Four-star LB Robby Snelling interested in playing baseball as well at ASU
Robby Snelling had been bounced early from a travel baseball tournament in early 2019. His dad, Jim, saw it as an opportunity. They were stuck in Arizona with nothing to do and figured to venture over to Tempe to try and see one of Jim’s former players.
They rolled up to the Arizona State football facilities and saw a graduate assistant about to head into the complex. Jim caught up to him and asked for a favor.
“Hey, I’m the coach of Brandon Aiyuk,” Jim said. “I was seeing if we could walk around a little bit.”
It worked.
Robby and Jim didn’t end up seeing Aiyuk that day, but they got a tour around the facilities, even talking with a few ASU strength coaches, who were impressed enough with Snelling’s physical intangibles that they exchanged numbers.
Almost two years later, Snelling was officially offered by the Sun Devils. The 6-foot-3, 205-pound four-star linebacker from Reno, Nev. nabbed his ASU offer a few weeks ago, boosting his total list to more than a dozen – namely including Notre Dame, Oregon, Nebraska, Ole Miss, UCLA and others.
“My opinion on my play is that I have really good lateral speed and my motor is really good. I can maintain my speed, and I chase down plays really well,” Snelling said. “I read offenses really well; I have that anticipation of what plays are going to look like just based on what formation they’re in.”
And, now, Snelling’s considering taking his talents to the alma mater of Aiyuk. He and his dad began watching Sun Devil football games and routinely checking Aiyuk’s stats, always feeling connected to one of the best high school football players to come out of McQueen High.
“We were kind of mutual friends. He just had respect for me because I was the coach’s son,” Snelling said. “But I definitely kept tabs on him because it was so cool to see him come up through junior college and then go to ASU.”
If Snelling picks ASU, his path to Tempe will have been much more smooth than Aiyuk’s rocky Junior college path.
After his sophomore season, coaches began hitting up Snelling, getting a jump on recruiting the highly-touted 2022 prospect. One of those was ASU defensive analyst Anthony Garnett, who frequently speaks with Snelling and got him in contact with co-defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce.
“It’s really good,” Snelling said. “The first conversation I had with him (Garnett), he was just taking a feel for everything in my family and what I held as priorities for life, for school, and for sports.”
And when Snelling says sports, he’s not just talking about football. The 6-foot-3, 205-pound doesn’t just play baseball for fun. He’s a centerfielder and hard-throwing lefty whose fastball tops out in the mid-90s. In other words, schools recruiting Snelling for baseball wouldn’t just be doing a favor for the football program.
Knowing that Garnett organized a zoom call with ASU head baseball coach Tracy Smith, who took time out of his vacation to tell Snelling how great the Sun Devils are at accommodating two-sport athletes.
The Sun Devils still haven’t offered Snelling in baseball, but they, like every other school recruiting the four-star, have said that he would be allowed to play both sports.
And, right now, that’s his plan.
“It’s awesome,” Snelling said. “It was definitely something I was worried about when football recruiting started because I knew it was going to get crazier than baseball (recruiting). It’s something that I don’t have to really worry about anymore, which is nice.”
With his two-sport questions out of the way, all Snelling has to do now is decide which school best suits him.
“I want to have a good relationship with the coaches,” Snelling said. “I want to be somewhere where working hard is universal throughout the team. Where no one takes shortcuts to things, and everyone knows how to work hard.
“I really want to get my feel at the campus -- which I’m really fortunate to have gotten to do at ASU. I’ll actually be down in Arizona (this month for a baseball tournament), and I’m going to try and shoot over to ASU.”
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