DREAM CHASER
Entering final UH season, WR Stevenson looks to parlay speed into NFL career
With the nickname “Speedy,” Marquez Stevenson figures to know his way around a track.
“Get a lap!” Jim Gatlin, his former coach at Northwood High School in Shreveport La., would frequently tell Stevenson during his freshman year. “And he would get that lap and get right back in the huddle.”
Those early years, before he became a multi-sport prep star on the way to a Division I football scholarship, Stevenson had some lessons to learn.
“He was just hyper,” Gatlin said during a recent phone interview, describing Stevenson as undisciplined but competitive. “He was a thoroughbred horse we had to break. When he found out we loved him, he would do anything for us.” Gatlin paused and laughed. “(But) he ran more than anybody I ever coached.”
Years later, Stevenson is still running.
As the University of Houston prepares to open a COVID-19abbreviated season Sept. 19 at Memphis, Stevenson has extra motivation. The Cougars are seeking a bounce-back after going 4-8 in coach Dana Holgorsen’s first season. For Stevenson, it’s a chance to “finish what I started” as a fifth-year senior wide receiver/kick returner and one of the last remaining signees from the 2016 “H-Town Takeover” recruiting class that was rated the best in school history.
Along the way, Stevenson has a chance to improve his stock for the 2021 NFL draft. After going through the vetting process, he announced in the offseason he would return for his final season, bucking a recent trend that saw the early departures of former UH receivers Deontay Greenberry and Demarcus Ayers.
“First recruiting win,” Holgorsen said during the earlysigning period.
Entering the season, Stevenson is projected as a final-day NFL selection, anywhere from the fourth round to later. He was recently named to the top 250 prospects watch list for the Senior Bowl, the nation’s most prestigious college all-star game.
Stevenson has already overcome notable obstacles and odds. His collegiate career got off to a rocky start when his first two seasons were wiped out by a broken collarbone and ACL tear.
In the last two seasons, Stevenson has rebounded to account for 127 receptions for 1,926 yards and 18 touchdowns and earn first-team All-American Athletic Conference honors. He also returned two kickoffs for touchdowns last season.
“I think about that all the time, and it motivates me,” Stevenson said last season about his injury-plagued start at UH. “I know where I came from. I know what I’ve had to go through to get where I am.”
Back in Shreveport, Gatlin said, there was concern how the injuries would affect Stevenson, who was expected to challenge for a starting job the first day he arrived on the UH campus.
“When he called, we told him this may be a blessing,” Gatlin said. “You can get in that weight room, work your butt off and get bigger, faster and stronger. He did that.”
Jim Nagy, executive director of the Senior Bowl, said NFL teams will again be in search of speed similar to that in the 2020 draft, which saw Henry Ruggs III (Alabama), Jalen Reagor (TCU), Brandon Aiyuk (Arizona State) and K.J. Hamler (Penn State) taken in the first or second round.
“Every team in the league is looking for that guy right now,” Nagy said. “Speed-wise, Stevenson is going to be at the top of this class. He’s got something everyone is looking for: the ability to get the ball in space and run away from people.”
That speed has made Stevenson a big-play threat for the Cougars and one of college football’s most explosive receivers. His 10 receptions of at least 50 yards are among the most in FBS since the start of the 2018 season. Two came in the same 2019 game when he had 75- and 96-yard touchdown catches — the latter the fourthlongest offensive scoring play in UH history — in a 211-yard performance against SMU.
Stevenson was clocked at 21.9 miles per hour on a play against Tulane in 2019, the fastest to date among top 2021 wide receiver draft prospects, according to Recruiting Analytics.
“It’s my job to get it to him and let him do the rest, which is what he’s really good at,” quarterback Clayton Tune said last season.
Stevenson has been asking for the ball for years.
“When we were down or in a close ballgame, he was like, ‘Throw me the ball if you want to win,’ ” Gatlin said. “We’d sort of have to tell the coaches sometimes to throw him the ball. ‘But coach, he’s getting double coverage.’ Yeah, and he’s twice as good as they are.
Go ahead and give him a chance.”
Stevenson became so dangerous with the ball in his hands, Gatlin said, that opposing teams refused to kick off in his direction.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen a better kickoff return guy at our level,” Gatlin said. “It got so bad that teams wouldn’t even kick to him and would squib kick.”
Stevenson began to receive college interest as a sophomore, when he ran a 4.34 at a Mississippi State camp and picked up an immediate offer. He picked up another from SMU. By the end, Stevenson had more than a dozen offers, including Notre Dame, Nebraska, Miami and Baylor.
“I kept that under wraps because you don’t ever want to tell a kid his sophomore year you’ve got this, this, this and this. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Gatlin said. “Everything worked out.”
Stevenson, who also played basketball and advanced to the state track meet in the 100, 200 and both relays, established a relationship with Drew Mehringer, a UH wide receiver at the time, and ultimately committed to the Cougars as part of the 2016 class that included Ed Oliver and D’Eriq King.
Now it’s time for one final goround. Stevenson is on the preseason watch lists for the Maxwell, Biletnikoff and Hornung awards. And he’s within striking distance of the UH career record book, needing 468 receiving yards to move into the top 10.
“He was dead set on Houston,” Gatlin said. “It was a good fit for him.”