Here is a great recap article on Snell's recruiting and why he was missed, from a Ohio State perspective but nice read for those of us that dont just go by stars and want to know how a Snell is missed
I think a key is he didnt go to camps after he committed and blow up before his senior year seems to be a reason
How Ohio State missed on Benny Snell, helped change Kentucky football
Jon Hale, Louisville Courier JournalPublished 6:32 a.m. ET Sept. 27, 2018 | Updated 6:32 a.m. ET Sept. 27, 2018
UK star running back Benny Snell is adjusting to his newfound fame as a Heisman Trophy candidate. Jon Hale, Louisville Courier Journal
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Had things worked out according to plan, UK star running back Benny Snell might be one of the key players in this season’s College Football Playoff race.
Attending Westerville Central High School, just 18 miles from Ohio State’s football stadium, Snell envisioned himself one day playing for the hometown Buckeyes.
But that admiration was never reciprocated.
“Coming from high school," Snell said, "I was always an Ohio State guy. I wanted to be a hometown hero, but that wasn’t the case."
Kentucky, Boston College, Iowa and Cincinnati were Snell's highest-profile scholarship offers,
according to the Rivals.com database. Buffalo, Miami (Ohio) and Toledo are also listed.
Absent are the Big Ten powers, most notably Ohio State.
Heisman hype:
Snell's Heisman Trophy odds improve after Mississippi State win
Watch:
Mark Stoops confident Heisman hype won't affect Benny Snell
Rivals,
247Sports and Scout all rated Snell as a mid-level three-star recruit.
"I found myself at camps being the best one and still guys were getting running back MVPs and all that when I was the best one," Snell said. "I knew I was.”
The
247Sports Composite, which averages the ratings of the major services, ranked 37 prospects in Ohio better than him in the 2016 class, even after Snell ran for almost 4,000 yards and 57 touchdowns during his junior and senior seasons at Westerville.
“We missed him,” said Bill Greene, an Ohio recruiting expert who worked for Scout at the time and now works for 247Sports. “He was really good in high school. His film was really good and he played at a good program too. It’s not like he was hidden at some D7 school in the coal mines of Ohio or something. It was a visible school.
“That was just a miss by recruiting guys. We did have him as mid-three-star kid, so it’s not like we didn’t know who he was. But man, we never knew he was this good.”
Vince Marrow, Kentucky’s recruiting coordinator and Ohio recruiting ace, acknowledged he didn’t know Snell would be this good either.
But Marrow saw something early in Snell's high school career that Ohio State and the other Big Ten powers did not. Friend Ted Ginn Sr., a Cleveland high school coach and the father of former Ohio State star Ted Ginn Jr., tipped Marrow off after seeing Snell crush through an opposing defense during a high school playoff game.
“I went the next week and watched him play," Marrow said. "I was like, ‘Holy Jesus, this kid is exactly what we’re looking for.’”
Kentucky had struggled to run the ball in short-yardage situations early in the Mark Stoops era, and the UK coach had instructed Marrow to find him a running back who could get the tough yards needed for a first down.
Stoops and Marrow thought they had found that running back in the 2015 class in Madison Southern star Damien Harris, but despite the staff’s best efforts, Harris ultimately picked Alabama.
When Marrow started recruiting Snell, there were no national title contenders battling for his signature.
“You’re talking about a stone’s throw away from Ohio State, and everybody grows up being an Ohio State fan,” Westerville Central coach John Magistro said. “So, that [offer] wasn’t there along with a few other ones. A few other ones fell through. Kentucky was sold on him from the very beginning, and I think Benny appreciated that and recognized it.”
Snell committed to Kentucky in February 2015, almost a full year before he signed with the Wildcats.
But unlike several other recent under-the-radar recruits UK coaches identified early, including quarterbacks Mac Jones (2017) and Jarren Williams (2018), Snell largely ignored the camp circuit before his senior year.
“Usually you get a commitment that soon from a kid, he’s going to end up taking visits. He’s going to decommit,” Greene said. “I’ve seen that movie so many times, and so has Kentucky, but in that case, they just out-recruited everybody. They out-evaluated people.
“… If Benny would not have committed to Kentucky in February and then went to Nike in the spring, went to Under Armour in the spring, went to Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State camps in the summer, got a ton more offers, he would have blown [up].”
Snell, who said in high school he saw himself as a prototypical “Big Ten back” like former Ohio State star Ezekiel Elliott or former Michigan State star Jeremy Langford, gradually began to see himself playing in the Southeastern Conference.
Current UK quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw, one of the first college coaches to offer Snell a scholarship in his previous job at Cincinnati, saw how tight the bond between Snell and Kentucky became from the outside.
“Luckily, we’re over here on this side with him at Kentucky [now],” Hinshaw said.
At least one unnamed “northern school” made a late run at Snell, according to Marrow, but the family remained loyal to Kentucky.
By the time Ohio State showed any interest, the Kentucky relationship had been cemented by multiple visits to Lexington.
"They had already recruited, I think, five or six running backs before they even started sniffing around at Benny," said Snell's father, Ben Snell Sr. "Benny kind of was like, 'I’m going to pass on that. Thanks but no thanks, pretty much.'"
A subsequent inquiry as to whether Snell would be interested in playing outside linebacker for Ohio State was met with the same response.
The Buckeyes' highest-priority running back in the 2016 class was four-star New Jersey native Kareem Walker.
When Walker began to signal he was considering other options before ultimately decommitting from Ohio State in November 2015, Urban Meyer’s staff began pursuing four-star North Carolina native Antonio Williams. The Buckeyes also signed four-star Ohio prep running back DeMario McCall in the 2016 class.
Walker, who was
briefly connected with Kentucky this summer after he announced he was transferring from Michigan, now plays for Fort Scott Community College in Kansas. Williams transferred from Ohio State to North Carolina in July. McCall, who was slotted 35 spots higher than Snell in the 2016 247Sports Composite Ohio rankings, has played in just 13 games in three seasons at Ohio State with 67 total carries.
The message Magistro heard from Ohio State and the other Big Ten powers was Snell was too slow to play running back for them. It was a common justification for keeping Snell’s recruiting ratings out of the four-star range too.
Speed has proven no barrier to Snell becoming Kentucky’s career record-holder in total touchdowns (39) or the SEC’s leader in rushing yards (540) this season.
But without the recruiting snubs, would his motivation have been the same?
Magistro acknowledges the chip on Snell's shoulder likely started in high school but notes, "the groundwork for him being a hard worker was laid before that, way before that.”
Snell Sr. points to the early snubs at recruiting camps as being key in forming that motivation even before the powerhouse programs passed on him in recruiting.
And with the Wildcats undefeated and ranked in the top 25 for the first time since 2007, perhaps Snell can end up affecting the playoff race after all.
Snell at Kentucky has already turned out better than anyone imagined.
"If we get accepted to an Ohio State, we don’t know if he would have been that guy or would have been just a number on the bench that would come in to relieve," Snell Sr. said. "We just don’t know. I tend to think wherever my son would have played football at he would be that guy."
Jon Hale: jahale@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @JonHale_CJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/jonh.
