AUBURN — Marlon Davidson is trying incredibly hard to ignore any pats on the back or compliments about his freshman season at Auburn.

Davidson, a former Under Armour All-America selection and five-star prospect out of Greenville, was the first Auburn player to start in his first career game at defense end since at least 1985.

Nearly every Southeastern Conference team attempted to recruit Davidson, so the bar was high from the moment he arrived on campus an early enrollee. In his second spring with the Tigers, the 284-pound defensive end is trying to become the dominant pass rusher they will need after suffering graduation losses of Carl Lawson and Montravious Adams.

“It’s tough man, because now everybody’s seen what you can do,” Davidson said Tuesday after Auburn’s sixth spring practice. “Everybody’s looking for Marlon to make the play and everything. You just have to take that as you’re one of the impact players, like coach was telling us today to become impact players, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Just don’t tell Davidson that he and fellow 5-star prospect Derrick Brown can be the outside-inside combination that Lawson and Adams held down for the last two seasons in Auburn’s defensive line. He made it clear Tuesday he’s not ready for that kind of comparison at all.

“Because we’re still improving. We can’t get there yet,” Davidson said. “They got four years over us. We’ve only got one in the books. We’re trying to take it as today and work towards that to the future.”

Davidson finished the 2016 season leading all defensive lineman with 26 tackles, six tackles for loss, 2½ sacks and six quarterback hurries. 

In preseason camp, defensive coordinator Kevin Steele was not interested in sugarcoating Davidson’s talents because, after 37 years of coaching at either the college or NFL level, Steele’s knows what an instant impact player looks like.

“I could tell you otherwise or try to sugarcoat it or try to mask it like, 'They're not this, we've got a long way,' but the truth is guys like that are pretty talented,” Steele said last August. “There's guys that are really physical specimens, there's guys that pick it up quick, but just the wear and tear of the daily grind gets to them emotionally. It just doesn't faze him.”

Davidson is consumed by winning because essentially that’s all he’s been a part of us in his football career. In the two seasons he and Alabama linebacker Mack Wilson were leading the Carver High School defense in Montgomery, they posted a 22-5 overall record. Last fall, Davidson was a key contributor to the Auburn defensive resurgence that saw the Tigers program go from a six-win season to a Sugar Bowl berth and an 8-win regular season.

As he enters his second spring practice, Davidson is finding it more difficult to avoid the accolades knowing his future as a disruptive pass rusher is arguably brighter than anybody else on the Auburn roster.

“I mess up a lot. I’m still a freshman. I’m still new to the game,” Davidson says with a smile. “I’m trying to take on that role, but it’s hard because you really don’t know too much about it. Right now, I’m just trying to sit back and let my seniors take control of the room now.”