Oklahoma Sooners specialist named to Patrick Mannelly Award preseason watch list
One position on a football team that often gets overlooked is long-snapper. Usually, fans only recognize them if they mess up, causing a turnover or a bad kick. That goes for most of the other special teams positions as well. But, while the Oklahoma Sooners saw their likely starting punter and kicker get some positive preseason recognition last week, it was the starting long-snapper's turn on Tuesday.
Redshirt junior long-snapper Ben Anderson was named to the preseason watch list for the Patrick Mannelly Award this week. The award is given out each year to the best long-snapper in college football. It's not the first preseason recognition Anderson has seen, as he was also selected for the preseason SEC all-conference third team last month.
Anderson was a semifinalist for the Patrick Mannelly Award last year and was also third team All-SEC in 2024. He is a former five-star long-snapping recruit out of high school, and he has been excellent during his time in Norman.
Anderson has played for the Sooners since 2022. He redshirted that season, but took over as the starting long-snapper in 2023, and enters his third season as the starter this year. He's one of a small number of returning special teams players for Oklahoma this year, and has seen that unit rebuilt around him this offseason.
Aside from Anderson and his backup at long-snapper, true freshman Seth Freeman, the Sooners carry one punter (Jacob Ulrich), four kickers (Tate Sandell, Austin Welch, Liam Evans, and Preston Tarpley), and one player who can play both kicker and punter, in Central Oklahoma transfer Grayson Miller.
The Sooners were much better on special teams in 2024 than they were in 2023. As coordinator Doug Deakin enters his second year in charge of that unit, hoping to improve again, he'll be leaning on his longest-tenured player in the room to continue to go unnoticed in one of football's most overlooked roles.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
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