NFL Draft: Marcus Hardison Profile
For current NFL Draft Prospect and ASU Sun Devil Marcus Hardison, patience was a virtue. Early on Hardison had to sit behind standout two-time First Team All-Pac-12 Will Sutton. His journey through the game of football was bumpy long before coming to ASU.
Growing up, his love was not football. In fact, the only way he would play football in high school was if he could play quarterback.
So he did, up until nearly his junior year where he essentially became too big.
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He was athletic enough to run the option and rumor has it that he can throw a football over 80 yards. He began to play defense his junior year when he could use his size and athletic ability (he grew to be 6’4” and 265lbs).
His grades weren’t good enough to go directly to a university so he decided he would play at Dodge City Community college in Kansas before transferring to Arizona State.
He had a hard time adjusting to ASU’s defensive scheme despite having a four-star ranking coming out of Dodge City. Hardison was expected to make an impact from the get-go. He struggled early on with the audibles that came in on the field. But late in his junior year it was obvious that he was making strides.
But when it came to his senior year, there was no doubt that he was the man. He was an All-PAC-12 honorable mention in 2014. Hardison led the team with 10 sacks and 15 tackles for loss.
He nearly matched his tackle total for all of 2013 in the opener against Weber State. In a nationally televised game against Notre Dame in a match-up between two top-10 programs, he had one interception and two pass breakups. In the Sun Bowl he had a dominant 13 tackle game against the Duke Blue Devils.
As a defensive lineman these are great numbers. He was versatile along the defensive line, moving around in Todd Grahams quick complicated defensive scheme. He’s an athlete. He ran a 4.7 40 time for his best time, which is impressive for someone over 300 pounds.
He was one of the more heavily recruited players coming out of junior college and became a dominant pass rusher towards the end of his senior season.
A lot of mock drafts have him in the third round and that’s where I can see him going. There were at times where he did seem to be pushed around easily so a team that doesn’t have immediate needs at the defensive line would be perfect for him to strengthen up and develop further.