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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 5:40 p.m., Tuesday, April 21, 2009

NFL draft: Warriors Jake Ingram shows it's a snap

By GARY MIHOCES
USA TODAY

Forget quarterbacks for a moment. ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. knows about another prospect who sends tight spirals backward and between his legs.

"Jacob Ingram out of Hawaii is a very good long snapper, so he's probably going to get drafted in the fifth, sixth round," Kiper says.

Ingram, 6-3, 235 pounds, is taking the wait-and-see approach. But about a third of the snappers in the NFL last season were drafted in rounds four through seven. He's rated the top snapper by NFLDraftScout.com.

"You never know until draft day," says Ingram, who has an agent.

He was a backup defensive end as a walk-on freshman at Hawaii. He hadn't been a high school snapper in Mililani, Hawaii, but he'd always had a knack for it.

As a freshman, he helped Hawaii senior snapper Tanuvasa "T.J." Moe with his warm-up. In the process, Ingram snapped himself. In a game that season, Moe (also a linebacker) hurt his hand. Then-Hawaii coach June Jones turned to Ingram.

"He was like, "Can you do it for us?' I was like, "Yeah, I'll do it.' So I went in, started snapping," says Ingram, Hawaii's snapper from then on.

He and Michigan snapper Sean Griffin were invited to the February NFL scouting combine, where they displayed their skills and scouts got out their stopwatches.

Ingram can deliver a 15-yard punt snap in 0.7 seconds (0.8 is considered solid in the NFL). "I'm anywhere from between 0.65 seconds to 0.7," he says.

For 8-yard snaps on field goals and extra points, the goal is to get it done in 1.3 seconds from snap to kick. How many snaps did Ingram botch at Hawaii? "I didn't have any," he says. "I've had like two (one on a punt and one on a place-kick) that went through our guys hands. That's about it."