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Interesting read, and you can bet BB is all over it:
How one technique could end bad snaps forever
For those who want to avoid clicking on ESPN:
How one technique could end bad snaps forever
For those who want to avoid clicking on ESPN:
Jim Harbaugh needed to test the "dead snap." If he was going to challenge football's ultimate fundamental action, he would have to try it out for himself. So he lined up at quarterback in the shotgun, ready to handle the remodeled quarterback-center exchange advertised as the way to wipe out one of football's most infuriating and unforgivable blunders -- the bad snap.
"Coach Harbaugh thought it was great," Michigan offensive line coach Tim Drevno said. "Bad snaps can take points off the board and wins out of your hand."
Since then, Harbaugh-coached teams have ditched the spiral shotgun snap in favor of the dead snap.
Revolution could be underway.
More teams than ever before will break spiral-snap tradition and rely on the dead snap in 2017, as assistant coaches nurtured in the spread era flood sidelines and under-center playbooks become historical references. In 2016, 84 percent of snaps were run from the pistol or shotgun formation, a 33 percent increase since just 2011.
"This is something you're going to see more of," Rutgers offensive line coach AJ Blazek said.
Blazek was persuaded to experiment with football's primordial function by Northwestern assistant Adam Cushing, who was at a crossroads with his centers after the 2015 season. They couldn't snap the ball on target. His offensive coordinator, with each errant Saturday snap, would remind him of that. Seven snaps that season were classified as a disaster.
As Cushing canvassed the snapping landscape in his offseason probe, he noticed Michigan and a few other schools' centers peculiarly palming the football's nose rather than grabbing the laces in shotgun. They flipped and floated it back, allowing it to hang in the air without much rotation. It was a landmark judgment favoring precision over power.
That crude simplicity is the dead snap's most attractive feature. Once the ball is spotted, the center places the back point of the ball in his palm rather than gripping it like a quarterback arming a spiral. The nose is then placed into the ground so the ball is at a 45-degree angle with an inch of the ball grazing the turf. The fingers are spread, usually with one across the laces or seam to help with grip. Then with the wrist locked, the center swings his arm back like a pendulum and releases.
"Life changing," Cushing said.
It was the same for former Vanderbilt center Joe Townsend.
Small hands, sweaty palms -- that's how he characterizes his mitts, which were at the core of his issues with the Commodores. His hands weren't big enough to fully grip the football, and when the SEC swelter forced perspiration to slide down his arm, greasing the ball, he struggled to secure it.
Commodores guard Wesley Johnson suggested at a 2012 practice that he try a primitive sandlot method popular across backyards and barbecues. "Bear claw it," Johnson said. Stick the nose into your palm and shuffle it back, he said. "Trust me, just try it."
In the pre-practice walk-through, Townsend gave it an attempt. He didn't tell then-position coach Herb Hand, but quickly Townsend was snapping perfect chest-high changeups the quarterbacks could easily gather. "Coach Hand said, 'Joe, what the hell are you doing?' I said, 'I'm trying something out,' and he said, 'Well, come to me before changing s--- up!'" Townsend remembered. "But it worked, and I did it throughout my career."
If the dead snap sounds complicated, centers assure it's much easier than the spiral and avoids a hurtling fastball back to the quarterback. Northwestern center Brad North said his biggest flaw is overthinking, so after a 2015 season of bumbled snaps, he learned the straightforward dead snap in a few weeks. Last season, Northwestern did not have one snap that prematurely ended a play.
Elite programs can often recruit centers with a background in spiral snapping, and coaches usually won't fiddle with a lineman who is comfortable with his delivery. But a lot of schools have to fit a lineman in at center and then guide him. North was a high school tackle who had never snapped.
"And you can't be the starter if you can't snap," he said.
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