Football born and bred, Snell driven to cap historic season
Kentucky RB needs 107 yards to end career as school’s top rusher
Kentucky running back Benny Snell Jr. sees a little of himself in the way his dad and great-uncle once ran the football while at the college and pro levels.
That old video footage has helped fuel Snell’s ascent atop the UK record books during an impressive three-year run, which includes leading the program to nine wins in a season for the first time since 1984.
Snell’s dad, Benny Sr., was a standout Division III football player at Ohio Northern before spending time with the Baltimore Ravens, NFL’s European league and the XFL. His dad’s uncle, Matt Snell, played at Ohio State from 1961-63 and went on to rush for 121 yards and a touchdown while helping the New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
“It’s just crazy to see when I watch my dad’s college highlights and then you cut to Matt Snell, and you can see the comparison on how they run,” said Snell Jr. “My dad was No. 33 and Matt was No. 41, [and] he was just running through people. [They were] power runners. Then when I watch myself because I like to evaluate myself, the running style, how we hit the outside [or] if we’ve got to break a tackle, and how we look, it’s just wild.”
Snell, a junior who has compiled 3,729 rushing yards and 46 touchdowns since cracking the lineup as a true freshman in 2016, will play his final game with the Wildcats on New Year’s Day in Orlando. He declared for the NFL draft earlier this month and needs just 107 yards to surpass Sonny Collins (1972-75) as the program’s all-time leading rusher.
No. 14 Kentucky (9-3) faces No. 12 Penn State (9-3) in the Citrus Bowl on Tuesday at Camping World Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ABC.
UK offensive assistant and running backs coach Eddie Gran said Snell’s respect for the game and his approach made for an easy decision when it came time to insert him into the lineup so early in his career.
“My love for football is out of this world,” Snell said. “You can never not get better at football.
Whenever I’m eating breakfast [or] eating dinner, you could always turn on some Ezekiel Elliott highlights, Adrian Peterson highlights.
“You can always get better just watching what those guys do because they’re greats, and I want to be like them one day.”
Standing in the way of a storybook sendoff for Snell — and Kentucky’s first 10-win season since finishing 10-1 in 1977 — is Penn State’s stout defensive front. It’s a unit that ranks fourth in the country in tackles-for-loss with an average of 8.3 per game.
“Early in the downs they like to blitz and they’re good at controlling the run,” Snell said. “The whole defense swarms and they’re going to come after it.”
The Nittany Lions have allowed just five rushers to surpass 100 yards in a game this season.
“He’s obviously a quality back, and we’ve seen our fair share of those,” Penn State defensive coordinator Brent Pry said of Snell. “As you watch games in their entirety, you see guys not defending him as well late in games.
“And so we know it’s going to be a four-quarter battle with him and we’ve got to be physical in gang tackle, and it’s going to take a united effort to slow him down.”
Just as it was for the defenses that tried slowing Matt and Benny Sr. back in their day.