It was a couple of minutes into the fourth quarter of Benny Snell’s first start at Kentucky when he plowed into the end zone in typical Benny Snell fashion for his fourth touchdown of the game.
Snell glanced up into the stands and there it was — a student holding a sign that said “Snell Yeah.” As simple as that, a nickname, of sorts, was born. Actually, it is more of a slogan than a nickname, but it meant enough to the Steelers’ fourth-round pick to have it tattooed across his stomach.
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Rewind about 15 years before and Snell’s dad was playing for the startup Las Vegas Outlaws of the radical XFL when a team representative approached the entire running back corp one day before practice to ask what they wanted on the back of their game jerseys.
“We were like, ‘What do you mean?’” Snell Sr. said from his suburban Columbus home late last week. “They told us we could put anything we wanted on our jerseys. They told us this before practice and we told them we would let them know by dinner time what we wanted to do. We said we wanted to do something different.”
Oh yeah, it was different alright — “Thoro” and “He Hate Me” were born on that day.
Snell Sr. was “Thoro,” as in thoroughbred, because “they said I ran like a thoroughbred.” His roommate, Rod Smart, decided on the now infamous “He Hate Me” which is still as iconic today as it was nearly 20 years ago.
Now, Benny Snell Jr. won’t have “Snell Yeah” on his back when the Steelers kick off organized team activities this week at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex and he won’t even have the number he wanted (26) but assuming Snell Jr. is about nicknames, slogans and numbers is probably as wrong as you can be.
“This whole ‘Snell Yeah’ and ‘SnellYaLater’ is fun and all but it’s all about football for him,” Snell Sr. said.
When Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert finally got to speak about his rookies on the final day of the draft last month, it didn’t talk long for him to gush about his new running back.
But it wasn’t what you thought would come from the mouth of a general manager who just used a valuable pick on a player who, at best, will get a handful of carries while spending most of his time on special teams.
Instead, it was precisely what you would want to hear from a decision-maker of an organization that just went through some pretty rough times with character issues.
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Remember Mike Tomlin’s quote of “we want volunteers, not prisoners” concerning Le’Veon Bell’s selective absence for the 2019 season?
Yeah, the Steelers’ brass sure did and weren’t about to go down that path again.
Even though Snell Jr. was going to declare for the draft following his stellar junior season, he played (and excelled) in the Citrus Bowl against Penn State — a 27-24 win in which he carried the ball 26 times for 144 yards and two touchdowns.
“We really like to acknowledge that and give him credit for putting his team and that win over his own priorities,” Colbert said then.
It’s become fashionable over the past couple of years for players to not play in the bowl game and that’s understandable. Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey started the wave in 2016 and it’s grown substantially since.
There is an inherent risk in playing a football game when a big payday awaits a few months down the road. Michigan tight end Jake Butt and Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith are two examples of players losing millions because of a severe injury in a bowl game. Insurance policies take a little sting off the money loss, but in Butt’s case, it was basically a loss of $3.5 million because he got hurt in a meaningless bowl game.
For Snell Jr., who was being projected as a mid-round pick, it wasn’t even a thought to skip the Citrus Bowl even though an injury could’ve dropped him out of the draft, costing him $700,000 of guaranteed money and potentially the entire $3.2 million deal he signed because he was picked 122nd overall.
Last season with Kentucky, running back Benny Snell Jr. ran for 1,449 yards on 289 carries. (Kim Klement / USA Today)
“I am the type of player when I come into a program, after all, I have done at Kentucky coming fighting for a spot and fighting for Kentucky to be a winning program to be where they are today,” Snell Jr. said. “I felt like it was only right to go out that way. There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going to sit out. That’s not the kind of player that I am. I am a team player.”
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But nobody would’ve blamed him if he did.
There were 10 who sat out two years ago. That number doubled this past season with four running backs deciding not to play — Memphis’ Darrell Henderson (drafted 70th overall), Stanford’s Bryce Love (112th), Oklahoma State’s Justice Hill (113th) and Michigan’s Karan Higdon (undrafted).
“We just always just expected and knew Benny was going to play,” his dad said. “That’s what he wanted to do. It was never a question. It was never thought about or talked about or thought it was even a risk. He’s been pretty durable over the years, so it was never brought up.”
Two of the Steelers top three picks — Devin Bush and Justin Layne — didn’t play in their respective bowl games. Also not playing were some of the top picks in the draft like Nick Bosa, Ed Oliver, Noah Fant and N’Keal Harry, while some mid-round picks like Will Grier and Germaine Pratt also didn’t play in their bowl games.
“I don’t even think that crossed his mind,” said Kentucky offensive coordinator and assistant head coach Eddie Gran. “That’s just not who he is. He started something and wanted to finish it. People ask why we won 10 games last year for the first time in 41 years and it was because we had leaders like Benny Snell.
“There were no conversations,” Gran continued. “The only conversation was that he wanted to tell the team that he was playing. The way college football is and the way these kids are nowadays, it puts you up a notch when you are a team guy and want to play for your team.”
