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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Add Another Long Snapper In Florida Recruit

Ben Ferber played this past season for schoolboy powerhouse IMG Academy.
Dan Raley|
Ben Ferber, right, has committed to the UW as a long snapper.
Ben Ferber, right, has committed to the UW as a long snapper. | Ferber

Ben Ferber has made himself the true definition of a long snapper, choosing to hurtle himself 3,135 miles from Coconut Beach, Florida, to Montlake to perform his football specialty.

On Thursday, he posted on social media that he had committed to the University of Washington, which would give the Huskies a second snapper with senior Ryan Kean, now in his second season after transferring from Utah Tech.

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Ferber spent this past season as a senior at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, on the Gulf Coast after previously snapping for North Broward Preparatory School south of Boca Raton as a sophomore and a junior.

Typical of his time at schoolboy football powerhouse IMG, Ferber had one game in which he snapped 11 times for extra points but not at all for punts in a 79-6 victory over Coranado.

Once spring football was about to begin, UW special-teams coach Chris Petrilli had said he was seeking another snapper to go with Kean.

Snappers typically don't receive scholarships coming out of high school, though Jaden Green, who played for the UW in 2020-23 and was from Gilbert, Arizona, was a notable exception.

Ferber's younger brother, Evan, who is two inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter, likewise is a snapper, a Class of 2028 recruit for West Boca High School.

Give Ferber credit for doing everything he possibly could to create a college football career for himself.

He visited close to a dozen schools, including more than half of the Ivy League football programs in Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale.

He also made it to Penn State, Vanderbilt and Wisconsin, plus local Florida Atlantic and Florida International.

Ferber also posted he had offers from Stetson, Richmond, Stanford, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Lackwanna and Middlebury likely as a preferred walk-on, though some of them might have been offering something financially for academics.

Texas A&M came and visited him at North Broward Prep.

Ferber attended as many winter and summer camps as possible, including the high-level Kohl's Kicking Camp, and sought out a number of specialists to help polish his snapping.

He posted footage of him snapping to one-time NFL punter Pat O'Donnell, formerly of the Arizona Cardians, and alongside one-time pro snapper Hunter Bradley, who played for the Green Bay Packers.

Thirteen months ago, Ferber made the decision to finish up at IMG, whiich is 230 miles from his home and previousl high school.

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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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