The road less traveled: DL duo Harris, Jones find opportunity at Auburn

AUBURN, Ala. – In the fall of 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, Marcus Harris was a redshirt freshman at Kansas, more than 800 miles from his hometown of Montgomery. Jayson Jones was even further away. He spent the 2020 season as a freshman at Oregon, more than 2,500 miles from where he grew up in Calera, Alabama.

This season, the duo has started every single game next to each other on the defensive line at Auburn. Both are back in their home state. Both are making the most of their opportunity.

But neither Harris nor Jones would undo the past and their decision to leave home.

“That helped me grow up and become a young man,” Harris said. “Being that far away helped me live on my own and become my own person and find new friends and people I never knew from different walks of life and different cultures. It just opened my mind up to different things and how big the world really is.”

“I’m glad I went out to Oregon,” added Jones. “First of all, I loved Oregon. There was nothing wrong with Oregon. I grew up. I had to grow up because I was living by myself. That really helped me, especially coming back home and being very dependent. When I came back here, it was like, ‘OK, I’m closer to home, but you know how to operate by yourself.’”

It was the road less traveled for Harris and Jones coming out of high school. But the road led them both back to Auburn where they are now thriving on and off the field. 

Despite growing up down the road from Auburn, Harris never thought he’d get the opportunity to play for the Tigers. Kansas and Washington State were his only two Power 5 offers. So, one can understand why the senior defensive lineman still gets goosebumps every time he plays at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“It amazes me still to this day when I go on the football field on Saturdays, especially at Jordan-Hare,” Harris said. “I’ll just be like, ‘Wow, I’m really here. This is what I dreamed about. These are the games I used to come here and watch.’ It just feels surreal, like an out-of-body experience. At the same time, you’ve got to go against the opponent and the big guys on the other team, so you’ve got to snap back out of it real quick.

“But knowing that I played in the same stadium as guys like Nick Fairley, Derrick Brown, Marlon Davidson, Carl Lawson, Jeff Holland – it just feels surreal.”

Harris might be the next great Auburn defensive lineman with the way he’s playing.

Two weeks ago, when the Tigers nearly knocked off No. 1 Georgia, Harris was easily one of the best players on the field. He finished with seven tackles, two tackles for loss, one forced fumble and one pass break-up against the defending national champions. To do it on that stage against that caliber of competition, it turned some heads. 

After his performance, Harris was named to the Pro Football Focus (PFF) Team of the Week. His rush defense grade (91.1) through five games was tops in college football.

“That just made me lock in more on the little details because I know how close we were to winning that game and seeing how close we are to where we want to be,” Harris said. “I want to know the bad plays I had so I can understand how to get better and have an even better game.”

With more games like he had against Georgia, Harris could end up playing on Sundays – a possibility he never imagined while at Kansas.

But regardless of what happens in the future, Harris is making the most of the present and leaving a legacy at Auburn that would make his family proud. After all, family is what is most important to him.

“That’s what I do it for,” he said. “I do it for my family, so they can brag on me. Not so much me bragging on myself. I like my family to brag on me. It’s so amazing having your little cousins be like, ‘I’ve got a big cousin who plays for Auburn,’ and they can actually be truthful about it. When I grew up, I didn’t have anybody like that. I used to tell stories. ‘I know him.’ And I really didn’t know him.

“I try to bring that positive impact to my family, show them that they can do it too.

“When I was a little kid, I didn’t know I was going to be here. Especially coming out of high school. I went to Kansas. I never knew I was going to be here. So, I always take advantage of these moments and take advantage of this opportunity.”

Like Harris, Jones saw an opportunity when he left Oregon and transferred to Auburn. Yes, it was closer to home where his family could come and watch him play.

“It means a lot to me now that they can come support me,” he said. “Not so much for me but more so for them because I know they love football and they love watching me play football. They grew up watching me play football. Those two years (at Oregon) were kind of hard for them not being able to really watch me play football. Now they’re taking advantage of it. They’re coming to almost every single game.”

But for Jones, it was more than just being close to home. It was an opportunity to play in the SEC and an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of his cousins, Cornelius Bennett and Andre Tippett, who both played college football and 10-plus years in the NFL.

It was an opportunity to continue the rich tradition of defensive line play at Auburn.

“A lot of great defensive linemen like Derrick Brown, Colby Wooden, Marlon Davidson have come out of here and made a name for themselves in the league through Auburn,” Jones said. “They’re the people that did it right. They didn’t get there for no reason, so they must have done something right.

“It means a lot to try and add to that legacy of being a defensive lineman at Auburn.”

Jones arrived on the Plains in 2022, a year after Harris, but the 6-foot-6, 338-pound nose tackle has started every game for the Tigers in that span and has formed one of the SEC’s more intimidating tandems up front alongside Harris.

“I appreciate him,” Jones said. “He doesn’t know this, but I watch him and I see what he does because he does a lot of things right. That’s the kind of person you want on your team.”

From Harris to Colby Wooden to Derrick Brown, doing things the right way has clearly been a common denominator for some of Auburn’s great defensive linemen over the years.

It’s no different with Jones. He had to grow up when he left home for Oregon as a college freshman, but he found his way back to Auburn where he wants to leave as an Auburn Man.  

“The legacy I want to leave here is not so much for football,” he said. “It’s for the type of person I am. Jayson Jones did it right. Be like him. He went to class, never got in trouble, did the right stuff on the field. When he messed up, he knew he messed up, and he fixed it the next play. I just want to be known for that.”