CFB Zeitgeist Score
56
Solid starter in the position cohort. Carried by sacks at the 74th percentile.
Maddox Marcellus
Below the discourse floor — the honest stats-only state.
49 TACKLES · 1.5 SACKS
In Portal · 2026
In transfer portal
2025Virginia
DestinationTBD
LB · VIRGINIA · ACC
Maddox Marcellus
- 3
- #11
- 6-2 | 228 lb
- Miami, FL
Heisman Heat
Awaiting
Not on the live Heisman board this week.
Fan Belief
Awaiting
Player-specific FI not yet ingested. Falls back to team mood below.
Respect Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
Reality Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
ACCOLADE PROBABILITY
Heisman
—
TOP LB AWARD
Butkus
—
CONSENSUS
All-American
—
Player Standing · 17 rungs
Tier 1 · 2-deepR04 · Rotational
Rotational. Earning real snaps in the rotation.
Not on team2-deepStarterRecognizedEliteApex
Career Arc
HS
Recruit
—
CFB
College
Virginia
NFL
NFL Draft
—
Identity & Role
The durable bio layer: position, size, hometown, and roster role.
Recruiting Pedigree
How big the prospect was before college, and whether the later career arc beat that expectation.
| Class | Profile | Context |
|---|---|---|
| No recruiting profile is on file for this player. | ||
Transfer Arc
Portal movement changes role, context, and perception. This keeps that path in one place.
| Season | Move | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Virginia -> -- | Immediate |
| 2025 | Eastern Kentucky -> Virginia | 3-star | 0.8500 | Immediate |
Heisman Lens
Where the model places this player relative to the rest of the Heisman field.
Heisman Futures
Not yet listed on major futures markets.
No achievements unlocked yet this season.
Selector Grid · 2025
AP—
FWAA—
AFCA—
WCFF—
SN—
SI—
Selector recognition fills in once the major honors lists (AP, FWAA, AFCA, Walter Camp, Sporting News, SI) are scraped and ingested.
Today’s Hot-Take
The Hot-Take engine fires when this player’s percentile profile crosses a defensible threshold (top 10% in a cohort, 100+ snap sample). When it’s quiet, the model is honoring its “must be defensible” rule.
Anti-Take
PENDINGThe contrarian read fires when the rules-engine detects a stat that complicates the Hot-Take. Quiet here means the model hasn’t found a defensible counter yet — not that one doesn’t exist.
The Room on Maddox Marcellus
Fan sentiment · Awaiting signal
The Room reads fan conversation around a player — who’s talking, what they believe, and how that shifts. It publishes once weekly volume rebuilds; for most players that’s in-season, when game-week chatter spikes.
Cohort divergence map
Cohort divergence reads how different fanbases talk about this player. Returns once weekly mentions clear the publish floor.
Rival Radar
How rival fanbases talk about Maddox Marcellus
No rival-bucket mentions in the current season.
Signature Story
Awaiting candidate metric
He hasn't written his page yet — we'll start filling it in when there are enough snaps to rank against his peers.
Signature Moment
No signature moment on the ledger yet.
Returns once this player puts together a multi-game body of work — single-game flashes alone don't clear the bar.
Season Pace · Projection
Where the defensive totals stand
Through 13g
49Tackles
2.5Tackles for loss
1.5Sacks
Per game
4Tackles
0.2Tackles for loss
0.1Sacks
Final
49Tackles
2.5Tackles for loss
1.5Sacks
Why this is a rare defensive case
The fast read on the thing that makes this player more than a generic stat line.
Maddox Marcellus is trying to climb the steepest award hill in college football: a defensive candidacy. The hook is the disruption profile on Virginia's defense, with 1.5 sacks, 2.5 tackles for loss, and 1 interceptions through the current loaded season. For a defender, the question is never just production; it is whether elite disruption and team context can become nationally undeniable.
2025 Season · Final
Traditional stats first. Advanced context underneath.
Last season
DEF season snapshot
2025 season snapshot | final
2025 season snapshot | finalData: CFBD player stats + local Heisman modelPeer context: same position + same level
Player identity What kind of player is this?
30-second read
What kind of player is this?
High-disruption defender | High-volume tackler against FBS defenders.
2025 Season · Final
2025 season snapshot | final
Tackling & Disruption
TOT
49 87th
SOLO
17 73rd
TFL
2.5 75th
SACK
1.5 85th
QBH
1 44th
Coverage & Takeaways
PD
1 43rd
INT
1 65th
Game Log · Week-by-week
2025 season · 13 games
| Wk | Opp | TKL | SOLO | TFL | SACK | INT | PD | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | W 48-7vs Coastal Carolina | 4 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | — | 1 | |
| Wk 2 | L 31-35@ NC State | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 3 | W 55-16vs William & Mary | 2 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 4 | W 48-20vs Stanford | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 5 | W 46-38vs Florida State | 4 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 6 | W 30-27@ Louisville | 6 | 2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 8 | W 22-20vs Washington State | 4 | 2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 9 | W 17-16@ North Carolina | 4 | 4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 10 | W 31-21@ California | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 11 | L 9-16vs Wake Forest | 4 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 12 | W 34-17@ Duke | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 14 | W 27-7vs Virginia Tech | 9 | 3 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 | Season-high 9 tackles |
| Wk 15 | L 20-27vs Duke | 7 | 3 | 0.5 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Total | 49 | 17 | 2.5 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 |
Season-by-season tables Career rows + per-season box score
Traditional history
Traditional Stats
Season rows up top, career context at the bottom.
Season context · Team result + system
2025Virginia11-3HC: Tony Elliott · Balanced
| Season | Team | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Virginia | 49 | 17 | 2.5 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | -- |
| Career | 1 loaded season | 49 | 17 | 2.5 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | -- |
Advanced layer Usage, value, and context
Advanced metrics second
Advanced Metrics
Usage, value, and opponent-adjusted context.
