At that moment Garrett Snodgrass didn’t have a clue. About the photo, that is. All he knew was it was a chance for him to get close to his football hero.
Garrett was only “two or three” at the time and was tagging along at Overton High School football practice where his dad, Glen Snodgrass, was the head coach. There was a photographer on campus that day to snap a portrait of Garrett’s football hero, Overton senior running back Derick Bacon, and Garrett wanted a piece of the action.
What’s a guy to do? Garrett’s solution was to pull a (way-too-big) varsity football helmet over his “two or three” year old head and strike a football pose while Derick played along, patting him on top of his helmet. It’s the kind of thing that makes a kid’s day.
As part of our 2018 Huskerland Prep Report football preview magazine Garrett Snodgrass is again on the cover. Only this time he’s the big guy patting the helmet of the little guy, Kyler Kern, the son of York assistant coach Matt Kern.
“That was a big deal at the time. And I remember us talking about recreating that photo back when I was in junior high, at the state basketball tournament,” says Garrett to Huskerland Bob. And he was right. And now we have.
Something else that’s a big deal is, well, Garrett Snodgrass. Much was expected of him as he launched his high school football career and he’s delivered the goods, becoming a dominant player on both sides of the ball, so much so that Nebraska came calling, offering him a scholarship last fall. He accepted. Without hesitation.
“I wasn’t necessarily heavily recruited and a lot of that was because I committed to Nebraska so quickly,” says Garrett, who has grown to 6-foot-2, 220 pounds. His initial offer came from the Mike Riley staff but new Husker head coach Scott Frost doubled down on the offer when he took the reigns of the program last December. “He congratulated me on a good junior season and told me he wanted me to be part of rebuilding the program. He told me he thought I could help make it happen.”
That’s a pretty good bet. That “good junior season” Snodgrass enjoyed was one of the ages as he became an all-stater on both sides of the ball while leading York to its first-ever state football championship. Along the way he registered some crazy numbers like 1,542 yards rushing and 21 TDs, 692 yards passing and seven TDs, 26 catches for 426 yards and a TD and 86 tackles on defense. That’s all by just one guy.
His contributions were front and center on a team loaded with star power, one which shut out powerhouses like two-time defending state champion Elkhorn South in the semifinals and three-time champ Omaha Skutt in the state final.
“We had a lot of talent on that team and we finished things off. We showed we could get over the hump and win a state championship and that will help the future teams in our program,” says Garrett. York reached the Class B state final in 2013 but was shut out by Skutt 30-0. Last November York shut out Skutt 31-0. “Those two final games were so physical and so disciplined and we just didn’t make many mistakes.”
In 2018 Snodgrass will become the team’s full-time quarterback along with settling in at linebacker on defense; in the past he’d played up to a half dozen positions on the field. “Last year I prepared like I was going to play every snap at quarterback and this year I will get that chance. I have been around the program a lot so that seems pretty natural to me.”
As great as his on-field play might have been in 2017 Garrett is equally pleased with having a chance to take a leadership role on his high school football team. A naturally hard worker at his craft - “football is important to me” - he’s the kind of kid who when he was little would catch a hundred passes a night from his dad while they watched TV in the basement of their family home. “Everything about the game is fun to me,” adds Garrett.
And it’s been that way from birth. Literally.
“Garrett had a Husker football in his crib with him when he was born and has loved the sport of football from day one,” says his father Glen Snodgrass, who is also York’s head football coach. “He has worked incredibly hard for the success he has attained to this point in his career. Garrett has never missed a workout since fourth grade when he came in with the high school kids at Overton. That is approximately 320 consecutive summer workouts and many more during the school year. Many times he will steal my keys and go break into the weight room over the weekend just to get in some extra work.”
Born in Kearney, Garrett and his family lived in Overton until 2010, his father leading the Eagles to three state title games, before moving to York. He enjoys spending time with his younger brother Dalton, who is 14, and maybe do a little fishing, too, “but to be honest with everything that’s going on it’s nice to just hang around the house with nothing to do.” He’s a brilliant student, a 4.0 GPA and 28 on his ACT, and is active in National Honor Society and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Once on campus at UNL he plans to study biology with an agriculture emphasis, the long term plan to work in crop genetics.
With his college future mapped out and state championships in football, basketball and track already on his resume Garrett comes into his senior year wanting to do it all again. One game at a time, of course.
“We know for the first time ever other teams will see York as the team they want to beat, they have to beat if they want to win state. That’s a great challenge for our team but it’s something we are going to embrace. I know we will be hard to beat again this year.”
