It’s now just a few days until he makes his NFL debut, but Marist Liufau sure seems like anything but a wide-eyed rookie. The third-round draft pick has already been penciled in as one of the starting linebackers for the Dallas Cowboys in Sunday’s regular-season opener in Cleveland.
And with all due respect to the venerable Dawg Pound, nothing the newly-renamed Huntington Bank Field can throw at him is likely to faze the 23-year-old Liufau. He did, after all, see his very first college snaps as a visitor between the fabled hedges in Athens, Georgia. Then over his tenure with the Fighting Irish came road contests at The Big House in Ann Arbor, The Horseshoe in Columbus, L.A. Memorial Coliseum, and Clemson’s Death Valley: some of the biggest and most awe-inspiring settings in the nation for a college player.
“You either love Notre Dame or you hate them, so everywhere we go on the road, everyone hates us, ” Liufau told reporters this week at The Star. “That’s helped me to grow as a player and kind of handle those environments and sort it out.”
So Liufau’s nonchalant approach to his first game week as a pro is perhaps to be expected.
“I really just take every day and treat it like it’s game day,” he said, “so that when I get to the actual environment, it’s really easy.”
In fact, most everything has seemingly come easy for the native-born Hawaiian since joining the Cowboys. Liufau is just one part of a larger defensive overhaul engineered by new coordinator Mike Zimmer, but the rookie reveals that despite the brain-bending learning curve that comes with learning the NFL ropes- as well as an entirely new playbook- his DC has given him very simple instructions for his pro debut.
“Especially for me, Coach Zim would just say to me, ‘Just cut it loose,'” Liufau explained. “Let him do the thinking, and when we get to game time, just go out there and have fun.”
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The fun has apparently already started in practice. Head coach Mike McCarthy let it slip recently that Liufau could be seen seen grinning ear-to-ear behind his facemask as new defensive tackle additions Linval Joseph and Jordan Phillips were making their presence known on several run plays during drills. Shutting down the ground game this season will no doubt be a focus for Liufau and his linebackermates, a job that should made somewhat easier with 670 pounds of experienced run-stuffing beef in front of them.
“Having great D-linemen in front of linebackers is, it’s everything, really,” Liufau confirmed.
“Any time we step onto the field, it’s really trying to prove that we’re a top defense in the NFL.”
If Liufau is able to help the Dallas defense do that with a strong debut showing in Cleveland, much of the credit, he says, will go to the Cowboys coaches staff. More intense film study and opponent-specific prep work, he’s found, is one of the major differences in making the transition from college- even a big-time program- to the pros.
“The detail that coaches go through to get, really, the game plan to us, detailing out the personnel for us, what our opponent likes to do,” he offered by way of example. “Also, the attention to detail from the players is next-level. Everyone is being intentional with what they’re doing out there on the field and in the meeting room.”
Liufau is confident that very intentional approach will translate to a business-as-usual NFL debut versus the Browns in their own house on Sunday, even if it’s all brand new to the fresh-faced rookie.
As new as, say, Liufau’s first-ever college tailgating experience, which took place just this past weekend when his alma mater paid a visit to yet another intimidating football mecca, Texas A&M’s Kyle Field.
“It was very fun,” Liufau reported.
He said it with a smile.
But just wait until he makes his first tackle in front of the Dawg Pound.
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