The Cardinal Countdown: 52 Days Until Kickoff

#52 Mitch Hall

Class: Junior

Ht/Wt: 6-1/203

Position: Long Snapper

Hometown: Clayton, NC

Twitter: @Mitch_Hall52

Thoughts: Mitch Hall is really good. Ranked as the second best long snapper in the country Hall picked the Cards a few years ago and you likely haven’t heard his name since. In fact, in a perfect world you never hear his name again until the young man gets drafted in a couple years (yeah, I actually think he might get drafted). Hall went all of 2017 with zero bad balls when graded out by Coach Petrino and while I never saw official numbers from 2018 because you know, I’m sure the staff was more concerned with finding their next job then grading players, I think he had another nearly perfect season. I pay pretty close attention to special teams and I don’t recall a poor snap all season. Mitch walked onto campus in 2017 and has snapped every meaningful ball the last two years. The Cards punted the ball 69 times last year and Mitch put the majority of those in the hands of Mason King with little effort. The other thing Mitch excels at is taking advantage of the rule that the defense is not allowed to line up opposite the long snapper. Hall often gets a free release and makes the returner either hesitate, make a move, go to one side of the field or, ya know, actually makes the tackle.

In this first clip Mitch sends a ball back to Mason King that under his own standards was “off the mark” a little. When I say that though you’ll see that King still never moves his feet, never lifts a foot off the ground, and barely even shifts his weight. (Hall is good, y’all) He then takes off down field, getting to the return man first and the forces a blocker to put a body on him. After seemingly being taken out of the play Hall continues to pursue the ball and actually brings down the returner while he waited for a block ahead of him.

In the second clip Mitch delivers a perfect ball back to King, takes off up the gut, maintains his lane, forces the returner to hesitate, and than helps wrap him up for no gain.

While it may seem crazy to say, based upon how decorated some of the previous special teams units have been by the time they left campus, the collection of special teams players (Hall, King, Creque) may be the best collective group of players in those roles that the University has ever had. Another good year for Hall means another year of anonymity. Just the way he wants it.

Sweet Tweet:

I said last year I would pay a ridiculous amount of money to watch a reality show that focused on good buddies Mitch Hall and Mekhi Becton. Evidently the ACC Network heard my demands and are picking up the series this fall. It sounds like they may cover Satterfield a little bit, and I guess a few of the other 100 players as well, but…we know the real stars of the show. #SnapAndBlockIt