July 3, 2008

LOGAN, Utah - Former Utah State quarterback and current Montreal Alouettes signal-caller Anthony Calvillo was named the Canadian Football League Offensive Player of the Week after his milestone performance in Saturday's season-opening win over Hamilton.

Calvillo, a native of Los Angeles, Calif. who played at USU from 1992-93, opening his 15th CFL season in dramatic fashion, finishing Saturday's game 25-of-37 for 293 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. The veteran also showed that he still has the ability to run the ball, carrying five times for 23 yards. The biggest play of the day came when Calvillo connected with Jason Armstead for a 22-yard play that put him ahead of Danny McManus (53,255 yards) for second on the all-time CFL passing list. Damon Allen holds the CFL career passing record with 72,381 yards from 1985-2007.

This is the second time that Hamilton has been the victim of a Calvillo milestone, as last summer he became the fourth player in CFL history to pass for 50,000 career yards in a victory over the Tiger-Cats.

Calvillo still holds the USU single-season total offense school record of 3,260 yards in 1993, as well as a school record 469 passing attempts that season. As an Aggie, Calvillo had six 300-yard passing games during the 1993 season, and also still holds the school record for touchdown passes in a game with five, a feat he accomplished twice. Calvillo also sits at No. 31 in the NCAA record book for career total offense per game with 265.4.

Calvillo began his CFL career in Las Vegas in 1994, before playing for Hamilton for three seasons and has spent the last 11 seasons with Montreal.

In 2002, Calvillo led the Alouettes to the CFL Grey Cup title, earning the Grey Cup Most Outstanding Player award. He was the Most Outstanding Player of the CFL in 2003 and the East Division Most Outstanding Player from 2002-04, as well as a CFL All-Star in 2002 and 2003. The 2004 season saw Calvillo pass for 6,041 yards, becoming only the fourth player in CFL history to top the nearly unattainable 6,000-yard single season passing milestone. Calvillo holds several Alouette records, including most career touchdown passes, pass attempts and pass completions.