Jackson Knotts excelled in his four years at Plant City High School as a member of both the football team and track and field team, doing so in relatively non-traditional roles. On the football team he played safety as a senior, but made his largest impact as a four-year starter at long snapper. On the track and field team he notes that he wasn’t the fastest kid, and originally wanted to compete in pole vaulting, but ultimately became a state-qualifier and set a state record for javelin.
“My time at Plant City was awesome, it was like the best four years ever,” Knotts said. “Playing football for Coach (James) Booth and the team, especially my sophomore and junior years when we were really good. We were still good my senior year, but those other years were so much fun. Then on the track team with Coach (Brian) Brubaker was great. He taught me a lot of stuff and it was cool to grow in a sport that I had never tried to play. Learning how to do something new and then doing well in it was really fun.”
As a senior on the track and field team, Knotts won a district championship in javelin, a regional championship, earned a third place finish in the FHSAA’s 4A division at the state meet and even set a new FHSAA state record with a 57.23-meter throw at the 2021 Bob English Invite in Lakeland.
On the football field, he had flown up national rankings as a long snapper, ultimately finding himself ranked 12th nationally and second in the state of Florida at the position, according to Rubio Long Snapping’s class of 2021 rankings.
“I originally didn’t want to do it at all,” Knotts said. “But my dad kind of made me do it a little bit and then he got a snapper from USF a while back, his name is Alex Salvato, and he gave me lessons and I kind of learned the technique and how to snap. Once I started improving I really started to like it, now I love doing it. So that’s kind of how I got into it. Varsity needed a snapper and I told coach I could do it so he called me up my freshman year, that was exciting.”
Knotts argued that Salvato was once in the same boat that he had found himself in. He wasn’t too tall, he wasn’t too big, but through long snapping he was ultimately able to serve as USF’s starting snapper for three years from 2014 to 2016, finding the road to playing college football that Knotts had always dreamed of.
“He told me, ‘you can play football at another level if you do this,’ and that’s something that I’ve wanted to do all my life,” Knotts said.
With offers from Troy, Marshall, Kansas and Texas Tech, Knotts had built a relationship with Texas Tech’s special teams coordinator at the time and weighed all of his options, but ultimately felt like joining the Red Raiders was the best decision for him.
“Weighing out my options I just saw the best future for me at Texas Tech,” Knotts said. “There’s a lot of connections, a lot of alumni that have gone on to be successful and shoot, it was the best decision that I possibly could have made.”
Knotts joined the team last fall as a preferred walk-on and earned a starting spot at deep snapper as a true freshman, playing in all 13 games on either field goal or punt protection, the only true freshman to appear in every game for Texas Tech in 2021. He was even credited with a tackle in the season opener against Houston.
This past January, in a video that ultimately made the rounds on social media, Knotts was called to the front of the room during a team meeting and was surprised with the announcement that he had been put on scholarship.
“That was a really special moment for me because that’s what I’ve always dreamed of, playing college football and doing it on a full scholarship,” Knotts said. “Coach (Joey) McGuire called me up to the very front and told the team that I’d be on a full scholarship and everyone went crazy. It was really cool but also seeing people on Twitter, them commenting how happy it made them, that just made me even more happy. It was a really cool moment in my life and I’ll never forget feeling that way and then calling my parents right after and letting them know.”
Knotts and Texas Tech will open their 2022 season against Murray State on Saturday, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m and the game can be viewed on ESPN+.