Standing at 6-2 and 207 pounds, Auburn’s Jamel Dean is a noticeable physical presence at cornerback.

And now that he’s both healthy and eligible to practice with the Tigers this spring, he may soon become an on-field presence who opposing offenses must gameplan against.

AL.com’s James Crepea reports that Dean has been taking snaps with the first-team defense during spring practice and could be in contention for a starting role at cornerback this fall.

It’s another twist to an already intriguing story.

Dean enrolled at Ohio State back in January of 2015, where the Cocoa, Fla. native thought he was embarking on a college football career under the direction of Urban Meyer.

But the relationship fizzled after Meyer and the Buckeyes medical staff decided to move on from Dean after ruling him medically disqualified due to a knee injury.

A report from Cleveland.com last April painted the picture of an ugly breakup, quoting Dean’s high school coach John Wilkinson:

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “It’s totally wrong to do this to an 18-year-old kid who should be in high school, who you talked into coming up there early. You can’t treat people this way.

“They’re saying they’re going to honor his scholarship, but honoring his scholarship doesn’t allow him to play the game he loves to play,” Wilkinson said. “It’s all ridiculous and I don’t appreciate them treating my kid this way. I’m sticking up for my kid. He was committed to them, but yet they’re not fully committed to him.”

Fast forward 11 months, and Dean finds himself at peace with a decision to play at Auburn instead.

He sat out the 2015 season after transferring, and is now healthy and apparently pushing new defensive coordinator Kevin Steele to get him on the field as a redshirt freshman.

All the while, he holds no grudges about the winding road his college career has gone down in the early going,  per the AL.com report:

“I don’t hold any grudges,” Dean said. “At first I thought my football career was over with. Then once I got the second opinion from Dr. Andrews, I just took the opportunity to play football again.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, almost a year, ever since I transferred over,” Dean said. “It felt like I didn’t get the experience to play football until now. …

“It feels like I never even experienced this injury. … I don’t worry about it anymore. It’s just a mind thing now. You don’t really think about it, you just play.”