The Cardinal Countdown: 45 Days Until Kickoff

#45 Duane Martin

Class: Freshman

Ht/Wt: 6-2/247

Position: Defensive End

Hometown: Laurens, SC

Twitter: @Ballin_kid28

Thoughts: Remember last season when people got excited about the play of Marshon Ford, and what a player like him in that H back position could bring to the offense? Well, the Cards may have just landed the encore in Duane Martin.

Martin was an ECU commit last year and was going to play linebacker for the Pirates, but avast, Satterfield sailed in with Ledford in the crow’s nest and stole that booty right from under their nose. Martin has a good physical presence as he got a good amount of reps on the defensive side of the football, and you can see from the clips below that he can push folks around, which will be key in transitioning to that H-back position they want him to play. To be clear, Martin actually played H-back in high school as well, but his utilization in that offense was a bit different than how Satt uses Ford and Isaac Martin. Duane carried the ball a lot last year for his team, significantly more so than he would be asked to do at Louisville, but playing that position allowed him to learn some the intricacies of how to line up, how to seal the outside linebacker crashing off the edge, how to find space coming out of the backfield, etc.

The good news for Louisville is that Ford is just a RS Sophomore and his likely backup (Isaac Martin) also has a couple seasons of eligibility left, so Martin will have a chance to come in, adapt to college level athletes, learn the playbook, and be prepared to contribute at a higher level in 2021 and beyond.

Sweet Tweet:

My man had been on campus like 5 minutes and he was already out at schools dropping words from the good Doctor on kids heads. Love to see this stuff.