The countdown to the 2018 college football season is on. Four FCS teams are in action Aug. 25 as Duquesne takes on UMass, Prairie View faces Rice and North Carolina A&T and Jacksonville State square off in ESPN’s FCS Kickoff.
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HERO Sports is going to count down each day by highlighting the best player in FCS football who wears the jersey number of the number of days to kickoff. You can find the running list of top players here.
*Note: Jersey numbers are from the 2017 season.
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44: Darin Greenfield, junior defensive lineman – South Dakota
Every year, a few determined players capture our attention by completing the journey from walk-on to starter. Darin Greenfield might be the captain of last year's Started From the Bottom squad.
After walking on at South Dakota in 2015 and taking a redshirt year, Greenfield worked his way up the ladder in Vermillion. He earned a scholarship and started 11 games in 2017, eventually registering an absurd 19.5 tackles for loss. Nine of those TFL's were unassisted sacks.
By November, Greenfield had captured everyone's attention. He earned First-Team All-Valley honors as a defensive end, and earned a spot on just about every All-American list for last season — STATS (Third Team), the AP (Third Team) and Phil Steele (Fourth Team).
Oh yeah. Ours, too. We had him on the Second Team.
The scary thing about Greenfield? That scholarship still has two years left on it. South Dakota's premiere pass rusher isn't going away any time soon.
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FCS Kickoff Countdown: The Best Player in FCS Who Wears Each Number, 1-99
CFB Countdown: The Best Player in FBS Football, 1-99
