You can see it on the inside of Nick Marshall’s right bicep, in large script letters and permanent ink. It is most visible when he cocks his arm to pass the football. It’s a revelation of sorts, a tattoo that reads “Georgia.”
Marshall rationalizes it nicely these days, saying simply he’s “a natural-born Georgia boy.” And he is, hailing from the tiny town of Pineview in Wilcox County. But he got the tattoo shortly before he arrived at the University of Georgia as a 2011 signee and ballyhooed member of the Bulldogs’ “Dream Team” recruiting class. So it once had a different meaning.
Things have changed a bit since then.
Not only is Marshall no longer at Georgia, but he no longer is a defensive back. He’s now a quarterback at Auburn and a huge reason the Tigers (9-1, 5-1 SEC) are ranked No. 7 and are favored to defeat No. 25 Georgia (6-3, 4-2) in Saturday’s game at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
“A very talented guy, a very dangerous runner,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said. “He’s got a strong arm, too, so he’s definitely a dual-threat issue.”
Marshall would have liked to remain at UGA, a school for which he went to a great deal of trouble to play. But he wasn’t given that choice.
Marshall was kicked off the team by Richt in February 2012, almost a year to the day after he signed with the Bulldogs. UGA’s only explanation, then and now, has been that Marshall “violated team rules.” But the truth is that he committed a serious breach of an unwritten code in organized athletics — he stole from a teammate.
Specifically, Marshall served as a lookout for teammate Sanford Seay as Seay entered the room of a fellow freshman football player and stole cash. Details are sketchy after that, but they got caught. The victim does not wish to be identified, but he and his family chose not to press charges.
However, the incident was reported to Richt, and both players were dismissed from the team, along with fellow freshman defensive back Chris Sanders, whose role in the affair remains unclear. It was an event that shook the Bulldogs’ locker room.
“Someone came up and told me about it during class,” said Georgia safety Corey Moore, one of Marshall’s closest friends at Georgia. “Once the word got around, man, as a freshman, you can’t believe it happened to one of your teammates.”
Said cornerback Damian Swann, then Marshall’s roommate: “It was just a mistake, guys really not thinking about what’s going on. I’m pretty sure those guys would have taken it back if they could, but they couldn’t.”
To his credit, Marshall has turned that negative into as positive a story as one could script. Four days after Richt called Marshall into his office to inform him of his fate, Marshall was in a car on his way to Garden City Community College in Kansas. The plan was to play quarterback and to change his life, and it has come to pass.
“As far as what happened, he’s always been very remorseful and honest about the situation,” said Mark Ledford, Marshall’s coach at Wilcox County High and a close family confidante. “But the day he headed west to Garden City, I think he left all that behind him. He put it away. I think he’s looked forward a whole lot more than he’s looked backward.
“But I will say I haven’t ever heard him say anything negative towards Georgia. Not to me. He’s been away a lot since then. It’s not like he’s been home much.”
No, Marshall has been pretty busy. Marshall left Pineview on a Monday morning and was sitting in a classroom in Garden City, Kan., the next day. In 10 months at the junior college, he managed to graduate, pass for 3,142 yards and rush for another 1,095 yards.
Several teams lined up to re-recruit Marshall, including Georgia. But the lure of running Gus Malzahn’s spread offense at Auburn was too great to pass up. The presence of assistants Rodney Garner, who was with Marshall at Georgia, and Dameyune Craig, who had recruited Marshall for FSU, made it a no-brainer.
The Tigers are grateful for that little victory. In a fashion eerily similar to one that occurred with another once-shamed and ousted quarterback — remember Cam Newton? — Marshall arrived on The Plains and has lifted the football program on his shoulders.
Though he didn’t arrive in Auburn until July, Marshall beat out two others in a preseason quarterback competition. In the nine games since, he has passed for 1,301 yards, rushed for 734 and piloted an offense that tops the SEC in rushing (320 ypg) and ranks fourth in scoring (38.6 ppg). The on-field production tells half the story, Auburn folks say.
“It’s just been a total transformation,” Garner said this week. “… He has really accepted the leadership role of being a quarterback in the SEC. He embraced it. The kids love him. They believe in him. They’ve rallied around him. That’s what you have to have in a quarterback. … Him being able to do what he has in this amount of time is really remarkable. We’re eager to see how much more he’s going to be able to grow and where he’s going to be able to take this thing to.”
Marshall wouldn’t be interviewed for this story. Or, at least, Auburn decided he wouldn’t be interviewed. But he spoke briefly with reporters about facing his former team after his stunning performance against Tennessee on Saturday. In a 55-23 win, Marshall accounted for 214 of the Tigers’ 444 yards rushing and scored two touchdowns. He was named SEC offensive player of the week Monday.
“It doesn’t mean too much,” Marshall said. “It’s just another opponent that’s in our way, blocking what we’re trying to capitalize on.”
Ledford isn’t sure that’s entirely true.
“There’s going to be a lot of emotions I’m sure,” said Ledford, who has been to three of Marshall’s games and plans to attend the game Saturday. “A lot of those guys he’s close to. Will it mean a little bit more to him? Probably. But I know that Nick stayed pretty calm through all the games he’s played this year.”
Malzahn feels confident that Marshall won’t let his emotions get the best of him.
“If he holds true to past experience this year, he doesn’t get too high or too low. There isn’t too much that rattles him. He stays pretty calm no matter what the moment.”
Seeing what he has done at Auburn, a lot of people wonder why Marshall didn’t play quarterback while he was at Georgia. Actually, that was Marshall’s choice.
The AJC Super 11 selection initially was recruited by the Bulldogs as a quarterback. However, at the time they had Aaron Murray in the fold and were heavily into the recruitment of Christian LeMay, then a top-5 quarterback prospect.
Meanwhile, Marshall also was a four-star recruiting prospect in basketball and had a desire to play with AAU teammate Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at Georgia. With counsel from Ledford, Marshall reasoned that he could more easily play two sports if he played cornerback rather than quarterback in football. And there was the added incentive of a more likely NFL future at that position.
Marshall’s future beyond college remains a question. The Tigers run 71 percent of the time. While spread offenses are more prevalent in the NFL these days, nobody runs it that much.
“Right now Auburn’s running for a zillion yards per game, and he’s part of that,” Ledford said. “They’re not having him throw it a bunch, but I could see him possibly as a hybrid guy on offense. He could play a receiver like a (Randall) Cobb at Kentucky (now with the Green Bay Packers) or he could play a defensive back. I don’t know how it will all work out.”
So far, at least, it’s working out pretty well for Marshall.
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