ATHENS — As it turns out, Brandon Kublanow is not much different than the rest of us. Need to figure something out? Google it.
Or in his case specifically, turn to YouTube.
The video-sharing website solved Kublanow’s problem when it came to snapping the football shotgun style. Kublanow had struggled mightily with that duty after moving to center from left guard this summer. Frustrated with his lack of progress, he turned to the Internet for answers.
And lo and behold, he found one.
“I was just really frustrated during the first couple of days camp,” said Kublanow, a junior from Marietta. “So I went on YouTube and I found some video of this guy. He was in his office and he was like, ‘I’ll show you how to snap the football perfectly every time.’ I just saw that, I talked to Coach (Rob) Sale about it and we were there. It works.”
Kublanow wasn’t around to confirm it, but it appears he watched the “Jock Sutherland-Style Football Snap.” It’s a style in which the center holds the top of the football with his index finger running down one seam with the laces turned out to the side of the quarterback’s throwing arm.
That’s different than what Kublanow had been working on all summer, which was essentially throwing an under-handed spiral between the legs.
“I was a little shaky at first with doing the traditional style,” Kublanow said. “I switched it over to the old school, grab the top of the ball and fling it back. Tennessee, Oregon and some others do it. It’s not like end-over-end. It comes back pretty solid, and it goes back a lot faster than the other way.”
Kublanow’s offensive line mates have teased him mercilessly about his “research.” But there’s no denying the results.
“Just the story of how he found that is hilarious,” senior tackle Kolton Houston said, snickering. “But since he’s done it he hasn’t had a bad snap yet. Knock on wood. Hey, we’ll roll with it.”
According to Wikipedia, Jock Sutherland was “was an American football player and coach who coached college football at Lafayette College (1919–1923) and the University of Pittsburgh (1924–1938) and professional football for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1940–1941) and Pittsburgh Steelers (1946–1947). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951.”
The video was posted by a person named Ted Seay. According to his bio on Amazon.com, he is a senior policy consultant with the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) in London, who served for 26 years as a U.S. Foreign Service officer before that. He has coached American football in England and Australia and has written several books on the game.
