Postseason Roundtable: Who was UK's most valuable player in '17?
With Kentucky's football season completely over the Cats Illustrated staff is going to the roundtable to discuss what we watched over the course of the last few months.
Our first roundtable question: Who was Kentucky's most valuable player in the 2017 season?
Jeff Drummond, Managing Editor: It's the age-old question: what should MVP stand for? Is it your best player? Is it your literal "most valuable" player, the guy you can least afford to lose? If that's the case, it was clearly senior quarterback Stephen Johnson. But I have to go with the former and give it to sophomore running back Benny Snell. When you do things running the football that put you in historic SEC notes that include Herschel Walker, you've done something truly special.
Adam Luckett, Special Contributor: It was Benny Snell and it wasn’t really even close. After being destroyed by Mississippi State in Starkville, the offense made a change to get focused on their ground game and in the next month the Westerville, Ohio native would become one of the best offensive players in the SEC. Snell finished the year with 1,333 yards an 19 touchdowns as he received numerous all-conference honors. In the last six games, Snell notched 13 of those touchdowns as he became one of the most productive workhorse backs in the FBS. Snell ran for at least 100 yards in four of the last six games, including totals of 176, 180, and 211. For an offense that got really shaky quarterback play down the stretch and a defense that simply could not stop anyone to end the year, there is no question that things would have gotten ugly without Snell and he has a legit chance to become the best running back in program history next fall.
Justin Rowland, Publisher: I think it's been laid out very well by now. We could get cute or play with words but at the end of the day Benny Snell was the foundation stone of Kentucky's football team. When they had success offensively it was largely because Snell was running over, around and through defenders. He was an enormous part of the offense. If you go strictly by the numbers you can say Kentucky had "balance" but they really didn't have balance. 2,000 rushing, 2,000 passing, sure, but 2017 if you have those numbers it means you run the ball pretty well and don't pass it so well. But it goes beyond the simple numbers. The success Kentucky had this year was largely predicted on slowing the tempo of games, draining clock, prolonging drives as much as possible and creating the best possible field position and game conditions for the defense. Given the drop off from Snell to any backup and the rest of the team's limitations, there is no way this team approaches seven wins without Snell. He was probably worth two or three wins single-handedly.