Comparing Kentucky icons Damien Harris and Benny Snell after NFL Combine showings
Damien Harris’ career at Alabama was much different than Benny Snell’s at Kentucky.
Snell was a workhorse for the Wildcats, carrying 737 times in three seasons at UK. Harris finished with 35 percent fewer carries (477) with an additional season under his belt. Snell logged 262 carries as a sophomore and 289 as a junior after getting a good share as a freshman while tag-teaming with Boom Williams (186 for Snell, 171 for Williams); Harris — who has consistently shared a backfield with pro backs including Kenyon Drake and Derrick Henry, as well as fellow draft hopeful Josh Jacobs — never had more than the 150 rushes he had as a senior.
NFL teams admire Snell’s durability despite his workload, he said at the NFL Combine on Thursday. Harris is a year older — both celebrated birthdays earlier this month — but embraces the positive to be mined from his distribution of college touches.
“I just like the narrative to be that I’m fresh, I’m healthy, I made I through college with very few limitations, no real major injuries and I just had a healthy career,” Harris said Thursday. “That’s what I’m trying to tell teams. A lot of people already know that. That’s kind of the narrative out there right now.”
Harris and Snell are frequently compared because of their ties to Kentucky. Harris, a Madison Southern graduate and a five-star All-American, was hotly recruited by UK but chose Alabama, where he played for four national titles, winning two. Snell, a less-heralded recruit out of high school, came to UK with a chip on his shoulder after being snubbed by Ohio State, his childhood team that’s a short distance from his home. He left as Kentucky’s career rushing leader and helped guide the program to its third 10-win season and a New Year’s Day bowl victory.
Both ran sub-average times at the combine on Friday — Harris clocked a 4.57 to Snell’s 4.66 — but Harris impressed in the vertical jump, posting the fourth-highest leap among running backs (37 inches). They were dead even on the bench, each pushing 16 reps of 225 pounds.
During passing drills Harris received an impromptu test of his leaping ability when he lunged over a photographer to avoid running him over; footage of that near-accident was among the most-watched videos from the combine on the NFL Network’s Twitter page, topping 125,000 as of Saturday morning.
Snell had no viral post about which to boast but was personable as ever in his pre-drill media scrum. His sluggish 40-time was not particularly surprising — he’s “lacking (the) desired level of elusiveness and burst as an NFL runner,” according to NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein — but Snell believes teams will value his work ethic and commitment.
“You can put me at the bottom. I don’t wanna say Kentucky was at the bottom, but they weren’t doing so well,” Snell said. “You can put me at the bottom or put me on a team that doesn’t produce as much, and I want to give my all and try to make something out of nothing before I just don’t put any effort in at all and sit back and let the glory happen. That’s not what kind of player I am.”
Kentuckians and Southeastern Conference fans will likely continue to talk about the pair in the same breath, especially once their draft positions and relative distance from one another are known.
Harris was asked about that, and about “what might have been” had he picked Kentucky over the Crimson Tide, on Thursday.
“Benny Snell is a great player. Nobody can deny that. Nobody can take that away from him,” Harris said. “His accomplishments along with the rest of the team the last three years have been remarkable. Coach (Mark) Stoops has done a really great job. I still maintain a pretty close relationship with him even though I chose to go to Alabama.
“But the success he’s had, Benny’s had, Josh Allen, all those guys, is truly remarkable. Even though I didn’t end up going there, still being from the state of Kentucky still brings me a lot of pride.”
Snell said “it worked out for both” running backs. He isn’t concerned at all about the comparisons to his Kentucky-born counterpart, or the possibility of being selected behind him in the draft.
“No, sir,” Snell said when asked about that on Thursday. “Benny Snell’s gonna be Benny Snell, regardless of what the outcome is.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 10:17 AM.
