Wesson Attendance Center has only had one player get a Division I scholarship in the past 35 years, and against the University of Massachusetts, that player, Farrod Green, made his mark.
Green, a tight end, is a redshirt freshman from Wesson, Mississippi but he was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi. Green redshirted his freshman year and was a 3-star recruit coming out of high school, according to 247sports.com.
Green, who has played sparingly all season, had no catches entering Saturday’s contest against UMass. However, on Saturday he caught three passes for 38-yards on top of getting his first career touchdown on a 13-yard pass near the end of the third quarter.
Green, on Tuesday, spoke on how he really does not care about scoring touchdowns and just wants to win, going as far as saying he would rather see someone else score.
“I’m not the type to celebrate, I would rather see someone else score,” Green said. “It was a great moment for me, but I’m ready for the next one.”
While Farrod did not celebrate, one of his teammates did. One would expect an offensive player to get to Farrod first, but that was not the case as the first player to run up and hug Green was redshirt freshman linebacker Leo Lewis. Lewis ran off the sideline and was the first player to greet Green, hoisting him up in the air. Lewis, who is from Brookhaven, Mississippi, is a friend of Farrod from long before they wound up at MSU.
“I knew he was going to score, they ran a little Hollywood play where he acted like he was going to block and took the quick inside step and once he did that I knew he had it,” Lewis said. “Once he scored I dropped my helmet to celebrate with him, and that is a moment we will remember forever.”
Green talked about how much Lewis being the first guy there meant to him.
“That’s my boy from way before this, I love seeing him make plays, and he loves seeing me make plays,” Green said. “It meant a lot to me to look up and he was in the end zone before anyone else on offense, he was the first one down there, it meant a lot.”
However, receiving is only half the battle for a tight end, a position that focuses as much on blocking as it does receiving. Tight end coach Scott Sallach excitedly pointed out Tuesday that most outside the tight end’s film room will not notice how well Farrod blocked on his first play of the game. On this running play, he runs over the man he is supposed to block. Green said he wants the people running the ball to be confident in his blocking.
“So the people that are running the ball have confidence in us,” Green said. “I lead the way for them.”
Sallach raved about Green’s work ethic on Tuesday, talking about how much he enjoyed seeing Green’s hard work in practice pay off. He said a big reason he got a lot of playing time was because of how well he played in practice.
“The fine line is that you have to excel Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to have the confidence to go out and do it on Saturday,” Sallach said. “That’s what you see with Farrod, he had an unbelievable week of practice, and he was walking like he was six foot seven Friday night.”
Before the season, Sallach showed the tight ends film of former Bulldog’ tight end and current Cleveland Brown’s fullback Malcom Johnson. He showed them the film to show how hard Johnson worked all the time. Now a quarter into the season, he sees some of Johnson in Green.
“If you go back and just actually watch Farrod play, that was more like what we need, the energy and the effort,” Sallach said. “Sometimes you win your individual battle because you try harder, and we’re starting to see it more out of Farrod.”
Green has not let any of this get to his head, nor has his father, Calvin Green, who is a coach at Copiah-Lincoln (Co-lin) Community College, telling him to stay humble and just keep working hard after the game on Saturday. Green is taking the bye week to go home, but he does not want to be looked at differently just because he was the first in 35-years to make it to a Division I school.
“They kind of treat me differently, but I don’t really like that, I’m the same Farrod from the seventh grade,” Green said. “They can do the same thing, that is what I try to tell them. Just don’t look at all this media stuff and work hard.”
Green and the MSU Bulldogs are off this week but will be back in action next Saturday, Oct. 8. They will take on Auburn at Davis-Wade Stadium. The kickoff is at 11 a.m. and the game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
