[LeeCoUKFan]

Fans show love to UK commit Snodgrass

Justin Rowland
Special to CatsIllustrated.com

It was Thaddeus Snodgrass' first trip to Kentucky as a public commitment for the Wildcats. Not the first as a commitment. That happened earlier and stayed off the radar.

But Snodgrass' trip to the Kentucky spring game last weekend was his first chance to rub shoulders with fans and interact with players and coaches as a publicly-avowed future Wildcat. And according to the four-star receiver, it felt good.

"I felt a lot of love," Snodgrass said. "There was a lot of love. It felt really good."

Three-star receiver T.V. Williams from Texas spent some time with Snodgrass on Saturday and told Cats Illustrated that the Ohio native was busy signing autographs for part of the trip. Even with the recruiting process starting earlier than ever nowadays, that's probably something new for Snodgrass.

The coaches were happy to see him, especially Vince Marrow, his recruiter, and Tommy Mainord, his position coach, but there wasn't the urgency there was on previous trips to Lexington. There wasn't the pressure. His decision had been made.

And Snodgrass, once a recruit, became a recruiter.

He did his best to help roll out the red carpet for Williams, the talented Texas receiver. He made the case to Drew Barker that he would have plenty of talent to throw to on the outside if he chooses Kentucky. And fellow Ohioans like Mike Edwards, Darius West and Darryl Long heard plenty about UK from Snodgrass as well.

As a program's recruiting class grows, so grows it's staff of recruiters. That's a role Snodgrass has embraced, especially now that he has gone public with his college choice.

He was thrilled to see more than 50,000 Kentucky fans show up for the spring game.

"I saw a picture from the game last year, and from that to this it's amazing," he said. "[The players] were really excited."

The game itself had some highlights and Snodgrass was impressed with how quickly the offensive players, especially the skill players, had picked up on things.

"I liked that they scored 47 points combined. I thought the quarterbacks and receivers were all doing a good job," he said.

Snodgrass said he's likely to return to Kentucky over the summer. Lots of other Ohio recruits will be traveling south to Lexington between now and then. You can bet they will be hearing from Snodgrass on a regular basis.

http://kentucky.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1498533