Sean Snyder Provides Oklahoma State With Valuable Kicking and Punting Instruction

STILLWATER – There have been, and will continue to be, multiple rule changes in college football throughout the next couple of seasons. The ones impacting the upcoming season have been written about here on Pokes Report, such as the unlimited coaching staffs, the coach-to-player helmet communications and the sideline video tablets, just to name a few.

Oklahoma State football will be taking advantage of all of those rule changes, with one already paying some dividends. It was announced a little more than two weeks ago Mike Gundy had hired former Kansas State special teams coordinator, Sean Snyder, to coach kickers and punters in Stillwater.

“He’s been good,” Gundy said of Sean Snyder. “They passed the rule with unlimited coaching staffs in the other four conferences. It’s always been unlimited in one. I thought, if you’re a man who punts and kicks and you’re being recruited and somebody thinks you’re a good player, why would you want to come to Oklahoma State if you don’t have a guy who can coach you? I wouldn’t want to come here. I would say you have the ability to hire a real kicking and punting coach, and you don’t have anybody to coach me. Now, we’ve had great special teams guys here; they orchestrate the four units, but they don’t do the integral part of kicking and punting. [Sean Snyder] can help the kickers and punters with the technical, integral part of the kicking and punting game.

Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics

Hudson Kaak in practice in 2023

“The meetings I’ve been in with [Snyder] have been very impressive. Obviously, I never coached with his father [Bill Snyder], but when I listen to him talk, it sounds just like his dad.”

As Gundy mentioned, there have always been special teams coaches in the program, but always a grad assistant that was helping the group out. Snyder is a full-time coach dedicated to special teams. But what makes it special is the technical aspect of his coaching. 

Jerod Hill/OSU Athletics

Logan Ward working on kickoffs

“Just the wealth of knowledge; he’s been huge for us already and he’s only been here for a week,” said punter Hudson Kaak. “I’ve never been around a coach who is just so technical in a way we go about kicking and punting, just special teams in general. Nothing against the coaches we had before, but they weren’t specialists themselves at any point. So, it’s good to have him who was actually a punter and All-American and he’s been a coach [a long time], he knows his stuff and it’s really refreshing.”

It’s hard to say just how much of an impact on the field Snyder will have on the field until the season gets here. But he’s working with two different style of punters in Wes Pahl (distance) and Hudson Kaak (pooch/placement), as well as trying to bring two kickers along and develop this year’s field goal kicker between Logan Ward and newcomer Drake Trabor.