The Desire to Take His Game to Another Level
Mar 23, 2022 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
The journey pauses after the first spring practice for Kansas State football. The Wildcats come off a 42-20 win over LSU in the TaxAct Texas Bowl on January 4, and now it's March, and well, things are moving pretty fast for senior linebacker Daniel Green, who once wondered if he would ever trot onto the gridiron in Manhattan.
Today, the 6-foot-3, 242-pound native of Portland, Oregon, is leader of the Wildcats' defense under defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman, and the 2021 Honorable Mention All-Big 12 selection eyes bigger, better days for himself and his team as they officially begin preparations for next fall.
"This is the fastest spring ball has ever come around for me," he says. "We have a lot of momentum. That LSU game built a lot of confidence for everybody. We have to live up to how we ended the season, and I feel like guys are excited to do that."
He pauses.
"I'm really excited just to play football again," he continues. "That's what we came here to do."
Arguably the top inside linebacker on the west coast in the 2017 recruiting class, Green, a standout at Madison High School, signed his letter-of-intent with K-State on February 1, 2017, choosing the Wildcats over Oregon State, Utah, Southern California, and Arizona. He was the highest-rated signee for K-State and the No. 6-rated high school prospect out of the state of Oregon by 247Sports.
However, dreams of making an immediate impact stalled due to the NCAA Clearinghouse. Green did a lot of thinking during his time away from football. He discovered an emptiness. The experience tested his limits and changed his perspective on the game as well.
Green first spoke publicly prior to the 2019 season. He stood on the field at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. A small lifetime had seemed to pass since he originally signed with the Wildcats. He said, "I feel like God brought me here for a reason. I'm happy here. I feel blessed to be here. I'm just ready to play."
Wyatt Hubert was asked to identify the Kansas State defensive player who most stood out heading into the 2019 season. Hubert chose Daniel Green. Green had never made a tackle in a game. Green had never played in a game.
"Daniel Green," Hubert said, "is a guy who's stood out to me the most."
Green went out and recorded the first quarterback sack for the Wildcats in 2019 and caused a fumble and recovered a fumble over his first three career games.
He's been going strong ever since.
After coming off the sideline to record 33 tackles, including 3.5 tackles for a loss and 2 sacks as a redshirt freshman, Green had 39 tackles, including 5.5 tackles for a loss and 2.5 sacks with two starts as a sophomore. During his first year as a full-time starter last season, Green blew up. He led the team in both tackles (89) and tackles for a loss (16), ranked 18th in the FBS in solo tackles per game (5.3) and 22nd nationally in fumble recoveries (2). He posted at least nine tackles in five different games, becoming the first K-State player to do so since Elijah Lee in 2016.
He isn't satisfied.
Which brings us to today, as he stands inside the Vanier Family Football Complex, surrounded by reporters.
"I just want to get better so bad," Green says. "I'm excited for spring ball because I have the opportunity to do that."
The 23-year-old Green, who was nicknamed "Deuce" when he was given jersey number 22 prior to his freshman season at Madison High School, has gained nearly 20 pounds of muscle since arriving at K-State, and harbors a mature, self-assessing meticulousness that reared itself immediately after the bowl game.
He went back and watched every game of the 2021 season. He critiqued his footwork, his ability to diagnose plays, and down-and-distance situations. He watched his mistakes. In every game. One play after another.
"As a player, that's what you've got to do," he says. "You've got to watch the bad things."
There is so much good to Green's game. That's easy to see. But for as much as he gained comfort in Klanderman's new three-down defense during the middle of last season, and played fast, and really looked like some of the previous great K-State linebackers, there's still another gear.
"I just need to be more efficient in a lot of areas," he says. "That's stuff where if I aspire to keep playing football, I have to be better at."
K-State head coach Chris Klieman is confident in Green's progression.
"He'll take the next step," Klieman says. "For him, I think that is more probably pre-snap stuff. The kid's a really good football player as we all know. He's physical, runs well, covers well. It's just the pre-snap stuff of seeing things before they happen and being an even better communicator.
"That's what we need to get from Deuce, and he's capable of doing that, and he's ready for that to make everybody around him better by really talking and seeing things that he's seeing pre-snap so everybody knows."
Green feels faster on the field than ever before. That's a product of mastering Klanderman's three-down defense as well. His 69 solo stops last season were just three shy of the school's top-1o list and he was 2.0 tackles for a loss short of reaching the top 10 in that category as well. He had a season-high 11 tackles against Texas while he had nine against Stanford, Nevada, TCU and Baylor.
On the field, there's still more room to grow.
"One thing I want to get better at is making more plays in coverage," he says. "That's a big emphasis for spring. I'm a lot faster. I expect to be even faster now that I have one year with the defense. I feel like I'm way ahead of the game right now."
It's a game he loves, a game he has played for many years, and a game that was momentarily taken away before it even ever began in a K-State uniform. Today, Green looks at peace, knowing there are many miles behind him, and many more roads to conquer.
It starts now in spring football. And he is ready.
"I'm here to play football," he says. "That's all I've wanted to do."
Green heads toward his senior season with 161 career tackles, including 25.0 tackles for a loss, with 7.5 sacks, three fumble recoveries and one forced fumble. There's no telling if Green will become the latest linebacker to reach 100 tackles in a season, and there's no telling if he'll record his first-career interception, and there's no telling how many times he'll post double-digit tackle performances in 2022.
But the scary thing, the thing that's most important, and the plight facing opposing Big 12 offenses lies in this fact: Green is getting better every day.
