Carlton Martial of Troy University is one of the more inspirational football players in the history of the game. If he makes it to the NFL, then he’ll also be one of the shortest defenders ever.

Martial is participating in the Senior Bowl this week in his hometown of Mobile. Official weigh-ins and measurements were posted on Tuesday. The game is at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at South Alabama’s Hancock Whitney Stadium. A linebacker in college, Martial holds the all-time FBS record for most tackles in a career at 578. That’s an unbelievable amount of contact for one body, but Martial is built like a wrecking ball.

Martial played middle and weak-side linebacker during his five-year career, and he led Troy to the Sun Belt championship in his final season. If Martial plays football in the NFL, then he’ll be a fan favorite for his stature. As a short king myself, I’m hoping that height doesn’t matter for Martial when weighed against the size of his heart.

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I swear that I’m 5-7. Is that completely accurate? Maybe. Maybe not. In a recent interview, Martial told me he was 5-8. Close. Turns out that we’re a pocket-sized pair of the same height. I like to think that just means we’re less cramped on airplanes.

Martial’s exact measurements? He’s 5-7 ⅜, according to the Senior Bowl. Don’t underestimate him, though. After a game against Coastal Carolina in 2021, that team’s coach personally asked Martial if he was returning to college or turning pro. A Texas State coach did the same. Martial is an unholy terror on the field, and at 210 pounds he’s an absolute unit, too. He once record 22 tackles against Army. Troy won 10-9. The game was football in its most glorious form.

The obvious question is why didn’t Martial play running back? He actually did play running back on McGill-Toolen’s freshman team. The reason he made the switch speaks to his competitive nature. McGill-Toolen’s coach told Martial that he would get on the field faster as a sophomore if he played linebacker. He fell in love with the position and never looked back.

Martial’s philosophy on defense?

“I would say, just everybody being on the same page,” Martial said. “It’s all about communication. If you have all 11 guys chasing the ball, you can’t beat that.”

Don’t be fooled by Martial’s humble nature. He has elite instincts on the field, and he reads the game like a pro. He knows all the route combinations by heart. He anticipates run plays by studying the stances of offensive linemen and the pressure of their pre-snap fingers against the turf. Martial credits his friend and former college teammate KJ Robertson for helping him learn the game. Robertson played football at Thompson High School.

“We were always just studying the concepts and knowing where everyone was going to be and little things turned into big things,” Martial said.

Little things turned into big things. I just love that.

Martial is grateful for the opportunity to play in the Senior Bowl, but he’s not there to take a victory lap for a record-breaking college career. He wants to play in the NFL, and he wants to be measured more by his actions on the field than by the compact frame.

“I just want to showcase my talent and give it all I can and see where I end up,” Martial said. “Everything that happens, I’ll be grateful. I just want to give it my all.”

That’s all he’s ever done. How do you measure that? Some people have the desire to be great but lack the physical tools. That’s not Martial. He lacked nothing in college except a scholarship when he first showed up to Troy.

Are people going to doubt Martial because of his height? Yes, they are, but that doesn’t matter to him because he has been doubted before.

Having doubts? Feeling like a fraud? Suffering from a little imposter syndrome? Believe in yourself like Martial believed himself after he finished up his high school football career at McGill-Toolen. He had scholarship offers to FCS teams, and he was grateful for those opportunities. He turned them down, though. He believed in his ability when no one else would.

Coaches knew he was a good high school football player. That wasn’t the question. College coaches play the numbers game. A 5-8ish linebacker? When people first meet Martial, they assume he’s a running back. Even young kids at football camps have made the mistake. For coaches, Martial’s height didn’t fit into the algorithms and formulas. He was too much of a risk.

For that reason, Martial had to take a chance on himself. Remember that lesson because it’s an important one: always bet on yourself. At 5-7, Martial did just that. He passed on free money to college and walked on at Troy.

How’s this for a numbers game? At 578 career tackles, Martial broke the old standard of 532 set by former Boston College linebacker Luke Kuechly in 2011. No one doubted Kuechly. He was drafted ninth overall in 2012 by the Carolina Panthers and went on to have a great career.

Not saying Carlton Martial is the next Luke Kuechly. I’m just saying that some numbers for players like Martial should matter more than others. He had 197 tackles his junior season of high school. McGill-Toolen won the state championship. Apparently no one believed those stats were legit. They were.

Learning that he had received an invite to the Senior Bowl was one of the two best moments for Martial in his college career. Troy coach Jon Sumrall made the announcement during preparations for the Cure Bowl down in Orlando.

“Everyone jumped on me and I had a lot of emotions going on at that point,” Martial said.

Troy went on to upset USTA 18-12.

The Senior Bowl invite can only be topped, Martial says, by the experience of learning he had earned a full-ride football scholarship after walking on at Troy. It was the spring of 2018. Martial and his teammates will never forget it.

Former Troy coach Neal Brown had this funny team-building exercise where Troy’s staffers would go through the old Twitter posts of players and display them on a videoboard in the weight room. It was hilarious stuff. Some of the posts were awful. The daily routine was called “How not to set the standard.” It was aimed at teaching players to be smarter on social media.

One day, the videoboard featured a tweet that read, “Everything I’m not made me everything I am.”

Wait, that’s not bad at all. That message is actually pretty great. It was a tweet that Martial posted years before he walked on at Troy. In that moment, he was a walk-on no more. Brown gave Martial his scholarship right there. It was a scene.

“They dogpiled me,” Martial said.

He then started nine games at middle linebacker as a redshirt freshman and was named a Freshman All-American. Some people just need a chance to prove that they belong. That’s not Martial. Martial will take his chances by force and willpower just like he always has.

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.