Auburn football: Former Texas A&M DL says he was not ‘anywhere near athletic enough to stop a zone read ran by Nick Marshall’
Former Texas A&M DL Jay Arnold, who is now a podcast host of several different shows and is followed by over 11,000 people on Twitter, admitted what all SEC defenders circa the 2013 season should be able to: stopping Auburn football QB great Nick Marshall was a damn near impossible task.
Marshall became a household name on the Plains when he threw for 1,976 yards and 14 touchdowns during the 2013 season–the first under newly-promoted offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Gus Malzahn–and added another 1,068 yards and 12 touchdowns on the ground. That was the last national championship appearance for the Tigers on the gridiron, one that followed a 13-0 run through the regular season and SEC Championship game.
Arnold was answering a fan who asked a question only an ignoramus would think of: “why did (Texas A&M’s) defense not try to stop opponents in 2013?”
Here’s his answer, which included the aforementioned admission that Marshall was simply too elusive to stop back during the best Auburn football campaign of the Gus Malzahn era, to that bait:
I can’t speak for everyone else, but SEC football is hard and sometimes you don’t execute.
— Jay Arnold (@CoachJayArnold) July 10, 2022
All I remember is not being anywhere near athletic enough to stop a zone read ran by Nick Marshall. https://t.co/tpjgYBRtwF
Former Auburn football QB Nick Marshall is now a defender in the CFL
For those wondering if Nick Marshall is still playing football: he most certainly is. Perhaps those same fans may be wondering if Marshall is still making big plays at the professional level — and the answer is equally exciting: he sure as hell is. Nick Marshall’s 90-yard interception return in the fourth quarter of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 41-20 victory over the Montreal Alouettes was a historic one, as it gave him the all-time record in pick-six’s for the RoughRiders organization.
A steroid-related ban from the NFL has kept Marshall away from pro football’s flagship league, but perhaps Marshall can return to America and play in one of the alternative spring leagues in 2023: the re-launched XFL or the USFL, which will be putting on a second season.
Who wouldn’t want to see Marshall play for the defending USFL champion Birmingham Stallions next spring?