BY TRISTAN SASSE
\nPHOTO COURTESY OF FHSU ATHLETICS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On Friday, April 27, Nathan Shepherd became the third player in Fort Hays State University history<\/span>\u00a0drafted into the NFL, when the New York Jets selected him in the third round with the 72nd overall pick. Shepherd was the first defensive player selected from FHSU in program history and the first draft pick from Fort Hays since 1987.<\/p>\n The 6\u20195\u201d, 300 lb. defensive lineman from Ajax, Ontario, Canada spent a year at Simon Fraser University in Canada before later signing with the Tigers. In three years at Fort Hays, Shepherd recorded 168 total tackles, 27 tackles for loss, and 10 sacks.<\/span><\/p>\n During his senior season, he helped the Tigers to their best record in school history, at 11-1. FHSU also made the NCAA Division II playoffs for the first time since 1995. He had 38 tackles and four sacks during his senior season.<\/span><\/p>\n His performance on the field earned him multiple honors, including 2017 MIAA Defensive Player of the Year and a 2017 Second Team All-American selection. At FHSU, Shepherd was a three-time MIAA selection and two-time all-American. <\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, Shepherd received an invite to play in the Senior Bowl earlier this year. He was unable to play in the game due to a hand injury but he still made an impact with NFL scouts after a strong showing in Senior Bowl practices and at the NFL Combine. Shepherd\u2019s draft stock continued to rise after participating in a Pro Day at FHSU and in his ensuing media tour and individual team workouts leading up to the draft – including an appearance on NFL Network’s ‘Up to the Minute’.<\/span><\/p>\n The Jets first preseason game will be on August 10 at 6:30 pm against the Atlanta Falcons. New York will begin the regular season on September 10 in Detroit against the Lions. The Jets finished the 2017 season with a 5-11 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY TRISTAN SASSE PHOTO COURTESY OF FHSU ATHLETICS On Friday, April 27, Nathan Shepherd became the third player in Fort Hays State University history\u00a0drafted… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":38073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3387,7349],"tags":[69,604,1694,106,181,4603,11033,103,1495,290,11449],"class_list":["post-38040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-sports","category-sports","tag-fhsu","tag-fhsu-athletics","tag-fhsu-football","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-miaa","tag-nathan-shepherd","tag-nfl-draft","tag-tiger-media-network","tag-tigermedianet","tag-tmn","tag-tristan-sasse"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nathan-Shepherd-e1524881186143.png?fit=500%2C276&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38040"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38074,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38040\/revisions\/38074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}