With family watching, Jaylen Sneed has his 'finally' moment for Notre Dame football
SOUTH BEND — Jaylen Sneed picked a great time to have the best game of his Notre Dame football career.
His five-tackle performance in Saturday’s 23-13 win over Texas A&M came with 13 family members in town, including five in the swaying stands at Kyle Field.
His mother, Chanta Ellison, grew up following the Aggies in Corpus Christi, Texas, and went on to play basketball for Blinn College, about 40 miles south of College Station.
“Playing at Texas A&M was an honor,” said Sneed, a 6-foot-1, 224-pound linebacker from Hilton Head Island, S.C. “My mom has grown up a fan of there, so she loved it and she got to come. My mom brought her whole family: cousins, aunties.”
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They got to see Sneed, a redshirt sophomore, make the most of his 31 defensive snaps. Dating to last season, it marked the third straight game he’d played that much, but this was the first time his Pro Football Focus grade exceeded 80% in both run defense and tackling.
“It was just great that I got to play in front of a crowd that big,” Sneed said. “My first actual stadium in the SEC, and to come in there with my team and ball out with my brothers, it was amazing.”
There was a strange play in the first quarter when Sneed ripped off a long strand of speedy freshman Terry Bussey’s undershirt and was left to toss it down after his Irish teammates corralled the ball carrier for no gain.
“Waiting for my cavalry to come,” Sneed said.
In the fourth quarter, Sneed shot the gap in a goal-line situation and dropped EJ Smith, son of Hall of Fame running Emmitt Smith, for a 1-yard loss.
“That goal-line play fired me up,” Sneed said. “It shows that I’m confident in playing, and that was the biggest thing for me this year: Coming in with more confidence and being able to play what the coaches call and play fast.”
Playing as many as five different positions in the Irish defense, anything from Rover to Vyper to slot corner and even wide corner, Sneed is a versatile chess piece in coordinator Al Golden’s pro-style scheme.
Sneed opened last year averaging 24 snaps off the bench through the first four weeks, but for the bulk of the year he was limited to third-down subpackages. This year, with position coach Max Bullough intent on rotating his top five linebackers throughout the game, Sneed should get plenty more chances to show what he did in the opener.
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“It was a ‘finally’ moment,” Sneed said. “I’ve been waiting so long. I’ve been working so hard for all this, and finally, I get to go show the world what I can do.”
Best of all, he got to show his extended family.
“Just them all being there and being able to support me, it felt great,” he said, “especially knowing it was one of my first big games playing a very significant role. … I just love being on the field.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for NDInsider.com and the South Bend Tribune. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football gives Jaylen Sneed a chance to shine in Lone Star State
