Andrew Kallas did not want the attention.
This is engrained in his DNA. He is a long snapper, and throughout the history of football, the long snapper only becomes the topic of conversation if something has gone horribly wrong. But even by snapping standards, Kallas is the quiet type -- a fifth-year senior at Missouri State who is really just happy to still be playing football.
"He likes snapping because it's a quiet position," his mother, Terri, said, "and no one knows who you are."
But when the Bears opened their season in College Station, Texas, against Texas A&M, Kallas was worried about the spotlight.
The snap would be easy, he told his dad, Michael, before the game. What came after though --
"I'm nervous about letting that return guy by me," he said.
Kallas played a little tight end in high school, has a cousin who played in the NFL, and at 6-foot-3, 227 pounds with good speed, he's an exceptional athlete -- by long snapper standards anyway. But tackling was not part of his repertoire.
Still, after a three-and-out on the opening drive of the game, Kallas whipped a perfect snap to his punter, who boomed a kick to Aggies star Mario Craver, who fielded it on a bounce and set off with a head of steam.
Just as Craver crossed the 35-yard line and eyed a swath of green ahead of him, two arms reached out from behind. Kallas wrapped Craver and dragged him down at the 40 for Missouri State's first official tackle of the season.
Kallas was technically credited with two tackles in the game, though he was also in on a third, and by the time the team gathered for film study the next day, people had started to notice.
"Sitting in the stadium, you don't have a real good angle," Michael Kallas said. "It wasn't until the videos came out that you could really see what he did."
Yes, the videos. Kallas' effort on that first tackle had garnered a trickle of online cache among die-hards, who now were watching for the Missouri State snapper. And if that had been the end of it, it still might've been something of a Cinderella story for a kid from Riverside, Illinois, who learned his craft just to have a role on the team, and who, a few years earlier, had nearly given up on football altogether.
In an era in which players earn millions in college football, Kallas was just happy to be here. He'd spent four years scratching and clawing just to get on the field. He'd never had a scholarship.
But it wasn't the end of the story. A few weeks later, in a game against SMU, he delivered a show stopper.
Late in the second quarter, Kallas snapped to his punter from Missouri State's 36, then dashed downfield -- a 50-yard all-out sprint ahead of the rest of the Bears punt unit, finding Mustangs speedster Yannick Smith waiting with the ball. Again, Kallas wrapped the return man around the legs and pulled him to the ground with effortless poise.
Now, people really noticed.
"I'm not really on social media," Andrew Kallas said. "But all of a sudden my phone was blowing up. I got too many texts. I'm not used to this."
Who is Andrew Kallas?
Andrew is the second of four brothers, and Terri made sure they all played sports year round. Andrew swam and played baseball, but football was a trickier task. Michael and Andrew were just messing around on a field adjacent to the cross-country meet where Andrew's brother was running one day in the fall of his freshman year in high school when Michael suggested snapping.
Michael had snapped a little in high school, so he knew the basics. Andrew was a quick learner. No one else on the team seemed particularly interested in the gig, so eventually, Andrew became Riverside (Ill.) Brookfield High School's starting long snapper.
He never thought snapping would last much beyond high school, and he broke his collarbone during his senior season, putting his football future in limbo. Still, Kallas accepted a chance to grey shirt -- a non-scholarship role akin to redshirting -- at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater.
After his first year, however, the coaching staff turned over entirely, and it was clear Kallas wasn't in the new staff's plans. He called home, dejected and ready to give up the game.
"We're coming to get you," Terri told him.
That day, Michael and Terri drove to Wisconsin and helped Andrew pack up his things.
Andrew had argued that, perhaps it made sense for him to stay in Wisconsin, to focus on school and give up on football.
Terri had a ready response: "Don't be stupid."
"I knew he wasn't done with football," she said. "And it was the best decision we ever made. It just took a few years to figure out that it had all been a blessing in disguise."
Andrew enrolled at College of DuPage in nearby Glen Ellyn, Illinois -- a Division III non-scholarship junior college with a rich football history. This past year alone, DuPage sent 40 players on to four-year schools, including 20 to Division I programs. Still, long snapping at a Division III JuCo is a long way from the big time, and Kallas hadn't even thought to dream of something more. He just wanted to keep playing a little longer.
