Cincinnati Bearcats Recruiting: Defensive End Marquise Copeland Signs With UC

Defensive end Marquise Copeland has officially signed with the Cincinnati Bearcats for their 2015 recruiting class.

Here’s a snippet from his full recruiting profile.

OVERVIEW

The 6’3″, 230 lbs plays the hybrid outside linebacker, defensive end role for Bedford. He has the speed to play both and I’m sure it creates headaches for lineman to guess if Copeland is going to come racing at them upon the snap of the football or drop back into coverage. The speed rusher is exactly that, extremely quick off the snap and with enough speed to chase down a ball carrier. He tends to get stood up fairly easily by larger blockers, which isn’t uncommon for players his size. Copeland looks to overwhelm offensive tackles with his speed but does get in trouble if he has a slow jump or the guy on the other side is prepared for him. However, learning to keep his pads low and using his hands more should improve that in the future.

OUTLOOK

Copeland is probably staring at a redshirt his freshman year, considering Silverberry Mouhon will likely anchor one position as a senior (assuming he stays after his junior season) and younger players like Korey Cunningham and Mark Wilson getting their feet wet. That’s not to say the defensive end from Northeast Ohio doesn’t have a chance. He does, especially with the need for speedy edge rushers to chase to ever mobile quarterbacks. But experience typically wins out on the gridiron and Copeland will have to really impress the coaches in practice to earn immediate playing time with the first team offense. This isn’t unheard of, though (Mike Tyson), so we’ll just have to wait and see how everything shakes out next year.