The job of a long snapper is to never be noticed, Matt Keller says.

But when he first got to Syracuse in the spring, Keller made a point of standing out.

The coaches measured and judged as he snapped through tire holes. They looked as he fired it to punter Riley Dixon. They timed how quickly his throws reached their target and judged the perfection of their trajectory.

It was the same things they’d seen just months before when the Orange recruited him. It was    for his ability that they wanted to put a scholarship toward a position that often doesn’t garner one that early in the process.

“We’re a school that’s willing to put a scholarship in a long snapper out of high school,” SU special teams coordinator Tim Daoust said. “We saw him as the best.”

Keller was the top-rated long snapper in the country coming out of Penn Manor (Pennsylvania) High School. Only about 20 percent of FBS colleges offer long snappers scholarships out of high school, and Keller became a target for Syracuse with incumbent starter Sam Rodgers’ inevitable graduation.

In training camp, he won the starting job over senior walk-on Keith Mitsuuchi, and has started the season without a major mistake to his name.

In high school, Keller played on every side of the ball. On offense, he was the center. On defense, he was set at the line. But his meal ticket has always been special teams, and it’s been his consistency and quick throws at long snapper giving him the chance to play.

He lamented players that “just long snapped” in high school. “You could definitely do more,” he thought to himself. But even he knew his size — 5-foot-11 and 217 pounds — wasn’t going to put him on any Division I offensive line. By the time he was a sophomore in high school he was attending Kohl’s Professional Camp, a highly rated, special-teams-oriented program.

His coach at Kohl’s, Kevin Garvoille, said he often sees snappers come in and have a great camp only to fall off the next one. Some snappers hit the .75-second snap mark that college coaches search for, but miss miserably with their accuracy. With Keller, there was consistency with everything.

The only fear Garvoille had was that Keller’s speed would hold him back. Running up in shield or spread punt coverage might be a challenge, and it might deter colleges. But even that aspect of his game improved as he got more experience at the position.

Keller was looked at by a number of schools, and traveled to participate in their camps. Video evidence wasn’t enough for many coaches. They wanted him in person to see if he was worth the scholarship.

He still hadn’t finished all of his camps when he got his offer from Syracuse. There were still other potential opportunities, but this one was in front of him already, and was too good for Keller to pass up.

When he first started training in the spring, he admitted to having a little “twitch.” It was something the Syracuse coaching staff worked on and eventually fixed. He came to Syracuse to start, and it’s what he’s done since Day 1, winning the job out of training camp.

He’s the butt of many jokes with Mitsuuchi. Every time the team does some sort of competition, everyone else makes sure those two go head-to-head. At Fort Drum, teammates paired up to Pugil fight — a 20-second competition where two hit each other with cushioned poles — and the team encircled around them screaming for Keller to face his backup.

He’s in a position where he never wants to be noticed. But for all the right reasons, Keller just hasn’t done a good job of keeping it that way.

“You don’t want to set yourself apart,” Keller said. “You want to set yourself apart from other snappers and be more consistent. You don’t want to be known for the guy that blows a snap.

Published on September 23, 2015 at 9:25 pm

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