Marquis Maze

I was leafing through an SI at the pharmacy counter last night, and happened upon a picture of Marquis Maze scoring a TD against Ole Miss.

When looking back at the ones who got away, Maze isn’t going to make many M fans all misty. The message board reaction to his commit split roughly between the "why did we waste a schollie on this smurf" folks, and the "trust the coaches, don’t you think they know better than you?" crowd. Not exactly high praise.

I remember him, and bring him up, mainly for one of the most entertaining highlight packages I’ve ever seen. It was on par with a Noel Devine, not because of his moves, but because of an astounding second gear.  The words shot-out-of-a-cannon get thrown around all too loosely these days, but it looked likle something unnatural propelled Maze.  He’d set sail down the sideline on a sweep or swing pass, 3 or 4 kids are closing with angles, and just when you expected him to cut it back to the middle of the field he would hit that second gear and run by all of them. Or he would be running under a pass at what looked like full speed, then the boosters kicked in and he’d cover 15 yards in a blink to get under it just in time.

At the time I thought it was an inspired get by the coaches to pair with Mallet, putting his arm together with a kid who if he could ever get off the line, looked impossible to over throw. I guess Marquis eventually didn’t see it that way, so adios. I wonder if he looks at Odoms as M’s leading receiver and the revolving door at returner and has any second thoughts.