The Cardinal Countdown: 76 Days Until Kickoff

Game ball today goes to all the dads out there putting in the time to raise fine, upstanding citizens who will either in the future, or continue to cheer on the Cardinals of Louisville. If they choose not to, nothing personal, but you’ve failed as a father.

Happy Fathers Day.

#76 Luke Massad

Class: Sophomore

Ht/Wt: 6-2/290

Position: Long Snapper

Hometown: Paducah, KY

Twitter: @lukemassad

Thoughts: For those of you who have followed along with me on this journey the last five years you know my affinity for one position group in particular, and if ANYONE is going to disrupt the “offensive line momentum” we’ve been building the last few days it damn sure better be a special teams player…

Lucky for Luke Massad, he can long snap his way right out of my condescending stare, and straight into my welcoming arms.

Luke accepted a preferred walk-on spot with the Cards last season after having a moment of self-realization in high school that he likely wasn’t going to play Division-I football on the offensive line, or defensive line for that matter. So he worked hard to hone his skills as a long snapper, understanding that if you can master that craft, teams will always have a roster spot available with your name on it. Massad, having been a UofL fan for years, even though he was in deep Western Kentucky, reached out to Coach Boller last season and formed a relationship that would ultimately land him an invite to the campus and then a offer to walk-on and compete for the long snapper position being vacated by Colin Holba in 2016. Holba was amazing last season and was so dominant he actually got picked up in the 6^th Round, surprisingly the first Cardinal off the board in the NFL draft. Fast forward a few days and Holba was getting PAID by the Steelers (4yr/2.5mil value) which should force every able bodied 3 year old boy across the country to get in their back yard and start snapping some balls through their legs. For real. I got my one a half year old doing long snap trick shot videos already. Get on my level.

Luke will likely be competing against Brendan Lowery and a couple other guys for the job this fall. It aint’ flashy, it’s not a headline grab, and if you screw up 50,000+ will know you were the jamoke who just snapped the ball five feet over the punters head or three hopped it back to the holder on a field goal. No bueno. But, if you do your job well, who knows, you may wind up raking in a couple million to snap balls.

Sweet Tweet:

This right here is the tweet of an Alan Jackson fan who evidently doesn’t follow ‘The Cardinal Countdown’ every summer. Get on board big fella, we’re going places, and I got my special teams crew driving the train…