When Jake McQuaide first walked on to the Ohio State football team out of Cincinnati’s Elder High School in 2006, he and his friends joked that he would one day play in the NFL. At the time, however, McQuaide didn’t actually think that was a real possibility.
McQuaide had good reason not to have his hopes up. While hundreds of long snappers walk on to college teams every year, there are only 32 full-time jobs for long snappers in the NFL – and typically, only a few of those jobs open up to new players each year.
Once he became Ohio State’s starting long snapper in 2008 and saw many of his Buckeyes teammates getting their own opportunities to play in the NFL, though, that dream started to become a bit more real.