Where did Sam Darnold go to college? Taking a look at 49ers QB's collegiate career 

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Sam Darnold has been playing in the NFL since 2018. And after spending one season with the 49ers as the backup QB, Darnold has now agreed to a new one-year deal worth $10 million with the Minnesota Vikings after they lost their QB Kirk Cousins to the Atlanta Falcons.

As Sam Darnold prepares for his new journey with the Vikings, fans will be pondering over his collegiate career. So which team did the 26-year-old play during his college journey?

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Where did Sam Darnold go to college?

Coming out of San Clemente High School in California, Darnold got scholarship offers to play for teams like Oregon, Utah, USC, Duke and Northwestern. In the end, he decided to commit to playing for the USC Trojans in 2015.

In his first season with the USC Trojans, former USC defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox wanted Darnold to play as a linebacker on the team. After the quarterback refused to do so, he went on to redshirt his freshman year as the third-string QB behind Cody Kessler and Max Browne.

After Kessler transitioned into the NFL in 2016, Sam Darnold became the second-string QB behind Browne. With Max Browne as the starter, the USC Trojans went on to record a 1-2 start to the season. This led to Darnold replacing Browne as QB1 for the remainder of the season.

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Sam Darnold's college career with USC as starting QB

The 26-year-old began his QB1 journey with a 27-31 loss to Utah in the fourth game of the season. But after this, Darnold was successful in leading the Trojans to an undefeated campaign and helped them record a 10-3 overall season. He also helped the team to their first Rose Bowl game in eight seasons where they won, 52-49 against Penn State.

Darnold completed his first proper season with the Trojans with 3,086 passing yards and 31 TD passes. He was also honored with the Archie Griffin Award for his contributions, making him the first freshman to be conferred with this honor.

He returned as a starter in 2017 as an early favorite to win the Heisman that season. As a redshirt sophomore, Darnold led the Trojans to an 11-3 overall campaign. He also helped the team defeat Stanford, 31-28 to win the Pac-12 championship and was named the MVP of that game.

Darnold went on to record 4,143 passing yards and 26 TD passes that season, after which he declared for the 2018 NFL draft where he was selected by the New York Jets as the No. 3 pick.