TFL, sacks, and QB hurries are grouped together because defensive Heisman cases are usually built on visible havoc, not on tackle counts alone.
Pass breakups, interceptions, and forced fumbles matter because national awards voters respond to plays that change possessions and highlight reels.
Every percentile is compared against players at the same position and level, so an FBS quarterback is judged against FBS quarterbacks, not the whole sport.
The top tables stick to the stats fans already know from broadcasts and box scores. Advanced context is pushed underneath instead of replacing the basics.
Open full stat explorer
| Group | Metric | Value | Rank | Pct | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defense | Total tackles | 49 | #628/4942 | 87th pct | Volumevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | TFL | 2.5 | #1236/4972 | 75th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Sacks | 1.5 | #724/4972 | 85th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Interceptions | 1 | #308/869 | 65th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Pass breakups | 1 | #1241/2184 | 43rd pct | Coveragevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | QB hurries | 1 | #1051/1878 | 44th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Solo tackles | 17 | #1252/4584 | 73rd pct | Volumevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | INT return avg | 4.0 | #463/578 | 20th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | INT return yards | 4 | #484/578 | 16th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
Player Standing
Universal 17-step ladder. Tier pills below; accolade streams nested.
AWAITING CLASSIFICATION
On-team2-deepStartingRecognizedEliteApex
AWAITING CLASSIFICATION · Rung None of 16
Why he’s here
Standing classification populates when honors, Heisman, and roster signals all align.
What moves him up
What moves him down
Accolade streams
Status—Awaiting tracker
The Butkus award tracker integrates per-week probability once a dedicated scraper for this award lands. Confirmed past winners and finalists for this player will surface here.
Splits · Per-game
2025 season · 13 games
Home vs Road
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home8g | 4.4 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| Road5g | 2.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Win vs Loss
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wins10g | 3.6 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Losses3g | 4.3 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
First half vs Second half
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-76g | 3.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Weeks 8+7g | 4.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
Pocket and defense-quality (clean vs. pressure) splits are coming soon.
Savant · Box-rate percentiles
Where this profile ranks vs the LB cohort
56Solid starter
Production sits in the middle of the position cohort across the board.
Percentiles versus same-position peers with enough snaps this season, based on box-score rates.
Advanced Savant · LB · 2025
Percentile Card
Advanced opponent-adjusted percentile bars are coming soon for this player.
P4G5All FBS
Advanced Savant
Opponent-adjusted advanced metrics with a cohort filter.
Advanced opponent-adjusted metrics are coming soon for this player. Selected cohort: P4.
Peer Comparator · Fingerprint match
Three closest profiles by box-rate percentile
Maddox MarcellusVirginiaDaniel WingateMaryland· 77% simTJ DotteryOle Miss· 77% simQuinton UrwilerNorthern Illinois· 76% sim
Tackles
Sacks
Solo tackles
Tackles for loss
QB hurries
Passes defended
Interceptions
Closest peers by overall box-score percentile profile at the same position.
Player DNA
The Balanced Linebacker
Solid in every phase without a signature dimension.
LB
His 2025 production profile sits closest to Tyler Bird’s 2022 season.
Tyler Bird
92%match
#2
Malachi Hood
87%
#3
Desmyn Baker
86%
#4
Cody Simon
NFL Rd 4
86%
#5
Jeffrey Bassa
All-Big TenNFL Rd 5
84%
Matches Tyler on
Tackle volume
Height
TFL rate
Not enough data yet for this comparison.
As a sophomore, his production profile tracks closest to Malachi Hood's sophomore season at Illinois (2025).
Malachi Hood
89%match
#2
Austin Harnetiaux
84%
#3
Jeremiah Telander
83%
#4
Alex Kilgore
82%
#5
Stone Blanton
82%
Matches Malachi on
PD rate
Weight
Sack rate
Supporting Cast · Scheme
Staff and system around the player
Head Coach
Tony Elliott
Pass share
48.0%
492 pass / 534 run
Plays / game
73.3
14 games
OL sack rate (allowed)
5.0%
337 dropbacks · PBP
Scheme: Balanced.
Coaching Lineage · 2025
1 coach2025
Tony Elliott
Virginia
Played his entire career under Tony Elliott.
Bio · Recruiting · Transfer · Roster
Off-field context — switch tabs to drill into recruit profile, transfer arc, or roster timeline.
HometownMiami, FL
Height6'2"
Weight228 lb
Class3
PositionLB
Jersey11
No fields populated yet.
No fields populated yet.
Current teamVirginia
ConferenceACC
Joined2025
Career arc1 season(s)
Trophy Case · Detail
Every honor on the ledger, broken out by stream and selector.
No formal honors on the ledger yet
All-America, all-conference, player-of-the-week, watch-list, and postseason awards land here when they're earned. The absence is the signal: most players never collect formal honors, and that's its own kind of context.
Honors Timeline
Season-end distinction and week-by-week recognition on one timeline.
| Season | Honor | Scope | Team / Selector | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No formal honors on the ledger yet. All-America, all-conference, weekly awards, watch lists, and postseason trophies land here when they’re earned. | ||||
Heisman By Year
Modeled rank and official finish by season.
| Season | Team | Role | Latest Model | Forecast | Win | Finalist | Official Finish | Points | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This player hasn’t appeared on a Heisman ballot tracked by the model. | |||||||||
Roster Timeline
Team, conference, and class by season.
| Season | Team | Conference | Pos | Class | Bio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Virginia | ACC | LB | 3 | No. 11 | 6-2 | 228 lb | Miami, FL |