Shunned by Division I programs, Danny Woodhead went to Chadron State and rushed into the record books

Though he plays in Division II, Woodhead has caught the eye of NFL scouts. Bill Frakes/SI

Growing up in North Platte, Neb., Danny Woodhead was so taken with football that just watching the game on television and playing it in the yard with friends wasn't enough. When he was five, he scrawled numbers on the backs of his cowboys and Indians and then spent hours moving the plastic figures around the floor of his bedroom in make-believe games. Once when his mother suggested that he find a more creative outlet for his energies, he drew a football field on the living-room carpet with a green marker.

Woodhead began playing organized football as soon as he was old enough, in the fourth grade. A few years later he joined his older brother, Ben, as a ball boy at North Platte High, where their father, Mark, was an assistant coach and where Danny would become a record-setting running back. "Football was the only thing I ever wanted to do," Danny says.

Lots of kids love football, of course, but few play it as well as Woodhead, a senior tailback at tiny Chadron (Neb.) State College, a Division II outpost about 300 miles north of Denver, on the western reaches of the Great Plains. On Oct. 6, in the fourth-ranked Eagles' 21-0 victory over Western New Mexico, the 5' 7", 200-pound Woodhead became the most prolific rusher in college football history, breaking the NCAA career record of 7,353 yards set in 2000 by R.J. Bowers of Division III Grove City (Pa.) College. Woodhead has rushed for 7,550 yards, and with four games remaining in the regular season -- and more if Chadron State (7-0) returns to the Division II playoffs -- he is poised to put the record beyond reach for the foreseeable future. No active collegiate rusher is within 1,855 yards of him.

Woodhead is the sort of talent rarely found in Division II. Quick and explosive -- last spring he was timed at 4.43 seconds in the 40-yard dash, and his vertical jump is more than 33 inches -- he's a threat to score every time he touches the ball. Sixteen of his 96 rushing touchdowns have come on runs of more than 60 yards.

Nearly as impressive as Woodhead's speed is his physical style of play. "He's not an easy kid to bring down," says Eagles coach Bill O'Boyle. "Everybody knocks him because he's so short, but he has bigger legs than our linemen. There's no doubt in my mind that he's a Division I talent."

He may be more than that. "Can he play in the NFL? Without question," says Don Beebe, a former NFL wideout who starred at Chadron State and after whom the stadium is named. "If you're that good, they'll find you."

Woodhead is as surprised as anyone else by his sudden rise from small-college obscurity to NFL-prospect status -- he says he never thought of playing on Sundays until last year -- but he admits that it's intensely gratifying. Chadron State was the only school that wanted him. "My mom always told me there might be a reason I came to Chadron State," he says. "The way things are panning out, I think this is it."

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