Exactly one year ago, junior Hattiesburg quarterback Jarod “Snoop” Conner was living in Bay Springs and playing quarterback for Sylva Bay Academy. He moved to Hattiesburg just before the Collins game in Week 3 last season and became the team’s third-string running back.
He finished the season with 400 yards and eight touchdowns on 44 carries in seven games. Fast-forward to this summer, and Conner was making the transition from running back, back to starting quarterback. In his first game against Petal, he passed for 146 yards and a touchdown on 11-of-23 passing.
“He’s starting to develop as a quarterback, and he did a really good job taking care of the football last week, managing the game and doing what he has to do when his number is called,” Hattiesburg coach Tony Vance said.
Conner said there are some areas he wanted to clean up after the win over the Panthers. He knows he can throw it and run it better than he did. He rushed the ball for a team-high 19 times for 96 yards and a touchdown.
“Working on my footwork, getting set up to throw the ball and I need to work on throwing the ball even better this week and running the ball even harder than I did last week,” he said.
Even though Conner was a quarterback at Sylva Bay, he wasn’t a throwing quarterback. He spent most of his time running for the Saints. After playing his sophomore season as a running back for the Tigers, it just made sense to move him back to the position and try to develop him as a passing quarterback.
Vance is adamant he’ll play some defense, too, like he did last season.
“He’s a blue-collar guy who comes to work everyday,” Vance said. “He works extremely hard at his craft, whatever it may be. He’s not a selfish guy. He’s a guy who you’ll see go from quarterback to middle linebacker at some point during the season, I’ll promise you that.”
Sharing the same last name as former Tiger and three-year starting quarterback Julian Conner, most have mistaken they’re related in some way. They are not, but Julian still helped Jarod in his transition.
“Yeah, we claim we’re cousins, but we’re not,” Jarod said. “We’re really close, though. He taught how to throw, the technique and stuff like that. Working with coach Vance and Julian, they taught me how to throw the ball and stuff.”
He loves playing the quarterback position, but it’s not the position he sees himself playing in the future.
“I wasn’t thinking about playing quarterback, just running back, because they had Julian in front of me and they had D’andre (Humbles),” Conner said. “I wasn’t expecting to play quarterback. I like running back. That’s the position I want to college for and play, but for this team, I’m going to play quarterback to help us win.”
Conner wasn’t with the team for last season’s Little Brown Jug game, but he was when the two met in the second round of the 5A playoffs. Starting the season on the road at Petal, he got the experience of playing in front of an away crowd.
He loves to see the packed stands, but when the snap comes, he forgets all about that.
