Marcellus Getting Up to Speed Quickly

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Before training camp even started last summer, the University of Virginia football team lost one of its linebackers, Stevie Bracey, to a season-ending injury.

Once the season began, the Cavaliers grew progressively thinner at that position. Kam Robinson and Trey McDonald played with shoulder injuries that required surgery after the season, and multiple injuries ruled James Jackson out of five of UVA’s final six games.

At a position that linebackers coach Mike Adams calls “the heart and soul of the defense,” the Wahoos found themselves at a distinct disadvantage, and that was among the reasons they struggled to stop opposing offenses in 2024.

The Hoos expect to have more options at linebacker this fall. Robinson, Jackson and McDonald are rehabbing this spring, but they’re due back before the start of the season. In the meantime, Bracey, Myles Brown, Landon Danley and Maddox Marcellus are getting extensive work during spring practice.

“And so I’m anticipating that that’s going to be a very healthy room with a ton of competition, with some versatility, when [Robinson, Jackson and McDonald] get back,” UVA head coach Tony Elliott said.

Brown and Danley were on the team last year, but neither had the bulk or experience to be able to contribute significantly. “They were just young pups,” Ellliott said, “and now they’re a little bit older and they’re getting a lot of reps.”

Marcellus’ situation is different. He enrolled at UVA in January after playing at Eastern Kentucky University in 2023 and ’24 and brought ample experience with him.

The 6-foot-2, 228-pound Marcellus, whom Adams calls “Mad Dog,” led the Colonels in tackles last season and was named to the All-United Athletic Conference first team. His play helped Eastern Kentucky earn an invitation to the FCS playoffs, and he’s impressed thus far at Virginia.

“He’s getting tons of reps, tons of pressure every day,” Adams said, “and he’s done an unbelievable job of handling it, embracing it, and other guys are starting to feed off of his energy now, because he’s gaining confidence.”

Since graduating from Monsignor Edward Pace High School in the spring of 2023, Marcellus has moved from his hometown of Miami to rural Richmond, Ky., and now to Charlottesville.

“Man, it’s been a wild journey,” Marcellus said after a recent practice.

Born in Minnesota, he relocated with his family to South Florida when he was a toddler. “I don’t really remember Minnesota,” Marcellus said.

His mother, Kellie Peterson, played softball at South Dakota State, and his father, Madsen Marcellus, played football at Wyoming, so it was no surprise that Maddox gravitated to sports, too. When he was 12, he played youth-league football for the West Pembroke Pines Panthers, and his teammates included Jason Hammond.

“I was the quarterback and Jason was on the O-line,” Marcellus recalled with a smile.

About a decade later, they’ve been reunited in Charlottesville, this time on the other side of the ball. Hammond, a 6-foot-1, 295-pound defensive tackle, is heading into his third season at Virginia.

“That’s my guy,” said Marcellus, who lives with Hammond.

Their paths diverged when they entered high school, but Hammond and Marcellus remained in touch as they grew older.

“We weren’t, I’ll say, the best of buddies, but it’s pretty tight-knit in Florida, and growing up everybody knows everybody,” said Hammond, who graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High in Fort Lauderdale. “So we were never too far apart. We didn’t go to school together, but we stayed in contact with a text here or there.”

EKU’s campus is located about 35 miles southeast of Lexington, Ky. The small-town atmosphere of Richmond thrust him into “a whole different world” than what he’d known growing up in balmy South Florida, Marcellus said. “But I adapted pretty quick, because the people at Eastern were just so welcoming, and I had a great time there.”

After his breakout 2024 season, however, Marcellus wanted to test himself at a Power Four school, and so he entered the transfer portal. “I saw the opportunity,” he said.

So did Hammond, who’s become known for the social-media posts in which he encourages players in the portal to consider UVA. He quickly reached out to Marcellus.

“We had multiple conversations while I was in the portal,” Marcellus said. “He was like, ‘Maddox, come on, we gotta do something special here.’ ”

Hammond, who’s recovering from shoulder surgery and participating on a limited basis this spring, said he told Marcellus that the Cavaliers’ coaches could help him achieve his goals in football.

Moreover, Hammond said, he knew the type of player Marcellus was “and the type of player that we need here at the University. Seeing him hit the portal, as soon as I saw his film on Twitter, it was almost like a no-brainer for me to text Coach Adams and to tell him, ‘Hey, we need to go and get this guy. Whether he’s a starter for us or even just a rotational piece, this is a guy that can help us in major ways.’ ”

Marcellus fell in love with the coaching staff and with the University, and he bonded immediately with the Wahoos’ veteran linebackers.

“They’ve been helping me since I’ve been here, because they know the whole defense,” Marcellus said. “I just got here, but they’ve been nothing but welcoming and helping me out with anything I need. It’s going to be fun when they come back and we try to be the best linebacker corps in the country.”

Marcellus has yet to play in an FBS game, but he’s confident that he’ll thrive at that level. He provided a highlight in a scrimmage last week, bringing down tailback Xavier Brown with a textbook open-field tackle.

“I think football is football,” Marcellus said. “FCS has a ton of good players too, and a ton of big 6-foot-6 linemen too.”

Adams has coached at several levels in college football. He’s found that learning new terminology is often the most challenging part of a transition for transfers.

“Usually they understand concepts to some degree,” Adams said. “Most defenses around college football are somewhat similar. But it’s always the language barrier, and then just adapting to your culture. And here, there’s an extremely high standard for a student-athlete every single day.”

Marcellus has “done a phenomenal job of adapting to our culture immediately, and we thought he would,” Adams said. “He’s got that kind of pedigree. But then he’s done a phenomenal job also of gathering the language, applying it, and trying to take the time to understand it. So, I’ve been nothing but pleased with him. He loves football. Loves competition. Loves the physicality of it. Just a tremendous attitude.”

Elliott would rather the Cavaliers not be so short-handed at linebacker this spring, but he knows that’s accelerating Marcellus’ transition to a new program.

“It’s huge, because you only develop by getting reps,” Elliott said, “and what you’ve seen with Maddox is he’s very, very, very smart. He’s a natural football player. He picks up on concepts quickly. He’s a violent guy, and you’re starting to see him play with some freedom, because he’s able to now equate, ‘OK, this is what we’re doing. This is what we call it. I can equate that in my mind. I don’t have to think about it, and I can go play fast.’

“And then that’s helping Landon as well, because it’s helping him make the transition as well. Even though Maddox isn’t a veteran here, he’s played a lot of football.  So it’s not like Landon is out there by himself. He’s got a little bit of a veteran presence to kind of guide him since Kam and Trey and James are out.”

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