Inside The Huskies

Husky Snapper Snapped Up in Transfer Portal by Florida

Hunter Sowald is the son of a former NFL player with similar talents.
Dan Raley|
Hunter Sowald and Jedd Fisch take a moment during the long snapper's recruitment.
Hunter Sowald and Jedd Fisch take a moment during the long snapper's recruitment. | UW

Hunter Sowald was a fairly determined guy, the son of an NFL snapper, someone who brought the same skill set as a walk-on player all the way from Towson, Maryland, to Montlake.

Unable to make an immediate breakthrough on the University of Washington football team, after appearing only in the LA Bowl this past season, the redshirt freshman entered the transfer portal.

Yet in showing how much demand that's out there for someone such as a long snapper, Soward was snapped up fairly quickly on Thursday by Florida, according to a recent social media posting.

He used "Chomp" as a hashtag in joining a Gators team headed up by a new coach in Jon Sumrall.

Washington seemed like a good place for him because his father Mike Sowald played as a long snapper in the Big Ten at Wisconsin before embarking on an NFL career.

The older Sowald spent five seasons at the pro football level with the Baltimore Ravens, Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, winning XXXVII with the Bucs.

Showing similar aptitude for this talent, Hunter Sowald was rated as a 5-star snapper by the Kohl's Kicking Camps, of which he was a regular participant.

Sowald appeared in the Under Armour Next All-American Game and the Baltimore Touchdown Club's All-Star Game

Mike Sowald, Hunter's dad, was an NFL long snapper.
Mike Sowald, Hunter's dad, was an NFL long snapper. | Cowboys

Sowald simply couldn't dislodge Ryan Keen, a Utah Tech transfer, from the UW snapper role. Kean will return for his senior season.

At Florida, Sowald will be the second Husky to transfer to the SEC school in three seasons, following safety Asa Turner, who joined the Gators in 2024.

Turner, however, got injured in his first and only Florida game, damaging a knee. He chose not to return in 2025 and use another season of eligibility.

The Gators also had a pair of one-time Husky assistant coaches under their employ in co-defensive coordinators Vinnie Sunseri and Robert Bala.

Once Billy Napier was fired as the Gators coach and the staff disbanded, Sunseri got hired as the safeties coach at Georgia Tech while Bala went James Madison as its defensive coordinator.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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