Snell Jr. felt like he let the team down in the bowl game the year before, his dad alluded. Snell Jr. was ejected from the game in the second quarter for making contact with an official. Snell Sr. said that likely had something to do with the quick decision to play in the Citrus Bowl.
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“After what happened the previous year, he just wanted to engage with his teammates and hopefully, enjoy the victory,” Snell Sr. said.
Running the football, well, runs in the Snell family.
Snell Sr. was drafted by the Ravens and played in both the XFL and NFL Europe, and Matt Snell, Benny Jr.’s great uncle, played nine years with the Jets and was the star of the Super Bowl III upset over the Colts when he rushed 30 times for 121 yards and a touchdown.
Benny Snell's father Ben Snell playing for the Las Vegas Outlaws in the XFL pic.twitter.com/7xQ1eMRE3d
— KY Clips (@KY_Clips) January 8, 2019
“When I got done playing football, I jumped right into coaching him,” Snell Sr. said. “He was probably a little too young to see me play, but he’s seen the videos and footage as he got older. He was at a couple of my games over in Europe, but he was 3 or 4. He had it in him to be the best and tried stuff off the field to get better. He always wanted to be the best at what he was doing.”
So when you look at what Snell Jr. accomplished in three years at Kentucky, it isn’t a surprise.
- Started in 27 of 39 career games, including 26 straight.
- Broke or tied 14 school records.
- Holds the school record for career rushing yards (3,873), total touchdowns (48), rushing touchdowns (48) and 100-yard games (19).
Snell Jr. finished his Kentucky career with 14 program records, including career rushing yards, 100-yard rushing games, total touchdowns scored (48), rushing touchdowns in a game (four). He and Herschel Walker are the only players in Southeastern Conference history to rush for at least 1,000 yards and 12 touchdowns in each of their first three seasons.
Even though he had the bloodlines and the high school tape to easily see what he would do at the collegiate level, there were questions about Snell Jr., most notably his size. Being 5-foot-10 and 224 pounds played well a decade ago but not so much in this day and age.
So, despite growing up a 20-minute drive north of Ohio State, Snell wasn’t recruited by the Buckeyes. Gran was the offensive coordinator at Cincinnati and the time and wanted Snell Jr., but he went to Kentucky. Gran was hired by Mark Stoops the same year and Gran got his guy — a guy with a major chip on his shoulder.
“Yeah, he has a chip on his shoulder,” Gran said. “Many didn’t believe he could play that level of football. He’s proved everybody wrong in high school, he proved everybody wrong in college and I know he is going to try and go prove everybody wrong in the NFL. He plays and practices hard. He plays injured, he practices injured. He practiced with us one week with broken ribs. That’s the kind of person he is. He fits the mold of what Steelers football is. Benny Snell is who he is.”
Snell Jr. has a name for that kind of football.
“Benny Snell football,” Snell Jr. said.
So, what’s Benny Snell football?
“Benny Snell football: it can be second-and-three or third-and-three, or fourth-and-two, third-and-goal or fourth-and-goal, it could be the four-minute offense. You have to run the clock out to win the game,” Snell Jr. said. “It’s feed him, feed him, let him run it out. He might dance a little bit, but he’s going to run back and do it again.”
Snell Jr. will begin to carve out a role for him during the spring which very well could be Benny Snell football or the more conventional term of a four-minute offense. A closer, if you will.
James Conner is coming off a Pro Bowl year and Jaylen Samuels showed promise in the couple of games he played a year ago. So it’s going to be difficult for Snell Jr. to get on the field barring injury.
A role that he could grab is that end-of-the-game grinder.
“He’s like a Marshawn Lynch — give him the football and he’s going to keep coming at you, coming at you, coming at you and not going to stop until you get tired. It’s my will against yours,” Snell Sr. said. “That’s how he has always been. He sometimes knows that will be put on his shoulders. That is one part of his game that being a closer or a four-minute guy is definitely a strength.”
Running back Benny Snell Jr. led Kentucky to a 27-24 win in the Citrus Bowl against Penn State on Jan. 1. (Jasen Vinlove / USA Today)
Now back to the Citrus Bowl game that Snell Jr. decided to play.
With the Wildcats clinging to a 27-24 lead after Penn State raced back from a 27-7 fourth-quarter deficit, they got the ball back with 4:12. Snell Jr. ran the ball seven times for 25 yards, picked up two first downs and ran all but one second off the clock.
“In his three years here, he’s done that many times so it was no secret that he was going to get the ball every single time,” Gran said. “There were 11 of them up there, but it seemed like there were 30 of them.”
Gran learned his lesson from earlier in the season against Texas A&M when he had a chance to run the game out with Snell Jr. with a fourth-and-one play. Gran decided to throw it instead.
“It was the biggest mistake of my life,” Gran said. “I tricked myself. We never threw out of this formation and I did. I threw the ball instead of handing it to our best player. He’s a blue-collar, lunch pail, hard-hat guy. He loves the game and he doesn’t want to do anything else and you can see that with how he runs the ball.”
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Snell Yeah!
(Top photo: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)
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