Kallas arrived at DuPage too late to play right away, and he had no film to share with coaches. Instead, head coach Matthew Rahn encouraged Kallas to stay in shape, work with a snapping coach and wait for the next season.
On the advice of a teammate, Kallas started working with Nolan's Snapping, a training facility nearby, and suddenly snapping didn't feel like a hobby but a job he could master. At home, he'd practice constantly -- snapping at trees or the garage door. He got better.
By the time he was able to get onto the field at DuPage, he began to appreciate the path he had taken -- and what might be on the other side.
"He'd gone somewhere that wasn't a fit, and like any kid his age who went through that, he had body language like he was down about it," Rahn said. "A lot of kids would've let that define them. ... But the longer he was in our program, we saw that confidence come out of him. He's a quiet kid, but by the end of it, it was hard to tell he was a special teams guy by his personality and how he interacted with everybody."
In 2024, Kallas had a solo tackle in DuPage's win over Louisburg to secure the Division III national championship.
By the spring of 2025, he had a spot on an FBS roster as a preferred walk-on at Missouri State.
A newfound stardom
A handful of Missouri State's media folks were loitering outside the team meeting room on Oct. 5, which Kallas thought was odd. By now, he was a social media star, the clips of his tackles against A&M and SMU a viral favorite among fans who love a football grinder, and he had learned in the past few weeks that there was little else to do with his 15 minutes of fame than to accept it.
In the meeting, his tackle against the Mustangs flashed across the screen to a round of applause from teammates and coaches.
Most of the people in the room didn't know his story -- from the "let's give it a try" moment at a cross-country meet to his departure from Wisconsin-Whitewater to DuPage to a torn labrum that had sidelined him for all of spring ball and made him something of an afterthought to Casey Woods and the new coaching staff at Missouri State.
They certainly didn't know how unlikely his star turn had been after the highlight-reel tackles.
"You just don't do a lot of live punt cover reps in fall camp," Woods said. "We did maybe 10 the whole time. Then you watch him go down there vs. the Aggies and it's the first time I recognized we had something.
"He kind of came out of nowhere."
The truth is, Woods was already working on a scholarship for Kallas before the season started. He wanted all his starters -- snappers included -- on scholarship, but there was some budget and clerical red tape to work through. But then Kallas became an internet sensation, and the timing all just fit.
After highlighting his tackle against SMU, Woods announced that Kallas had been awarded a scholarship, and the room exploded. Teammates swarmed Kallas, whooping and slapping his back in celebration.
A special surprise at this morning's team meeting! 🐻 Congratulations, Andrew Kallas - YOU ARE NOW ON SCHOLARSHIP ‼️ #ItTakesUsAll | #NoStateLikeMoState https://t.co/rc3LP5Xrf5
— Missouri State Football (@MoStateFootball) October 2, 2026
"If he'd gotten the scholarship earlier," Terri said, "the whole room probably would've been like, 'Who's Andrew Kallas?'"
Rhett Lashlee knows Kallas now. The SMU coach said his punt team player who failed to block Kallas had a rough film study the day after the game, but he lauded Kallas for "a great effort play."
Kennesaw State knows him, too. When the Bears lined up for their first punt against the Owls in a 24-21 win last week, Kennesaw had a man covering Kallas.
"It was the first time this season anyone blocked him," Woods said. "They said, 'Hey, we've got to stop this guy.'"
Kallas is OK with that. The tackles were fun -- not for the glamour that followed, but for a chance to help his team. Still, it's not his game, and he's well aware the next time he's darting downfield, he might get juked out of his shoes.
"I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened yet," he said.
He has started working on tackling fundamentals with the coaching staff, focusing on footwork and angles. It's a nice side gig, but it's not his passion.
Kallas snaps -- long snaps, short snaps, PATs and punts. His part of the machinery. That's all he has ever wanted to be.
"I love snapping, and I love playing football," he said. "Any chance I have to get out there, I'm going to do it. My goal is to keep playing football as long as I can -- wherever that takes me."
