Ti20 Off the Boards: Running back Asa Martin

Tigers in 20: A Memphis Tigers Athletics podcast

Senior running back, Asa Martin, joined GoTigers247 in this latest episode of Off the Boards.

Asa was a highly ranked recruit out of the state of Alabama in 2018 where he initially signed to play for the Auburn Tigers. After a quick stop in Miami, Asa joined the Tigers in 2019. Asa discussed his journey from a star recruit in high school to a member of the running back room in Memphis. He describes the journey as hard and not what he expected it to be. He believes the journey has been hard because of outside distractions but also because of decisions he made in his youth. He shares that the reason he came to Memphis was because of the success of Tony Pollard and Kenneth Gainwell prior to his arrival. Asa shared how he was impressed with the level of talent coming out of Memphis that was playing substantial minutes in the NFL and he wanted to join "Running Back U."

Asa went into great detail on how his play at Memphis has not met the expectations he has for himself, and describes how he has worked during the offseason to grow mentally and physically in order to play at the level he knows he should be playing at.

Asa credits his family for teaching him how to let perceived slights go, and teaching him how to grind and commit to becoming the person he knows he should be. In a gut-wrenching moment, Asa shares how the loss of his little brother, Awysum Harris, has impacted him. Even though he is still emotionally working through this tragic loss in his family, he describes the motivation that playing for his brother has provided for him coming into this make or break year.

In the second segment, Asa speaks extremely highly of the running back room and the depth that the running backs add to the offense. He shares how the running backs consistently compete against each other, but in a way that helps them instead of trying to one up each other. Asa thinks that the running backs are going to be highly depended on this year for the Tigers' offense success. He shares how he believes that his skill set is designed to be effective in the hybrid role popularized by Kenneth Gainwell and Tony Pollard.

To end the show, Kenny and Asa discuss how football has changed over the years and how the game is transitioning to exploit matchup advantages instead of lining up and exerting power.

About Off the Boards:

Off the Boards is a video/audio segment where GT247 sits down with local and national sports figures.

Typically, Off the Boards has been a video segment, but we are now turning it into an audio podcast as well to better meet the needs of all of our followers. This new format will allow all of GT247's content to be more accessible to listeners.

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