Marvin Burks Jr. Looking Forward to Embracing Larger Role in Sophomore Year

The safety appeared in all 13 games during his freshman season for the Missouri Tigers and will be stepping into an expanded role during 2024.

Joey Van Zummeren | Aug 14, 2024

Sep 9, 2023; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Missouri Tigers defensive back Marvin Burks Jr. (20) returns a kick against the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders during the game at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports / Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

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Missouri Tigers

The day before fall camp began for the Missouri Tigers, head coach Eli Drinkwitz laid out the three goals he had set for his team for the next weeks of practices. These included creating adversity, players embracing their role and developing a 'just us' mentality.

A player that has taken on all three of those has been safety Marvin Burks Jr., a sophomore who appeared in all 13 games during his freshman season. He's competing in a deep safety room for opportunities, taking on a larger role and buying into the team's culture.

Burks appeared in all 13 games last season, recording 16 total tackles and returning four kicks. After flashing during his freshman year, he's expected to earn more opportunities during his sophomore campaign.

“I’m very excited to embrace that role," Burks said in a press conference Tuesday. "That is something that is keeping me so focused and grounded and humble and just competitive. Every day, I go out there like, 'hey, I got a lot of shoes to fill up from last year.'"

With JC Carlies, a three-year starter for Missouri, now in the NFL, the Missouri safety room has some moving pieces. Returning starer Joseph Charleston will lead the way but between Burks, senior Tre'Vez Johnson and junior Caleb Flagg, the backend of the Tigers' secondary could feature multiple consistent contributors.

New defensive coordinator Corey Batoon has plenty of experience working with safeties, coaching the position group each of the past nine seasons. The safeties are learning the new wrinkles in his scheme to become a flexible group.

“We’re always just trying to learn our whole defense," Burks said of the scheme. "That’s just how we can play faster on the (field) and mix and match. We take pride in being versatile on our defense in the back end.”

Missouri Tigers safety speaks to the media after practice Tuesday, August 13 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Mo. / Matt Guzman/MissouriOnSI

During the spring, Batoon emphasized the need for his safeties to communicate louder and clearer when calling out reads from the offense. It goes hand in hand with a deep knowledge of the defensive scheme.

"Making it a big emphasis point of communication," Batoon said. "Volume reflecting confidence and knowing it to an extent that 'I can be loud' and 'if I can communicate in such a way that reflects that confidence, then the guys around me have more confidence in my calls.'"

Burks could play a significant part in this. He picked up on it from Carlies and recognizes the importance of it.

“Communication," Burks said on the biggest thing he learned from Carlies. "JC was a real verbal guy, he understood the defense well...because he understood the defense so much, I feel like he was able to kind of look at the offense and get motions going and understand the offense more.”

Burks has an improved knowledge of the game vastly difference than the one he possessed at this time last season. Compared to his freshman year where he was looking to fight for any chance to see the field, Burks has a clearer, smarter mindset heading into his second season.

“My knowledge for the game has grown. Coming in as a freshman, like I said, I was just trying to learn, not trying to make mistakes. Now, I’m challenging myself, going out there and challenging routes, challenging receivers, just trying to get most of game day reps from N.W.O (Nasty Wideouts) because those guys have great receivers."

While Burks indivual mindset has changed, he still has the same buy in for the culture set by the team. He's focused on helping the team in any way possible to their ultimate goal of, in Burks' words, "win a natty." For the first time in recent history, there's high hopes for the Tigers this season. However, the team isn't paying the same amount of attention to the praise this year as they did the doubts

“We just got a mentality that is ‘just us,'" Burks said. "So if it’s not inside our circle, we not really worried about it. I feel like that’s something that we do well, it’s not getting too caught up in the outside noise.”

Burks is only one piece of the puzzle for Missouri and he'll have to prove himself on the field once again. But, as far as fall camp goes, he's right where Drinkwitz and the rest of the staff want him to be.

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