Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Owls center to try ‘dead snap’ technique
BOCA RATON — Following a trio of poor snaps in Florida Atlantic’s seasonopening 42-19 loss to Navy on Friday night, the Owls are trying to fix their snapping woes by adopting a new technique championed by schools like Michigan and Vanderbilt.
It’s called “the dead snap” and Owls coach Lane Kiffin hopes it can cure Antonyo Woods’ snapping issues in the first game of the season.
“There was an article this summer about it, Michigan going with that and how many people have started doing it,” Kiffin said. “There is another way. We had worked that when this had been an issue in the spring. There wasn’t a lot of comfort with that for the player, so we went away from that.”
The traditional spiral snap features the center gripping the ball by its side and hurling it back to the quarterback in shotgun. The dead snap, meanwhile, demands the center to hold the top of the football and flip it back to the quarterback. Centers grab the nose of the ball and point it to the ground before lofting it back.
During the portion of Tuesday’s practice open to the media, Woods practiced the new technique.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep the offense moving, keep it operating,” Woods said. “So whether that’s switching up my technique or trying to get the same technique right, I’m going to do what I got to do.”
Woods said he practiced extra snapping to the FAU quarterbacks in the days after the Owls’ loss, and said he did not know why the three snaps flew high.
“That’s the thing, you just don’t know,” Woods said. “It happened. I can’t change nothing about that. All I can do is keep moving forward and keep trying to get better.”
Woods’ three errant snaps caused FAU to lose 47 yards and put the Owls behind the chains. Kiffin said the offensive line performed well otherwise, with not many missed assignments and only two sacks allowed. But the snaps killed some promising drives.
“Those are explosive plays,” Kiffin said. “You are always trying to make it a 15-yard play, that’s three explosive plays. It just sucks the life out of you, too. That opening drive, there was some energy going and all of the sudden, here we go again. It is frustrating, too, because it is something that we worked so much on because it had been happening.”
On Monday afternoon, Kiffin smiled as he said he “saw the ball snapped to the quarterback” during practice.
Kiffin said the Owls have a contingency plan if Woods cannot remedy his high snaps, potentially swapping left guard Roman Fernandez with Woods. Fernandez started two games at center last season, but ultimately settled at left guard when Dillon DeBoer shifted back to center.
Kiffin said FAU could make that switch midgame after practicing it during the week and having “that ready to go.”