Was there ever any doubt who would get the first carry of the Georgia Tech season?
You didn’t need to study any old game film to know. Didn’t need a spy inside the Tech offices. You just needed a little empathy and one rather unsettling memory.
It had to be Snoddy.
Nearly 10 months after he shattered his leg on this same field, A-back Broderick Snoddy took the handoff from Justin Thomas on Thursday night and broke off what was a modest gain by the standards of this cupcake opener — eight yards.
The fact that he popped up, excited and looking for more, was the most significant aspect of the play.
“It feels great,” he said afterward, “just to get out there and let ‘er rip. I was happy to get that first game under my belt.”
Because of a short Alcorn State kickoff, Snoddy at the time found himself near midfield, in the same general vicinity of where his leg snapped in November as he was trying to evade a Clemson tackler.
No one could be sure how the one proven player in Tech’s reconfigured backfield would bounce back from the gruesome break. But as Thursday’s game went on, he seemed to get more and more confident. Alcorn State proved better for him than any calcium supplement.
His second carry was a shifty 23-yard carry through the Braves’ defense. That was immediately followed by a 20-yard run down to the front stoop of the end zone. Then his day was done.
“I thought he did some good things, made some nice runs. He looked normal,” Tech coach Paul Johnson said.
So continues an eventful summer for the Tech senior.
He was married in June. And come September he was running the ball again, and the only question was how much Tech wanted to expose him in a rout, not how much he could do on that healed bone.
About the Author
