Rival Views: Most surprising true freshman debated

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Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney don’t always see eye to eye. In this edition of Rival Views, the two debate the most surprising true freshman in the country.

I’ll go with Benny Snell, who has been a big force in leading the Wildcats to some key SEC wins. Snell, a low three-star prospect, had two other Power Five offers coming out of high school and that was from Boston College and Iowa. He wasn’t even the highest-rated running back in his own class and was ignored by all of the Big Ten. And what has he done as a freshman? He’s rushed for 775 yards and 10 scores while averaging 5.6 yards per carry.

The Kentucky running game has been key this season and Snell has teamed with Stanley Williams to form one of the best duos in the SEC. He’s big, physical and can break tackles but he’s also shown a bit more burst and speed than we expected.

There are many five-star freshmen making headlines. Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts and Maryland’s Lorenzo Harrison have a case here, but I’ll take Snell because he is more of a surprise than the rest.

The biggest freshman surprise so far has been South Carolina quarterback Jake Bentley, who only got his chance three games ago but has led the Gamecocks to three straight wins.

Bentley, a four-star quarterback out of Opelika, Ala., was supposed to be playing his senior year of high school ball. But after graduating early in the summer, he enrolled at South Carolina and is now winning SEC games in his first fall on campus.

There was obviously a major quarterback hole in Columbia and first-year coach Will Muschamp worked with Perry Orth and Brandon McIlwain early in the season but things just were not clicking.

After a 28-14 loss to Georgia in early October, Muschamp went with Bentley and the freshman has been phenomenal leading South Carolina to wins over UMass, Tennessee and Missouri.

Big tests are still ahead with Florida this weekend and Clemson to finish the regular season, and the Gamecocks are far from a perennial power. But Bentley has been a fantastic surprise, completing 54 of 74 passes (73 percent) for 622 yards with six touchdowns and – maybe most importantly – no interceptions.

Bentley should be in high school. Instead he’s running an SEC offense and doing a damn good job doing it.