River Rouge receiver Nick Marsh a star on and off field: 'I haven’t met a better person.'

The River Rouge offense was at a disadvantage from the first play of the game when it hosted Toledo St. John’s.

Starting quarterback McKale McDowell was injured and out and the Rouge staff was left to figure a way to get the ball into the hands of Michigan State football commit Nick Marsh.

Marsh, 6 feet 3 and 200 pounds, is the best receiver in the state. If he played running back, he might be the best running back in the state. If he played in the secondary, he likely would be the best defensive back in the state.

You get the picture.

But he is at his best at receiver and getting the ball in his hands is Job No. 1 at Rouge.

But without its starting quarterback, the Panthers had to improvise and began with some screen passes.

The first netted 11 yards and the second ... well, Marsh caught the ball and eluded the first defender, juked his way past two more and suddenly he was in the open. Angle of pursuit or not, nobody was catching him on his way to a 67-yard touchdown.

St. John’s won the game, 29-22, as Rouge suffered its third straight loss and heads into Saturday’s game at Lakewood St. Edward with a 1-3 record.

But even in defeat, Marsh was extraordinary.

“He’s incredible,” St. John’s coach Larry McDaniel exclaimed. “He’s the most dynamic player we’ve seen on tape this year. When we were prepping for these guys, we knew every time he touched the ball there was a potential for him to score.

“Without question, Michigan State is getting an incredible football player. He’s everything-plus, as advertised.”

Still going green?

Marsh is committed to MSU, but with the Mel Tucker fiasco ongoing, Marsh is taking a wait-and-see stance as offers come rolling in, such as the one from Colorado this week.

MORE ON MSU: Making a clean break from Mel Tucker won't be easy for Michigan State football

Everything McDaniel and his staff saw on film was legit. In the season opener against two-time Division 1 state champ Belleville, Marsh returned a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown and scored twice on runs out of the wildcat formation.

Thus far, he has three kickoff return touchdowns.

In last week’s victory over Birmingham Brother Rice, Marsh put on the brakes on an underthrown ball, soared into the air and took the ball out of the hands of a defender in front of him, who was about to make an interception.

That is why, when news broke of Tucker’s suspension, Colorado, Georgia, Louisville, Penn State, and Wisconsin wasted no time in contacting Marsh and asking if he wanted to change his commitment.

It didn’t take Marsh long to become one of the class of 2024's biggest recruits. He got a jump on the field when he played a key role in the 2020 Division 3 state championship game.

DeWitt beat Rouge that day, 40-30, but it was Marsh who people left Ford Field talking about.

Only a freshman, Marsh notched a pair of 2-point conversion receptions and caught four other passes for 85 yards, including a 12-yard TD pass. He also averaged 43 yards on three kickoff returns.

“I really didn’t see how big it was until a year later,” he said. “Looking back on it now, actually being a freshman and being able to make plays at a high level of football, it was really big. I felt coming in at halftime and making an impact was a big thing for me.”

Marsh didn’t start as a freshman, usually entering the game in the second or third quarter.

His big break was being able to play on special teams.

“What really built my confidence up was being out there on kickoffs and kickoff returns,” he said. “Just being able to go hit somebody. Just to get a feel for who you were playing against.”

An athletic background

An all-around athlete, Marsh averaged 20 points on the Rouge basketball team, once hitting nine 3-pointers in a game. He is also an outstanding sprinter on the track team.

Having Marsh evolve into a top-notch athlete was important to his mother, Yolanda Wilson, who played basketball at Detroit Osborn and Wayne County Community College.

Marsh said his mother signed him up for football as a 6-year-old to keep him out of trouble, and his mother didn’t disagree.

“Absolutely,” she said. “He’s my only son. I, myself, played sports. I was a basketball player. He comes from a very athletic background. With Nick being my only son, I wanted him to have that same thing.”

BEST TEAMS IN THE STATE: Michigan high school football rankings: Mick McCabe's Super 10 teams after Week 4

At an early age, he showed he possessed talents that might be useful in athletics.

