Photo by Ben Spurlock, USA Today Sports Images

Ali Marpet wowed the scouts from early on in his pro career, and now he'll have a chance to see how he performs in training camp as well.

Marpet, a 2014 D3football.com first-team All-American offensive lineman for Hobart, became the school's first NFL draftee in the D-III era as he was picked late in the second round, going 61st overall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

• Marpet focused on passing the test

He'a also the first Division III football player drafted since Albion cornerback Chris Greenwood was picked in the fifth round by the Detroit Lions in 2012.

"He's a smart, tough, dependable, face-of-the-program, very mature guy and that's what we're trying to build up from," Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht said in a news conference on Friday night. He also added that the the Bucs will play him at guard, although he can also play center.

"I've said throughout this process, that whatever team drafts Ali is going to get an outstanding lineman who will learn and grow and have an outstanding NFL career," Hobart coach Mike Cragg said. "The Buccaneers got an exceptional young man who is going to do great things. I have no doubt about that."

He may not be the only player drafted from Division III this season, as Adam Turer noted in a feature earlier this week. But even if nobody else is taken, generally about a half-dozen Division III players sign free agent contracts after the draft in any given year. Others are invited, unsigned, to rookie minicamps. Others are brought in as camp arms or camp wideouts to help teams look at other players they consider better prospects, but any chance to get looked at is a positive one.

The most prominent Division III alumnus in the NFL in the past two decades, John Carroll's London Fletcher, went undrafted, but spent 17 years in the league as a linebacker with the Rams and Redskins.

Previous draftees, from 1990 onward: