Like most players at his position, Zayden Lassiter didn’t start playing football with the hope of snapping on punts and field goals.
Lassiter was a quarterback in middle school, but he didn’t play much. The country’s No. 3 senior long snapper first considered a position change on the advice of his older brother, Zach Lassiter, who snapped for Mercer and Western Kentucky.
“I saw that Zach was a long snapper, and we were in the yard one day, and he was like, ‘You need to try this out,’” Zayden Lassiter said. “And I tried it, and he said, ‘Dang, you’re pretty good at it.’”
The Bleckley County senior is now a Navy All-American and a Georgia Tech commit. Lassiter can become Bleckley County’s first Power 4 college football player since offensive tackle Amarius Mims, who played at Georgia before becoming the No. 18 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft.
The physical differences between Mims and Lassiter point to an interesting feature of long snapping: inclusivity. Mims looked like a surefire NFL starter as a high school senior, listed at 6-foot-7 and 315 pounds.
Lassiter isn’t undersized at 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, but he doesn’t immediately stand out like a professional football player, either.
“Everybody wants to be Amarius Mims, but you’re not 6-foot-7 and 315 pounds,” said Von Lassiter, Zayden’s father and head coach at Bleckley County. “So you can’t be Amarius Mims, but you can be Zayden Lassiter if you can learn to take it serious, if you can learn to get flexible and if you’ve got a little bit of athleticism.
“I’m not saying you can be No. 1 in Georgia, but you might could find a way to play in college.”
Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Von Lassiter said his sons’ success, despite their somewhat regular frames, has boosted interest in long snapping at Bleckley County.
“They see my kids playing in college, and my kid is getting offers, and my kid is a Navy All-American and all this stuff, and they see that and are like, ‘We want that,’” Von Lassiter said. “I’ve had multiple players come in that are underclassmen that are like, ‘Hey, I want to get more serious about long snapping because I’ve seen what it’s done for Zayden, and I want that.’”
Long snapping in college might be more accessible than playing offensive line, but it’s still difficult. The best long snappers can launch a perfect spiral 15 yards to a punter in less than 0.75 seconds. On field-goal attempts, their snaps reach the holder with the ball’s laces already turned away from the kicker so the holder doesn’t need to adjust it.
“If you’ve got a guy that can spin it and get it back there and a guy that can catch it and kick it, and if your time is pretty good, then you really don’t have to block those guys up front,” Von Lassiter said. “You just snap it, and you can get it off before they can block it.”
Elite long snappers also can run downfield and tackle punt returners — typically some of the best athletes on the team — and can block defenders trying to block punts and field goals.
“You can’t be out there when you’re 5-10 and 300 pounds, but you can be 6-foot and 190, and if you can move down that field or, if they’re a blocking team, if you can block, that’s all they need to see,” Zayden Lassiter said. “If you can do both those things, you’re going to be an elite long snapper, first starting off with the snap.”
Credit: Erik S. Lesser for the AJC
Credit: Erik S. Lesser for the AJC
Perhaps the most important feature of an elite long snapper isn’t physical at all. Chris Rubio, widely known as one of the country’s top long snapper evaluators, said the top thing he pays attention to is a player’s mentality.
“One of the jokes I always make is my favorite long snappers are the ones that are a little bit dumb,” Rubio said. “The 2.4 to 3.1 GPA long snappers, they are the best because they’re smart enough to where they can understand something, but they’re dumb enough to where they’re not overthinking.”
It’s easy enough to overthink during a high school football game. Long snappers spend most of the game on the sideline, creating plenty of time to internalize pressure.
But as former Morgan County long snapper Brody Jenkins has discovered, it’s even easier to overthink in college. Jenkins was the No. 3 long snapper from last year’s senior class and is now a freshman at Ohio State.
Jenkins knows a strong mentality will be key the first time he snaps in front of over 100,000 people at Ohio Stadium.
After all, if he misses once, he might not see the field again.
“At every position, you’re not expected to be 100%, but as a specialist, you can’t miss,” Jenkins said. “You kind of have to be 100% all the time, and you really need to have a mellow mindset all the time.”
Jenkins said he wasn’t recruited highly because of his ball speed or his accuracy. His key trait was consistency.
“Some guys might snap a good location, but if the ball’s a little wobbly, no coach is going to look their way,” Jenkins said. “They’re definitely looking at consistency.”
Jenkins is no stranger to high-pressure situations with the focus on him. He grew up playing baseball and competing in track and field.
But to him, there’s no pressure quite like long snapping.
“Once you grab the ball and you miss, all the trust that everybody had in you is gone, and it’s hard to get that back because it’s not like we get a bunch of plays,” Jenkins said. “We might get maybe four or five punts in a game.”
Snapping on the college stage will be a massive step up from his Class 3A high school, but Jenkins plans to keep his process — and its result — the same.
“I’ll definitely be nervous, for sure,” Brody Jenkins said. “But I’m always nervous right up until I touch the ball, and then I’m like, ‘I’ve done this 100 times.’
“And then you just snap it.”
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