Both he and his brother were listed as from "Cornersville,"[3][4] and stood some 6 foot 4 inches, weighing some 225 pounds.

That year Bridges and Red Smith helped lead Cumberland to a defeat of Vanderbilt and a tie of coach John Heisman's Clemson Tigers football team to finish the season in the game billed at the "SIAA championship game" in Montgomery, Alabama on Thanksgiving Day.

At Cumberland, Bridges was a member of the Rho chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

The fraternity's football prestige was said to rest on Red Smith and the two Bridges brothers, noting Marvin was "as handsome as the gods.

[9] Bridges' "White and Blue" teams compiled an 0–5 record and were outscored 224 to 0 by the likes of Mike Donahue's first year at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Georgia, and John Heisman's first year at Georgia Tech.