Growing up in Mobile, Ala., Auburn junior defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks loved to play basketball.But to get on the hardwood, Vigor High School football coach Kerry Stevenson said he had to first step onto the gridiron.”That was a little system that our head football coach used down there,” Marks said. “A lot of guys wanted to play basketball because a lot of guys didn’t like the physical style of football … They told me that I couldn’t play basketball unless I played football, so that was their way to get me out on the field.”Once he was introduced to his new sport, Marks immediately shifted his future toward football. An all-state career at Vigor earned the 6-foot-2-inch, 296-pound lineman scholarship offers from Louisville, Southern Miss and West Virginia.Marks said he received his scholarship offer from Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville after the coach watched one of Marks’ basketball games.He said Tuberville was impressed with how agile he was on the basketball court despite his large frame.”We were in the gym practicing basketball, and he just walked in,” he said. “When he walked in, I was going in for a dunk. That was a dunk that changed my life.”Tuberville said Marks is perhaps the most athletic lineman he’s ever seen.”I go in the gym, and Sen’Derrick was out there dunking backwards, running up and down the court and handling the ball,” Tuberville told ESPN.com earlier this year. “That’s what you look for.”Marks has been ‘slam dunking’ offensive linemen ever since, recording 81 tackles and 5.5 sacks in his first two seasons at Auburn.But this offseason, Tuberville decided to move Marks from defensive end to defensive tackle.Now, Marks is earning comparisons to former LSU All-American Glenn Dorsey.”Being a person who played the same position that he played in the same conference, hopefully I can do the same things he achieved — being the best defensive lineman in the country,” he said. LSU coach Les Miles said containing Marks and the rest of the Auburn front four will be one of LSU’s biggest obstacles this weekend.”What has been a strength through time for Auburn is their defense,” Miles said. “We’re going to have to match our big guys with their big guys up front.”The winner of the LSU and Auburn game has won the SEC Western Division title six of the past eight years.History indicates the division championship may be on the line, and Marks said he can’t wait for his last crack at LSU in Jordan-Hare Stadium.”The game is always played on ESPN or national TV, so there are countless people watching,” he said. “The intensity of the game and the speed of the game is faster than what you experience in a regular game. You have to look at this game and be excited about it.”
 
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