When Bradley Robinson went down with a knee injury in Ohio State’s seventh game of the season against Iowa, Mason Arnold immediately became one of the Buckeyes’ most important special teams players.
Before that game, Arnold had never played an in-game snap for the Buckeyes. Since then, Arnold has been Ohio State’s starting long snapper, handling every snap on field goals, extra points and punts.
That opportunity has come with mixed emotions for Arnold. While he is happy to be playing, he was sad to see Robinson go down with what’s expected to be a season-ending injury in his final year at Ohio State. But a switch flipped for Arnold as soon as he became the Buckeyes’ top long snapper: The team is counting on him to do his job, and he wants to ensure he does the job well.
“It was bittersweet. It was sad to see him go down. I look at him as like a big brother to me,” Arnold said of Robinson getting injured. “But it's an opportunity, and I just decided it's time to go to work. So I was ready.”
A redshirt freshman walk-on, Arnold has had to step into challenging situations in his first three games as Ohio State’s long snapper. After replacing Robinson mid-game against Iowa, Arnold’s first complete game came on the road in one of college football’s loudest environments at Penn State. His second start came last week at Northwestern, where high winds and rain made his job more difficult.
Despite those challenges, Arnold has been flawless as Ohio State’s long snapper so far, firing the ball accurately back to Jesse Mirco for punts and holds on Noah Ruggles’ kicks.
“He's been great,” Mirco said this week. “It's definitely not an easy spot for him, young guy, never played before and kind of thrown in the deep end at Penn State. He did a good job getting the ball back, and he's been really good on field goal. He's always been good on field goal at practice and stuff as well. So I mean, Noah’s confident, I'm confident back there. He's definitely been good.”
The opportunity to wear the scarlet and gray has been a dream come true for Arnold, who grew up in Tampa but has family members from Cleveland who were already Ohio State fans. Arnold’s only other preferred walk-on offer out of high school came from Kansas, so the chance to play for the Buckeyes was one he decided he couldn’t pass up.
After watching from the sidelines for his first year at Ohio State and the first half of this season, Arnold said the moment it really hit him that he was playing for the Buckeyes came when he made the first tackle of his career on a punt at Penn State.
“When I was running down the field, made that tackle running back to the sideline, everybody's going crazy for me. And it just like kind of hit me, like, ‘Wow, I play for Ohio State. I just made a tackle at Penn State.’” Arnold said. “It was such a surreal moment. It almost felt like a dream. I mean, that whole game just, it felt like I was in a movie.”
Mason Arnold made the first tackle of his career in his first start as Ohio State’s long snapper at Penn State.
Ryan Day, who admitted he was anxious before Arnold made his first start at Penn State, was impressed by how Arnold and the other specialists handled the inclement weather at Northwestern last week. Arnold was also proud of himself for how he dealt with that adversity.
“That was the worst conditions I've ever had to deal with in my life and my career,” Arnold said of the weather at Northwestern. “Being from Florida, we have pretty crazy storms, crazy lightning and all that nature, but when that happens, a lot of the time we don't play through that or we don't get that crazy, crazy wind. You don't get that 30-mile-an-hour-plus wind that we had at Northwestern. And to perform and just to get the job done in that game, it felt like just a great accomplishment just to do it with my brothers.”
As surreal as it has felt for Arnold to play for the Buckeyes, he hasn’t let the big stage overwhelm him. He’s kept himself calm by keeping in mind a simple three-word mantra made famous by New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick: “Do your job.”
“That's what we say here all the time, every day, especially on game day: Do your job. Got a big sign in our team meal room the day of the game and the night before the game: Do your job,” Arnold said. “And that's what I went to go do that day was do my job.”
In addition to playing football, Arnold was also a state-champion wrestler in high school, and he believes his experience on the mat has helped him handle the pressure of long snapping.
“I feel like wrestling has kind of prepared myself for any hardships or struggles in my life,” Arnold said. “There's a saying from a famous Iowa Hawkeye coach, Dan Gable; he said, ‘Once you do wrestling, everything else in life is easy.’ And I do believe that because, in wrestling, there is such a mental game. It’s crazy. Because you're out there on the mat by yourself, competing against one other guy. Everybody else is watching. Especially if you're in the finals of a tournament, the spotlight’s right on you. And I relate that a lot to being a specialist. I mean, I'm out there, I'm holding the ball and eyes are on. So I feel like wrestling has prepared me so much to be a specialist.”
Arnold also credits Robinson, who has remained around the team despite being injured, with helping him be ready to do his job.
“Brad's awesome. I give him a lot of credit for preparing me for the game against Penn State. Brad’s helped a lot with my mental game and physical game,” Arnold said. “Mental just because being a specialist is basically all mental. When you're at this level, in college football, being a specialist, you know what you got to do, you know your technique, you know kind of your formula on how to do what you have to do. But when you get to this level, it's all mental. And Brad's done it. Brad played in the national championship game. Brad's played bowl games, obviously Big Ten games, Big Ten championship games. And he's been tremendous with my development and the game mentally because of being a specialist. I would say it is at least 85% mental.”
Proud of you lil bro!!! @TheMasonArnold https://t.co/FIwzhrjFUR
— Bradley Robinson (@BRobinson_42) November 3, 2022
Day wasn’t ready to fully commit to Arnold remaining the top long snapper when he was asked last week, as the Buckeyes also have another redshirt freshman walk-on long snapper in Max Lomonico. When asked about Arnold on Thursday, Day preached the importance of continuing to be as consistent as he’s been so far.
“We're gonna need him here,” Day said of Arnold. “Consistency is the key. And all it takes is, you know, one bad snap and you put yourself at risk.”
Two-plus games into his career, however, Arnold has proven up to the task of leading Ohio State’s kicking and punting battery, giving the other specialists complete confidence he will get the job done. And Arnold says their trust in him has been key to his enthusiasm to do the job well.
“They're good dudes, good friends of mine and super encouraging,” Arnold said of Mirco and Ruggles. “If an operation were to go wrong, they're always there for me. They always kind of just correct me and make sure I'm doing what I got to do.”
