Michael Lev: Arizona’s Seth Mackellar makes it look easy, but it hasn’t always been a snap

The Arizona player who has logged the most games in a UA uniform of any current Wildcat is someone you’re probably unfamiliar with, and he’d just as soon keep it that way.

This player is so anonymous — again, a good thing — that I wasn’t sure how to properly punctuate his last name before interviewing him and his parents.

We’re talking about Seth Mackellar, Arizona’s longtime long snapper. You might also know him as Seth MacKellar, with a capital “K.” Seen it both ways. Seth prefers the lowercase “k.”

His, after all, is a lowercase kind of position. Critically important, without question. But also hidden in plain sight.

The only time anyone ever brings up long snappers is when they mess up, snapping the ball too high or too low, too left or too right. They have the ultimate “you had one job” job.

Mackellar has done that job impeccably over the past five seasons. He has appeared in every game since Week 2 of 2019; the Dec. 28 Alamo Bowl will mark his 53rd and final appearance in an Arizona jersey.

Mackellar has snapped the ball almost 500 times on punts and placements. He has yet to mess up.

Why is Mackellar so good at snapping? His father, Michael, cites Seth’s competitive nature, his coachability and his dedication.

“He put in the work,” Michael Mackellar says. “After school, after practice, 50 shorts and 50 longs, every day.”

(“Shorts” are snaps to the holder for field goals and extra points; “longs” are snaps to the punter.)

Seth’s mother, Maria, cites Seth’s desire to prove himself and his devotion to Catholicism. Mackellar attends Mass every day.

“He just has this calmness to him,” his mom says.

That was never more evident than on the final play of this year’s Colorado game. The score was tied, 31-31. The Wildcats could have tried to score a touchdown from the 1-yard line. Jedd Fisch elected to run down the clock and kick a field goal. He entrusted his specialists — Mackellar, holder Kyle Ostendorp and kicker Tyler Loop — to execute the operation smoothly. They delivered a walk-off winner.

“It’s going out there and relaxing, doing what you know how to do,” Mackellar says. “Since I don’t have that external ‘Here’s your award, here’s this, here’s that,’ it’s just, ‘Man, hit a good snap, and we win the game.’ That’s all I need.

“After snapping that Colorado game-winning snap, I was so pumped up, just because I did what I needed to do. I partook in winning that game.”

Mackellar appreciates that Fisch trusted him. “That was big time,” Mackellar says. But weeks later, Mackellar has a confession to make: He was “very nervous” before that snap.

It’s proof that he isn’t the machine his spotless snapping record suggests.

Finding balance

Mackellar played other sports as a kid, but nothing stuck. Football did.

When he was 9 years old, Mackellar told his father he would play in the NFL someday. There were two problems with that for the would-be offensive lineman.

“I was very small,” Mackellar says. “I wasn’t the best athlete in the world.”

Michael Mackellar didn’t want to extinguish his son’s dream. But Michael knew he had to be realistic.

In the process of getting certified to help coach the Irvine Chargers, Seth’s youth team in Southern California, Michael attended a clinic. One of the speakers was Lane Kiffin, who relayed statistics to the attendees that revealed how hard it is to become an NFL player.

At the very least, Michael wanted to put Seth in a position to play high school football. Michael saw long snapping as a possible path — precisely because of its unsung nature.

“It wasn’t the most glamorous position,” he says. “Nobody wants to do it.”

Seth didn’t embrace it at first; he resented having to spend weekends training instead of playing video games or hanging out with his friends.

But Seth showed an aptitude for it and eventually became one of the top-ranked snappers in the nation.

At the 2018 Kohl’s National Invitational Scholarship Camp in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Seth Mackellar earned a coveted spot in the ’19 Under Armour All-America Game. Mackellar’s winning long snap hit its target in .66 seconds — same as his average throughout the camp. A time of .75 is considered the threshold for a Division I snapper.

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The competition at the Kohl’s camp was intense and immense.

“That’s the last thing they do,” Michael Mackellar says. “There’s like 900 kids there. There were so many people that I didn’t even see Seth’s last snap.”

A little over a month after the Under Armour game, Seth Mackellar announced that he would be attending Arizona as a preferred walk-on. By the second game of his freshman season, he was sharing snapping duties with Donald Reiter. Mackellar soon overtook him. He has participated in every Arizona game since Sept. 7, 2019.

Unlike his spinning, spiraling snaps, Mackellar’s career hasn’t followed a perfectly linear route. He considered quitting football between his freshman and sophomore seasons at Arizona, according to his parents.

COVID lockdowns were prevalent. Mackellar hadn’t earned a scholarship yet. And he was struggling to juggle football and faith.

“He didn’t have balance at that time,” Maria says.

Michael told Seth that he had his support — but also mentioned the idea of regret. If Seth quit football, would he regret it someday?

Michael offered Seth a deal: If he stuck with it, his old man would join him and become a Catholic.

Seth didn’t quit. Michael followed through on his promise.

In September 2020, then-UA coach Kevin Sumlin told the team that Seth Mackellar had earned a scholarship.

“As time went on, he realized you could actually have both and have balance,” Maria Mackellar says. “He still goes to church every single day. But he’s still playing football and living his life.”

Here to serve

That period early in his college career wasn’t the first time Seth Mackellar wobbled. During his junior and senior years at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, California, Seth “got caught up with the wrong crowd,” his mother says.

He didn’t want to train. His performance suffered. His ranking dropped. His dad was upset. His mom was stressed.

Then Seth Mackellar made a decision that would shape his life. He put himself through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program. He was baptized on Easter in 2019.

Mackellar put himself back on the right path. The requirements of devotion — discipline and consistency — carried over into football and the classroom. Mackellar earned his degree in business management with a 3.8 GPA. He’s working on his master’s in marketing.

Mackellar isn’t sure what the future holds. He mentioned joining the family business — Maria is the president of a mortgage company, and Michael is a realtor — but his mother doesn’t see it. Maria envisions Seth joining the CIA, FBI or Secret Service someday. Something that combines selflessness and stealth.

Seth Mackellar wants to give the NFL a go first, and he’ll get a chance to showcase his skills at Arizona’s pro day early next year. Mackellar has the ability. He has the track record.

His father’s plan helped him get this far. But it has a flaw.

“Becoming a snapper in the NFL is like becoming a senator,” Michael says. “Each state only has two, and they stay forever.”

Except long snappers are even scarcer: Each of the NFL’s 32 teams has only one.

So Seth Mackellar finds himself in an unusual place now: After thriving in obscurity for years, he has to get his name out there.

“It’s usually a bad thing if they know my name,” he says. “If the coaches are coming up to me on the sideline, asking me all these questions ... I’m probably doing something wrong.

“You gotta have a level of humility being a specialist. You can’t be this guy that wants all the accolades and the awards; that’s just not how being a specialist functions. If you want that, go play quarterback, go play wide receiver.

“I’m here to do my job. I’m here to do what I know how to do well. I’m here to serve the team.”

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