Blidi's wife, kids his why

College football players have a lot of things on their plate. Between practice, meetings, classes and everything else required to compete at the highest level, every day is stacked with loads of responsibilities.

For Philip Blidi, you add his wife, Emma, and two young kids, Amara and Brooks, and things can get extremely busy. The Auburn defensive lineman wouldn't want it any other way.

"You know, every day I come out, I do it for them," Blidi said. "When we started this thing, me and my wife were young parents, and I made a promise to her that I'll always take care of her. She don't have to worry about anything. I always love her the most. She don't have to ever worry about anything. And every day, I come out and come to work."

That promise comes from the Indiana transfer growing up in a difficult background. The son of African immigrants, Blidi shared a house with five brothers and five sisters in Trenton, N.J. He doesn't want his kids to want anything, and playing football has helped him and his wife provide that for them.

"Knowing everything that I had to go through, like, I would never want that for my kids," he said.

On the field, Blidi brings energy to D.J. Durkin's defense, and even though he says he is shy, he plays the game to the fullest at all times. For him, practice is like being at recess in elementary school, and fun should be had the entire time.

"I want to be someone that brings people up around me, like, I'm enjoying it," Blidi said. "I want to make sure you're enjoying it. Like, remind you, this is fun. Like, this is fun. Every day, we get to come out here and do this. You don't get to do this too many times in your life. So just people getting to feel that passion, that part of it, that's why you see me like that."

Having fun is great, but Blidi also has a job to do as the likely backup to Keldric Faulk. In 12 games last year with the Hoosiers, he recorded 30 total tackles with four tackles for a loss, two QB hurries and a pass broken up. He's one of the pieces the Tigers added this past offseason to shore up the depth along the defensive line.

As for the shy part, his wife has helped him overcome that since starting his career at Texas Tech.

"When it comes to PR, she's really worked with me on that," Blidi said. "She really worked with me on that and really just allowing me to be more open. That's something when I came into college; I wasn't really an open guy, like, I was really to myself, and I was able to do that and really get to enjoy more relationships, like, the relationship part of it is something that I really got to experience while I've been in college."

In less than two weeks, Blidi will take the field at Jordan-Hare Stadium playing in what he considers the best conference in college football. In the stands, Emma, Amara and Brooks will likely be cheering as their hero tries to will Auburn on to victory. They are the reason he is out there.

"Everybody knows, everybody feels it like, everybody knows my why," Blidi said. "And every time I come out here, my why is on my mind."