, he threw for 2,675 yards and 34 TDs, ran for 2,480 yards and found pay dirt 33 more times. All totaled, he accumulated over 6,000 yards and scored 81 touchdowns for the Tigers. He was named All-State three times.

“Justin was a joy to coach,” said Snyder, “and his performance at Northwestern speaks for itself as he obviously contributed to so much to our team’s success.”

The feeling is mutual.

“I loved playing for Coach Snyder,” Holmes said. “He was the biggest reason for all the success me and my teammates had there.”

Heavily recruited at quarterback, wide receiver and linebacker, Holmes decided on Kent State after high school and quickly found out he would have to learn another position that he had never played.

“They wanted me to play tight end,” he said. “I never had to block much in high school so I had to learn to use my footwork, hand leverage and gain the mentality needed to play tight end to become good at the position. I also bulked up my high school weight and muscle from 205 to 245.”

He was not redshirted at Kent State, but after a season with a record of 1-11, Holmes decided to leave Ohio for a better opportunity and transferred to Marshall.

On the gridiron it was another disappointment, but in the classroom and carrying his academic credits from KSU, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics.

“I went back into the transfer portal and I received five offers,” he said of his decision to leave Marshall. “A big factor in choosing Pitt was that I’d be closer to home.

“I’m working on my Master’s at Pitt now, but I’m also training for Pro Day and see if I can get drafted into the NFL.”

Moving from college to college to college and position to position to position, he has already proven the insight he holds in case he needs to change his future plans, which include lofty aspirations to stay in the game he loves.

“If my playing days are over,” he said. “Then I’ll set my sights on coaching football at the college level with the ultimate goal to become an NFL scout and general manager.”

Justin Holmes has been inside a jungle full of challenges that might have had him walking out and quitting the game he has loved since he was a boy.

He’s been a Tiger, a Golden Eagle, a Bison, and now a Panther. With these proud and fearsome mascots on his resume, expect to hear more about his successful endeavors in the coming months.