Anthony Calvillo

Anthony Calvillo (born August 23, 1972) is an American coach and retired player of Canadian football.

He is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and a former professional Canadian football quarterback.

With Calvillo leading the offense, USU won the Big West Conference championship for the first time since 1979.

The Aggies finished the year with a 42–33 win over Ball State in the Las Vegas Bowl; Calvillo passed for 386 yards and three touchdowns to win MVP honors.

It was Utah State's first-ever bowl victory.

Calvillo spent two seasons at Mt. San Antonio College before transferring to Utah State University in 1992.

After a solid junior year as starting quarterback, he had a terrific senior season in 1993.

He set a school record with 3,260 yards of total offense in the regular season, and he also set a school record with five touchdown passes in a single game (he did it twice).

After not being drafted by an NFL team, Calvillo started his Canadian Football League career in 1994 with the US expansion Las Vegas Posse.

After the Posse folded a year later in the CFL U.S. expansion experiment, Calvillo was selected first overall by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the dispersal draft.

While in Hamilton, Calvillo served as a backup quarterback to players such as Steve Taylor and Matt Dunigan.

In 1998, Calvillo signed as a free agent with the Montreal Alouettes, where he became one of the most outstanding quarterbacks in history.

Calvillo won three Grey Cup championships in 2002, 2009, and 2010, and named Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in 2002.

He led the Alouettes to the 2002 Grey Cup, their first in 25 years, where he was named the most valuable player in the game.

He also won the CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award three times, in 2003, 2008, and 2009, which ties him for second all-time behind Doug Flutie.

During the 2003 CFL season, Calvillo broke numerous Montreal Alouette passing records, completing 408 of 675 passing attempts for 5,891 yards and 37 touchdowns.

In 2004, with 6,041 passing yards, Calvillo became the fourth quarterback in CFL history to pass for more than 6,000 yards in a single season (Doug Flutie, David Archer, and Kent Austin being the other three), earning him the East Division nomination for Most Outstanding Player for the third consecutive year.

With Calvillo quarterbacking the Alouettes' offence, the 2004 Alouettes became the first team in CFL history to have four players with over 1,000 yards receiving in the same season: Ben Cahoon (1183 yards), Jeremaine Copeland (1154 yards), Thyron Anderson (1147 yards), and Kwame Cavil (1090 yards).

In 2005, Calvillo and the Alouettes repeated the feat of four receivers over 1,000 yards: Kerry Watkins (1364 yards), Terry Vaughn (1113 yards), Ben Cahoon (1067 yards), and Dave Stala (1037 yards).

The 2008 CFL season saw Calvillo hit a number of career milestones.

On June 26, in a game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Calvillo surpassed Danny McManus to become the second-all-time leading passer in the CFL.

On July 31, in another game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Calvillo became the fourth quarterback in league history to reach 300 career touchdown passes.

On August 15, 2008, in a game against the Toronto Argonauts, Calvillo became the second quarterback in CFL history after Damon Allen to reach 4,000 career pass completions.

With 5,633 passing yards and 43 touchdown passes, Calvillo won the 2008 Most Outstanding Player award.

Calvillo led the Montreal Alouettes to the 2008 Grey Cup final, which the Alouettes lost 22–14 to the Calgary Stampeders.

In 2009, Calvillo added to his club records while reaching more CFL milestones.

On July 23, 2009, he surpassed Canadian Football Hall of Famer Ron Lancaster's 334 career touchdown passes to move into second place all time.

He sat out two games during the regular season, but still accumulated 4639 yards while posting a remarkable 72.0% completion rate, the second best single-season completion rate in CFL history behind Dave Dickenson's 73.98% mark set in 2005.

Calvillo won his third Grey Cup on November 28, 2010, at 98th Grey Cup in Edmonton, Alberta where he defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders 21-18 for the second year in a row.

He added to his record total of passing yards in Grey Cup games with 2470 yards, as well as setting the record for Grey Cup starts with eight.

He was professional football's all-time passing yards leader from 2011 to 2020, and is first in all-time CFL passing yards.

In his career, he passed for 79,816 yards and is one of ten professional quarterbacks to have completed over 400 touchdown passes (the others being Brett Favre, Warren Moon, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, and Ben Roethlisberger).

Calvillo announced his retirement on January 21, 2014.

Calvillo was an assistant coach for the Alouettes from 2015 to 2017 and with the Toronto Argonauts in 2018.

Calvillo was born in Los Angeles, California.

While attending La Puente High School, he was a two-sport standout in football and basketball.

He is of Mexican-American descent.

Calvillo grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father; sports were his escape from his turbulent childhood.

Calvillo led Montreal to a 16-point fourth quarter comeback victory in the 97th Grey Cup on Nov. 29, when the Alouettes defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders 28–27 on a last-second field goal known as the "13th Man" finish.

His passing-yards reign ended in 2020 when Brees surpassed his record.