Boise’s ‘Jake the Snake’ gets top honor in college football. It ‘overwhelmed me.’
A text message from former NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Archie Manning was the first hint that Boise’s Jake Plummer would be named a College Football Hall of Famer.
“Something pretty cool is coming,” they told him.
A package came next, about a year ago. Given that it was Christmas shopping season, Plummer didn’t think much of it. He waited a day before opening it.
Inside was a football and a letter — official notice of Plummer’s hall of fame election. He’ll be inducted Tuesday night at a banquet in New York City and immortalized as part of the College Football Hall of Fame’s interactive museum in Atlanta.
“I was sitting on the ground with my oldest son,” Plummer said last week in a phone interview, referencing 9-year-old Roland. “I read the letter and it kind of hit me, overwhelmed me. ‘Whoa. I’m going into the College Football Hall of Fame.’ My son said, ‘Are you OK, Dad?’
“I had some tears forming in my eyes.”
Plummer started 40 straight games at quarterback for Arizona State from 1993 to 1996. He became a national star his final season by leading the Sun Devils to the Rose Bowl and national championship contention before they lost a heartbreaker to Ohio State. The Capital High graduate finished third in Heisman Trophy voting that season, then went on to a 10-year career in the NFL.
That 1996 team is revered at Arizona State — and Plummer was the face of it.
He figures he’s going into the Hall of Fame as a representative of that special group — and he said he immediately thought of his teammates and coaches when he read the letter. Former Arizona State coach Bruce Snyder died in 2009, but his wife plans to attend the ceremony, Plummer said.
Linebacker Pat Tillman, who also was on the 1996 team and died as a member of the Army, was inducted into the Hall of Fame posthumously in 2010.
“We lost our last game of the year, and we’re the team everybody loves to talk about still,” said Plummer, who will turn 45 next week. “… We really captivated that town and that whole state, and nationally people were focused on us because we were a fun team to watch. We had a lot of characters on that team, a lot of players who had remarkable careers at the next level. I was the quarterback and … I feel like I’m representing the other guys.”
Plummer lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife, Kollette, and three children — Roland, 9; Winston, 6; and daughter Laverne, 3. He and a friend have partnered on a business that creates digital playbooks for football at all levels.
He’ll go into the Hall of Fame alongside 14 others, including Texas quarterback Vince Young, Arkansas running back Darren McFadden, USC defensive back Troy Polamalu and former Idaho coach Dennis Erickson (who also coached at Wyoming, Washington State, Miami, Oregon State and Arizona State).
‘He’s the Snake for a reason’
“Jake the Snake” Plummer got his nickname in junior high after he read the autobiography of another quarterback known as “Snake,” Raiders great Ken Stabler. The moniker fit the skinny Plummer, who was known for his ability to elude defenders and make plays — leading Capital to a state title his junior year and a runner-up finish his senior year.
“He’s got the best feet of quarterbacks I’ve seen,” said Boise State football coach Bryan Harsin, who followed Plummer as the quarterback at Capital. “... He’s the Snake for a reason — just the way he moves.”
Plummer was a rare Pac-12 football recruit in Boise. But he actually had all but committed to Washington State before Snyder convinced him to play for the Sun Devils.
Plummer called Washington State coach Mike Price with the news. Plummer would have slotted between Drew Bledsoe and Ryan Leaf in the Cougars’ QB line.
“Mike Price told me I was making a big mistake,” Plummer said. “He hung the phone up on me. He’s not a bad guy — but at that moment it was pretty crushing as an 18-year-old. ‘Oh man, I hope I made the right decision.’ ”
Snyder’s winning sales pitch? He told Plummer he was the missing piece to a program that wanted to compete for a national title, even though it hadn’t won more than six games in the previous five seasons.
“No other coach told me that,” Plummer said. “They told me I was good and could play. But not one coach had his sights set that high. That’s what I wanted to go do — do something special at ASU, a team I hadn’t really heard a whole lot about.
“I wanted to go leave a mark, and leave an indelible impression on the fans, and it happened.”
‘Whatever needed to be done’
Plummer came off the bench to lead the Sun Devils to a 6-5 record as a true freshman in 1993, then endured a 3-8 season as the starter in 1994. The Sun Devils were 6-5 again in 1995 before winning all 11 regular-season games in 1996, including an upset of then-No. 1 Nebraska. The Sun Devils were ranked No. 2 going into the Rose Bowl.
Plummer tossed 23 touchdown passes that season and scored four more. For his career, he completed 55.4 percent of his passes for 8,626 yards and 64 touchdowns. He was an All-Pac-10 first-teamer as a junior and the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year as a senior.
He says the coaches gave him more latitude than a quarterback might get today.
“They were a little more lenient and allowed you to grow rather than bench you right away if you struggle as a freshman,” he said. “They knew I had a lot to learn. … Those guys taught me a lot about life and football and let me be who I was: a scrappy, fiery competitor who would lead the guys anywhere, any time into battle.”
In the Rose Bowl, Plummer scrambled for a go-ahead touchdown with 1 minute, 40 seconds left for a 17-14 lead. But Ohio State drove for the winning touchdown on the ensuing drive. The Buckeyes scored with 19 seconds left to win 20-17.
A win likely would have given Arizona State at least a share of the national championship.
“We were a few seconds away,” Plummer said.
His play that day epitomized his career. It was a rough day offensively, but when the Sun Devils needed a touchdown, Plummer got them to the end zone.
“I may go another 34 years of coaching,” Snyder told The Associated Press in December 1996, “without running into another guy like this in terms of where things really, really counted, when our backs were against the wall, he consistently — and I’m talking 100% this season — did whatever needed to be done.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2019 at 4:00 AM.
