With This Group, Snyder Must Have Had a Sixth Sense

The story has become a cliche in Arizona, and today it defines them both, on the eve of their greatest day.

It’s the story of a player--Jason Steven (Jake) Plummer--whom not many coaches projected as a big-time college quarterback, and a coach--Bruce Fletcher Snyder--who did.

It’s the story of how Snyder induced the skinny Idaho kid, Plummer, to enroll at Arizona State. And as a reporter reminded Snyder recently, the story gets better with each telling.

It used to be 18 inches of snow, and he had ruined a pair of shoes during his 1993 winter visit to Boise, Ida.

“That’s right,” Snyder acknowledged recently. “Now I’ve got it up to eight feet of snow and the shoes were $1,000, Italian custom-made.”

Plummer talked recently about the visit, when Snyder presented his case to Plummer and his parents, Steven and Marilyn Plummer.

“I remember Coach kept referring to notes he had inside one of those little Velcro notebooks,” Plummer said. “All the stuff he told everyone about the academic side of ASU, all that. Then when he’d done all that, he put the notebook down and kind of leaned forward and said:

“ ‘You know, I believe you’re the one

quarterback in the country who I believe can turn our program around and lead us to the Rose Bowl.’ And the way he said it, I believed every word of it.”

How did Snyder know? Did he really see it coming?

He insists that he did, despite never having seen Plummer play in person. And he says that ability, to project certain recruits as productive college players, more than any other trait, defines him as a coach.

“Looking under rocks, shaking them out of trees--yeah, I can do that,” is how he phrased it recently.

More than once, his assistants say, Snyder has been shown film of a high school prospect and said: “I don’t like him much, but I do like this kid,” pointing to another player not previously under consideration.

It also defines this 11-0 Arizona State football team.

Who are these guys?

For starters, they’re a bunch of guys who appeared on recruiting’s most unwanted lists.

“We don’t just have a few of those kinds of guys, we’re loaded with them,” said one Arizona State staffer.

Snyder saw Plummer play high school basketball, not football.

“What I saw was a point guard who could get the ball upcourt under pressure, who never got rattled,” Snyder said. “I saw great competitiveness, great hand-eye coordination.

“When he got in his first game for us, against Stanford in ‘94, and I saw how cool he was, I knew we had a winner.”

With the exception of offensive tackle Juan Roque, recruited by every Pacific 10 school, Snyder’s major players are a collection of unappreciated, overlooked, underestimated and neglected athletes, all of whom fell between the cracks of college football’s recruiting process.

Players such as Plummer, tailback Terry Battle, guard Grey Ruegamer, fullback Jeff Paulk, guard Kyle Murphy, tight end Steve Bush and wide receiver Keith Poole on offense. Linebacker Jeff Boyer, end Brent Burnstein, tackle Shawn Swayda, linebacker Derek Smith, safety Damian Richardson and cornerback Jason Simmons on defense.

Perhaps the best example of the most unwanted? Pat Tillman, the Sun Devils’ 200-pound outside linebacker, scored 31 touchdowns at Leland High in San Jose in 1993 and averaged almost 11 yards per carry as a running back.

And his mailbox remained empty.

Most college coaches thought he wasn’t fast enough to play offense and was either too small or too slow for defense.

But Tillman, a junior, has had a spectacular season. Against Oregon, he had an interception deep in Arizona State territory, recovered a fumble, had a sack, five unassisted tackles and recovered an onside kick.

Derrick Rodgers is an Air Force veteran who caught only Snyder’s eye at Riverside City College. His junior college coaches mailed game tapes of Rodgers to Tennessee--where he wanted to go--and never heard a response.

Snyder responded.

A 220-pound weakside linebacker who goes against Ohio State’s Orlando Pace on Wednesday, Rodgers--who never played high school football--has gone from ground zero to possibly the NFL draft after one season at Arizona State.

“I’m from the Jimmy Johnson school in that I believe you never sacrifice speed for size,” Snyder said. “What I saw in Derrick was that great speed, especially at the snap. Now don’t get me wrong, I like big offensive linemen too, but when you can play the game as fast as Derrick can, your size doesn’t matter.”

There is a second cliche that defines this 56-year-old coach, now in his fifth season at Arizona State.

One at a time.

As in: We play ‘em one at a time.

But that’s the program at Tempe. And everyone has bought in.