Marcus Harris

[aubiefifty 18,242]

Auburn’s Marcus Harris still drawing from lessons learned during time at Kansas

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

5-7 minutes

The car problems are what really flustered Marcus Harris.

His mother, Pamela Blocton, always used to take care of those when he was in high school at Park Crossing. She would take his car to the shop, get it fixed and bring it back home. Simple as that. But now Harris was 811 miles away in Lawrence, Kansas, a freshman at Kansas in 2019. He could call his mom for answers, but he had to learn to handle things on his own.

Read more Auburn football: Freshman DB J.D. Rhym not afraid of the moment during first spring at Auburn

“All about the ball”: Auburn’s defense putting greater emphasis on turnovers this spring

Auburn defenders praise “smooth” transition from Derek Mason to Jeff Schmedding at DC

“At first, I was kind of mad, kind of sad, because I ain’t have no one to help me,” Harris said. “But at the time, I felt like I was becoming a man…. I had to grow up real fast.

He began typing out to-do lists and methodically checked items off as he completed them. There was a sense of responsibility, and one of accomplishment, as he navigated his first time being away from home — and from his mom — while also juggling his freshman season of college football.

That year at Kansas, the former three-star redshirted with the Jayhawks, appearing in the team’s first and last games of the season. Whenever he had the opportunity, he would return to Montgomery — always driving, never flying. He didn’t want to leave his car in Lawrence, even if it meant added wear and tear on the vehicle.

“(It was) 12 hours of like nothing to see,” Harris said. “It’s just like land. It was real boring…. I just had to listen to music and just be focused the whole way.”

Focus and accountability were a central theme for Harris during his time in Lawrence. He learned independence that first year, and he earned a bigger role for the Jayhawks during the second year. He appeared in eight of Kansas’ nine games during the pandemic-shortened season, making five starts along the defensive line while recording 32 tackles and a team-best 7.5 for a loss.

Then he entered the transfer portal last May. Auburn soon reached out. It had always been his dream school, but the previous coaching staff didn’t offer him when he was in high school. That changed with Bryan Harsin and then-defensive coaches Derek Mason and Nick Eason. The Tigers offered, and Harris jumped at the opportunity to be closer to home and in the SEC.

“I was like, ‘I can’t turn it down,’” Harris said. “…I was so far away from home at the time. I was like, it’s closer to home, my family gets to see me play. It’s a win-win situation for me.”

Harris has made the most of his new situation on the Plains; he thrived last season while starting at defensive tackle for Auburn. He was described as being “as advertised” during fall camp, but he admits there was an adjustment period. It took a few weeks into the season before he really settled in; that came during the team’s trip to Penn State.

“That was my first big game being there,” Harris said. “Seeing all them fans there makes you real nervous, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m playing in front of nearly 100,000 fans.’ I ain’t ever played with that many people in the stadium before. After that, it kind of calmed me down, like you’ve been in the biggest stadium in college football, so now you know what to expect and now you can just keep moving forward and keep adding on to that.”

He finished the season with 27 tackles, including six for a loss and a pair of sacks. He also scored on a fumble recovery on the road against Arkansas. Now he’s looking to build on that Auburn debut in 2022.

After playing at 279 pounds last season, Harris has bulked up to 294 pounds this spring. He says he never anticipated pushing 300 pounds as a defensive lineman, but he feels comfortable with the added weight. Now it’s about producing at that size — and under a new defensive coordinator in Jeff Schmedding and new position coach in Jimmy Brumbaugh.

While Mason and Eason were instrumental in getting Harris to Auburn, he is embracing the coaching changes on that side of the ball this offseason. There’s continuity, at least, with Schmedding taking over as defensive coordinator, while Brumbaugh brings some added gravitas to the defensive line room considering he was a two-time All-SEC defensive lineman for the Tigers in the 1990s.

“That means so much to me,” Harris said. “…Him doing it and being in this situation, being on an SEC team, getting SEC honors, that shows me what I want to be. I want to be even better than him. Who else to show us than somebody who’s been here and done that before?”

Brumbaugh had 291 tackles, with 22 for a loss and 15 sacks during his playing days at Auburn. Those are lofty numbers for Harris to reach, but the stops behind the line of scrimmage are something he can strive for with multiple seasons of eligibility left.

And even though he’s closer to home, he’s still drawing from those lessons of responsibility he learned during his time in Kansas.

“I never thought I would be here,” Harris said. “That just makes it even more fun and holds me more accountable because this is my dream school, so I got to make sure it’s run the right way, like the way I envisioned it growing up.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.