And his best days are still ahead.
The journey pauses after the first spring practice for Kansas State football. The Wildcats come off a 42-20 win over LSU in the TaxAct Texas Bowl on January 4, and now it's March, and well, things are moving pretty fast for senior linebacker Daniel Green, who once wondered if he would ever trot onto the gridiron in Manhattan.
Today, the 6-foot-3, 242-pound native of Portland, Oregon, is leader of the Wildcats' defense under defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman, and the 2021 Honorable Mention All-Big 12 selection eyes bigger, better days for himself and his team as they officially begin preparations for next fall.
"This is the fastest spring ball has ever come around for me," he says. "We have a lot of momentum. That LSU game built a lot of confidence for everybody. We have to live up to how we ended the season, and I feel like guys are excited to do that."
He pauses.
"I'm really excited just to play football again," he continues. "That's what we came here to do."
Arguably the top inside linebacker on the west coast in the 2017 recruiting class, Green, a standout at Madison High School, signed his letter-of-intent with K-State on February 1, 2017, choosing the Wildcats over Oregon State, Utah, Southern California, and Arizona. He was the highest-rated signee for K-State and the No. 6-rated high school prospect out of the state of Oregon by 247Sports.
However, dreams of making an immediate impact stalled due to the NCAA Clearinghouse. Green did a lot of thinking during his time away from football. He discovered an emptiness. The experience tested his limits and changed his perspective on the game as well.
Green first spoke publicly prior to the 2019 season. He stood on the field at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. A small lifetime had seemed to pass since he originally signed with the Wildcats. He said, "I feel like God brought me here for a reason. I'm happy here. I feel blessed to be here. I'm just ready to play."
Wyatt Hubert was asked to identify the Kansas State defensive player who most stood out heading into the 2019 season. Hubert chose Daniel Green. Green had never made a tackle in a game. Green had never played in a game.
"Daniel Green," Hubert said, "is a guy who's stood out to me the most."
Green went out and recorded the first quarterback sack for the Wildcats in 2019 and caused a fumble and recovered a fumble over his first three career games.
He's been going strong ever since.
After coming off the sideline to record 33 tackles, including 3.5 tackles for a loss and 2 sacks as a redshirt freshman, Green had 39 tackles, including 5.5 tackles for a loss and 2.5 sacks with two starts as a sophomore. During his first year as a full-time starter last season, Green blew up. He led the team in both tackles (89) and tackles for a loss (16), ranked 18th in the FBS in solo tackles per game (5.3) and 22nd nationally in fumble recoveries (2). He posted at least nine tackles in five different games, becoming the first K-State player to do so since Elijah Lee in 2016.
He isn't satisfied.
Which brings us to today, as he stands inside the Vanier Family Football Complex, surrounded by reporters.
"I just want to get better so bad," Green says. "I'm excited for spring ball because I have the opportunity to do that."
The 23-year-old Green, who was nicknamed "Deuce" when he was given jersey number 22 prior to his freshman season at Madison High School, has gained nearly 20 pounds of muscle since arriving at K-State, and harbors a mature, self-assessing meticulousness that reared itself immediately after the bowl game.
He went back and watched every game of the 2021 season. He critiqued his footwork, his ability to diagnose plays, and down-and-distance situations. He watched his mistakes. In every game. One play after another.
"As a player, that's what you've got to do," he says. "You've got to watch the bad things."
There is so much good to Green's game. That's easy to see. But for as much as he gained comfort in Klanderman's new three-down defense during the middle of last season, and played fast, and really looked like some of the previous great K-State linebackers, there's still another gear.
"I just need to be more efficient in a lot of areas," he says. "That's stuff where if I aspire to keep playing football, I have to be better at."
K-State head coach Chris Klieman is confident in Green's progression.
"He'll take the next step," Klieman says. "For him, I think that is more probably pre-snap stuff. The kid's a really good football player as we all know. He's physical, runs well, covers well. It's just the pre-snap stuff of seeing things before they happen and being an even better communicator.
"That's what we need to get from Deuce, and he's capable of doing that, and he's ready for that to make everybody around him better by really talking and seeing things that he's seeing pre-snap so everybody knows."
Green feels faster on the field than ever before. That's a product of mastering Klanderman's three-down defense as well. His 69 solo stops last season were just three shy of the school's top-1o list and he was 2.0 tackles for a loss short of reaching the top 10 in that category as well. He had a season-high 11 tackles against Texas while he had nine against Stanford, Nevada, TCU and Baylor.
On the field, there's still more room to grow.
"One thing I want to get better at is making more plays in coverage," he says. "That's a big emphasis for spring. I'm a lot faster. I expect to be even faster now that I have one year with the defense. I feel like I'm way ahead of the game right now."
It's a game he loves, a game he has played for many years, and a game that was momentarily taken away before it even ever began in a K-State uniform. Today, Green looks at peace, knowing there are many miles behind him, and many more roads to conquer.
It starts now in spring football. And he is ready.
"I'm here to play football," he says. "That's all I've wanted to do."
Green heads toward his senior season with 161 career tackles, including 25.0 tackles for a loss, with 7.5 sacks, three fumble recoveries and one forced fumble. There's no telling if Green will become the latest linebacker to reach 100 tackles in a season, and there's no telling if he'll record his first-career interception, and there's no telling how many times he'll post double-digit tackle performances in 2022.
But the scary thing, the thing that's most important, and the plight facing opposing Big 12 offenses lies in this fact: Green is getting better every day.
And his best days are still ahead.
Players Mentioned
LB
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