It's not a snap

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

NEWARK, Del. -- Your bruised thighs and cramping fingers shriek as your body convulses and you launch another wobbly spiral between your legs toward Joe Spadafino, an instructor with the Ray Guy Kicking and Long Snapping Academy.

Fifteen yards hasn't seemed so far since you graduated from college keg queues.

Both you and Spadafino turn to look at the newspaper photographer, who has been pressed into stopwatch duty.

"1.06 seconds," she announces, barely muffling a snicker. "But that one kind of looked right."

After 45 minutes of gradual improvement under the tutelage of the indulgent Spadafino, a man who would make Job look anxious, your punt snap times (from hike to punter's hands) have hit a performance wall just above the 1.0-second barrier.

"That would make you an almost passable high school long snapper," says Spadafino, who works approximately a dozen Ray Guy clinics across the country each year. "Most high school coaches look for snaps in the .9-[second] range, but many would take an extremely accurate guy at one [second] flat. That said, we haven't got you in pads, put a 260-pound tackle in front of you and asked you to block or cover. Obviously, there's a little more to it than just the exchange. But you'll probably make a flag football coach back in Washington very happy."

How's that for the Rose Bowl of backhanded compliments?

• c c

The moment that brought you to such a career nadir, hunched over with your head, hands and metaphorical tail between your legs on a muddy field in Delaware, occurred during the final seconds of a game between Clemson and Georgia Tech early last month. Needing little more than a pedestrian punt to salt away the remaining 18 seconds of the game, Clemson's long snapper, Geoff Miller, dribbled a weak bouncer back to his punter. The Yellow Jackets snowed him under, taking over deep in Clemson territory. And an 11-yard touchdown pass later, Georgia Tech celebrated a miraculous 28-24 victory over the Tigers.

In an early season marred with special teams gaffes, most notably a spate of missed extra points, Miller's inexcusable grounder provided the impetus for a little angst-driven research on the subject of long snappers.