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GAINESVILLE — Marco Wilson didn’t want to be there. Not at tee-ball practice. Not when he was clearly ready to play baseball with the older kids.

But Wilson, just 5 years old, was too young. So, on the first day of tee-ball, he jogged to second base and fielded the ground ball that dribbled his way. He threw it to the first baseman — who wasn’t paying attention — and hit him in the chest, causing him to cry.

Wilson searched the stands for his father, looked him in the eyes and stuck his hands out in exasperation.

“He gave me all kinds of hell about it,” Chad Wilson remembers now, laughing. “For a 5-year-old looking at me like that, all I could do was laugh.”

It was one of many signs Marco Wilson — now a freshman cornerback at the University of Florida — was different than most kids his age. The following year, at age 6, opposing coaches asked his flag football team to remove Marco from the game by halftime to make it more competitive. He was too fast and the scores were too lopsided.

Soon after, Marco developed an interest in backflipping. As a high schooler at Fort Lauderdale American Heritage, he recorded himself on a football field making a one-handed catch while in mid-backflip — his head pointed toward the turf — and landing squarely on both feet.

And now, as an 18-year-old true freshman at Florida, while most players his age have just finished mastering their team’s playbook, Marco is starting at cornerback in the SEC. But he isn’t just starting. “He’s balling,” UF linebacker Jeremiah Moon said.

Ahead of Florida’s road matchup against Missouri on Saturday, Marco is tied for ninth in the SEC with seven passes defended and tied for fourth with seven passes broken up, the only true freshman within the top five.

He has helped fill the void left by former UF starting cornerbacks Jalen Tabor and Quincy Wilson — Marco’s older brother — who were both selected in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft.

And Marco is showing glimpses of why coaches and teammates have so much faith in him, and why he has started every game this season opposite senior cornerback Duke Dawson.

“I saw it when he first came in,” sophomore safety Chauncey Gardner said. “He was on a mission.”

Marco comes from a football family. His father, Chad, played college football at Long Beach State and later at Miami, where he was recruited by then-assistant coach Randy Shannon, now the interim coach at Florida after UF parted ways with Jim McElwain earlier this week.

And just as Shannon was impressed with Chad back in 1991 — when Miami defeated Long Beach State 55-0 but saw enough of Wilson’s work at defensive back to extend him an offer after that season — Shannon has liked what he’s seen from Marco.

“He plays the game hard,” Shannon said of Marco. “He’s an aggressive kid. He’s not one who’s going to shy away from contact.”

In many ways, Marco and his brother, Quincy, are similar that way. Both are physical corners, their father said, and both are supremely confident.

But there’s something different about Marco.

“He’s fearless,” Chad said.

And even though the two brothers are highly competitive — and even used to argue in the back seat of the family car about who had better high school numbers — Quincy is a more of a role model and a mentor for Marco now, Chad said.

But, at Florida, Marco wants to make his own way. He’s on the right path. “He wants to surpass everything that [Quincy] did, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Chad said. “Quincy wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“He’s an aggressive kid. He’s not one who’s going to shy away from contact.” Coach Randy Shannon

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