Toughness and team play separates Auburn’s Marks

By Robert Rousseau  |   Wednesday, March 19, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

Auburn Tigers
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Sen’Derrick Marks is a 6-foot-1, 288 pound starting defensive tackle for the Auburn Tigers. Of course, there was a time not so long ago when he was a 256 pound two star recruit coming out of high school that hadn’t even made the position rankings that Rivals puts out.

In other words, Sen’Derrick Marks wasn’t exactly the most sought after high school prospect of all time. Along with this, he went virtually unknown until late in the recruiting process despite accumulating 168 tackles and 28 sacks during his junior and senior high school years combined.

Of course, he eventually joined the Auburn Tigers after a courtship; and boy are they ever lucky that he did.

You see, Marks is a heckuva lot more talented than those recruitniks thought he was. What’s more, there’s something that seems to happen to a player with talent when the whole enchilada isn’t just handed to them. They learn about heart, toughness, team play, and responsibility.

And Marks is certainly a player that knows a little something about those characteristics.

After being redshirted as a freshman, Marks went on to become a Rivals.com 1st team Freshman All American and Sporting News 3rd team Freshman All American in 2006 after posting 38 total tackles and 3.5 sacks at defensive tackle.

So what did the team do? They switched him to strongside defensive end. Many players don’t have the athletic versatility, nor the desire to make such a switch. But Marks is a team player. Along with this, he responded very well in 2007 with 43 tackles and two sacks.

So where to in 2008? How about back to defensive tackle? Any complaints from Sen’Derrick?

Not a peep. And it’s just that kind of attitude that inspires confidence in a player.

“He was a great defensive end last year, and he was a great tackle the year before that,” defensive tackles coach Don Dunn said. “I don’t have any doubt he’s going to be a great tackle again this year.”

“Those are the guys that you have to have in your program if you’re going to be a championship caliber team,” new defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads said on Marks. “I’m glad he’s in this one.”

Oh yeah, and to top it all off Marks underwent offseason surgery to repair a hernia he got in the middle of the season. That’s right: The middle of the season. In other words, Marks played with the hernia.

Every have a hernia before? It’s not exactly easy to play through something like that.

“It wasn’t hurting,” said Marks about the injury. “They were like, ‘Stay out of the drills.’ But I kept going.”

Yep, sounds about right.

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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or...
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