Arkansas Football Countdown Day 29: Jared Collins

Jared Collins is a Oklahoma native who made his way over to Fayetteville somewhat quietly. As a top-10 prospect out of the Sooner State, according to our favorite recruiting service 247sports.com, Collins signed with the Hogs with only one other offer in hand, from his hometown Tulsa Hurricanes.

He. along with wide receiver Keon Hatcher and running back Donovan Roberts, came out of Oklahoma to complete the 2012 signing class.

In addition to these connections, Collins was high school teammates with safety Eric Bennett. Knowing this, it makes sense that when he and Bennett led Booker T. Washington to the 2010 5A Oklahoma State Championship, the defense did not surrender points in seven games.

The 6-foot-0, 175-pound redshirt freshman will start the season opposite of cornerback Tevin Mitchell, according to the post-spring depth chart.

Hopefully they can help improve a sometimes dreadful unit from a year ago that ranked 12th in the SEC in total yards given up (409.9 per game), scoring defense (30.4 PPG), and last in passing defense (285.8 YPG).

Collins is also getting it done in the classroom, too. He posted a 4.0 GPA DURING FOOTBALL SEASON, a feat never accomplished by yours truly (especially not during the fall semester).

Here's to you, Jared.

You can follow Collins on Twitter @j_collins29.

The countdown has made it to the 20s; this is good news.