Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Troy linebacker Carlton Martial has been named to the Pro Football Focus Preseason All-America Second team, the program announced on Wednesday afternoon.

Last season Martial led the country in tackles and his combined tackle totals for the 2019 and 2020 seasons are the most in the country.

Pro Football Focus had this to say about Martial.

“Martial walked on for the Troy Trojans in 2017, made his first start in 2018 and has since been in the conversation for the best off-ball linebacker in the Group of Five. He’s on the smaller end, standing at 5-foot-9 and 216 pounds, but that hasn’t held him back. Martial posted PFF grades of 90.9, 91.3 and 82.4 in his three years on the field. He has accumulated 159 defensive stops in that span, the most among all FBS off-ball linebackers.
While the lowest-graded season of his career came in 2020, that 82.4 mark was still good enough to rank 12th in the FBS. And over his last six games, he was college football’s highest-graded off-ball linebacker.”

Martial finished the 2020 season with 113 tackles and has a combined 239 tackles since the start of the 2019 season. Martial finished 2020 with 10 tackles for loss and was one of nine players nationally to rank in the top 50 in both tackles and tackles for less following the regular season. In 2019 Martial was named to the PFF All-America Second Team.