TEMPE, Ariz. -- All Dave Marler wanted coming out of Forest High School in central Mississippi in 1974 was to play quarterback for Mississippi State University.
Former Bulldogs coach Bob Tyler wouldn’t recruit him because he was too slow. Marler enrolled in Mississippi College, a Division II school, where he played quarterback and kicker. After two years, he transferred to Mississippi State -- to be Tyler’s kicker.
In Starkville, Marler would meet a coach who wasn’t much older than him but would change the trajectory of his life. In the spring of 1978, Bruce Arians was 25 years old and the passing-game coordinator at Mississippi State.