Benny Snell Jr.

Benjamin Snell Jr. (born February 26, 1998) is an American football running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Kentucky.

Early years
Snell Jr. attended Westerville Central High School. During his time there, he won two Ohio Capital Conference titles. During his junior season, Snell Jr. rushed for 2,077 yards while scoring 26 touchdowns on the ground, he also had two receiving touchdowns that year. As a senior, he totaled 1,826 rushing yards, 264 receiving yards and 29 touchdowns. Snell Jr. was rated as a three-star recruit. He chose Kentucky over Iowa, Cincinnati, Boston College, Toledo and West Virginia.

Freshman
As a freshman in 2016, Snell rushed for 1,091 rushing yards, breaking the Kentucky freshman rushing record which was held by Moe Williams. Snell Jr. also managed to score 13 rushing touchdowns. During his freshman season Snell Jr, set six UK freshman records, including most rushing touchdowns in a game (4), most rushing yards by a freshman (1,091), most rushing touchdowns by a freshman (13), most total touchdowns by a freshman (13), most 100-yard rushing games (5) and most rushing yards by a freshman in a single game (192). At the end of his freshman season Snell Jr, was selected as a True Freshman All-American by ESPN and 247Sports, Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) Freshman All-American, Freshman All-SEC and a Second-team All-SEC pick by Pro Football Focus.

Sophomore
As a sophomore in 2017, Snell rushed for 1,333 rushing yards and scored 19 rushing touchdowns. Snell Jr. became the first Kentucky player with 10 or more career 100-yard rushing games prior to his junior season. He also became the only SEC player since 2000 to have at least 116 rushing yards and at least three rushing TDs in three consecutive games. Snell Jr. became the 9th player in Kentucky school history to reach 2,000 rushing yards in his career and the 19th player in SEC history to reach 2,000 career rushing yards prior to his junior season. He also became the only player in Kentucky Football history to have back-to-back 1,000 rushing yard seasons. Snell Jr. was selected as a preseason Associated Press All-SEC First Team and All-SEC Second Team. Snell Jr. was also put on the Doak Walker Award Watch List and the Maxwell Award Watch List.

Junior
As a junior in 2018, Snell rushed for 1,449 rushing yards and scored 16 rushing touchdowns. Snell Jr. became one of four running backs in SEC history to have three consecutive 1,000 rushing yard seasons, the others being Herschel Walker, Darren McFadden, and Alex Collins. Snell Jr. would also become the school's career rushing yards leader after scoring on a 12 yard touchdown run vs. Penn State in the 2019 Citrus Bowl. This 43 year old record, previously held by Sonny Collins, was broken in just 3 seasons by Snell. Snell was voted First Team All-SEC by SEC Coaches. He would announce on December 14, 2018 that he would forego his senior season and enter the 2019 NFL Draft.

Professional career
Snell was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fourth round, 122nd overall, of the 2019 NFL Draft.