“He was very strong as a baby,” Wilson said. “Nicholas was climbing out of a highchair at 6 months. He was walking at 7 months old. All in the family can attest to that.”

He grew up playing football in the Detroit Police Athletic League and began as an offensive tackle before he showed he had speed to burn.

By the time he was 8, he was a receiver and began to earn a reputation as a player to watch.

“I kept running and got a little faster,” he said. “I was able to just blow by people and catch the ball. I was like the best on the field.

“I started scoring a lot of touchdowns, catching the ball a lot, making plays on defense. And we started to win championships.”

As Marsh entered the eighth grade, the family moved to River Rouge, and he became even more serious when it came to football.

Marsh was new to the school and his best education came from watching the varsity practice during the season in which it won the Division 3 state championship.

“I was there my eighth-grade year cheering them on,” he said. “I was at the practices seeing how hard they worked. I knew I didn’t want to come in messing everything up. So I just wanted to learn from the person in front of me and do the best I could from there.”

His best was good enough for him to receive a letter from Kentucky, which caught him and his mother by surprise.

“I didn’t know what an offer was,” Marsh said. “I did not know what a scholarship was. My mom was all excited, telling me I got an offer for a scholarship. I was like: ‘What’s that?’ I just play football.

“My mom said: ‘Boy, you’ve got some learning to do.’ She was right. I was playing football just to play football.”

Shortly after the Kentucky letter arrived, Marsh received offers from Maryland, West Virginia and Arizona State.

That led to offers from Michigan State and Michigan, and then the floodgates opened.

As the offers rolled in, Marsh realized there was the opportunity that his mother might not have to pay for him to go to college.

“In my ninth-grade year, I started to learn what kind of business it was,” he said. “I started taking it more serious. I thought: ‘OK, this is getting serious.’ I started locking in, handling my business at school.

“I started taking care of my body and working on the fundamentals and the skill part, not just going out there.”

A serious approach

Marsh’s freshman year was crucial to his development into a blue-chip prospect. He didn’t say much as a freshman. He simply watched and learned from the upperclassmen.

“The ninth-grade year, I got to meet a lot of the older guys,” he said. “They knew what they wanted as a football team. Everybody was on the same page. Everybody got a taste of it the year before, they won it the year before. They wanted that again.”

The Panthers came close, losing in the final, while Marsh showed he was a player to be reckoned with for the next three years.

It was a role he took seriously.

“Going into 10th-grade year, they referred to me as 'the man,' ” Marsh said. “Teammates, people in the community, they all said it. Looking back on it, being that young and being able to make plays, I didn’t realize how big it was.”

Marsh makes plays in all of his roles for the Panthers, but he is especially dangerous when the ball is in the air headed in his direction.

“The best thing he does is definitely catching the ball and making big plays,” Rouge coach Eric Pettway said. “But as we’re finding out this season he can do a little bit of everything — he can punt, he can kick, he’s a phenomenal weapon as just a threat on special teams and as a kick returner.”

Over the course of the past three seasons, he has evolved into the unquestionable leader of the team. He has become more vocal and demands a lot from his teammates.

When Rouge trailed two-time defending D-1 champ Belleville by a couple of touchdowns at halftime of the opener, it was Marsh who took over the locker room at intermission.

“I threatened a lot of people,” he said, laughing. “I told them they had to play harder, we had to play with a sense of urgency. We got punched in the mouth and how did we respond to adversity. “

The Panthers responded well and nearly pulled off the upset. They responded because of Marsh.

“He’s phenomenal,” Pettway said. “Like I keep saying, I haven’t met a better kid. I haven’t met a better person.

“It’s his nature, his character. He’s just the type of guy you always want around.”

Right on cue, Marsh was the last player to leave the field following the St. John’s game. He was picking up the athletic tape his teammates had ripped off after the game.

“We left a little bit of trash on the field,” he explained. “I was cleaning up after our guys. All it is was trash.

“Being the best guy on the team, you have to do the little things.”

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1. Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: River Rouge WR, MSU commit Nick Marsh a star on and off the field