On the basketball court at Chartiers Valley High School, T.J. McConnell remembers Christian Kuntz as the type of hard-nosed player to do all the little things.
“What he did for our team didn’t show up in the stat sheet,” McConnell was recalling the other day. “He guarded the best player, no matter how tall he was. He was getting rebounds, diving for loose balls, just doing what we needed him to do. We don't win a WPIAL championship and are not as successful without him.”
Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that Kuntz has turned himself into an NFL long snapper, just about the most anonymous position on any football team.
But for Kuntz, who played hoops with the reigning NBA steals leader, you can call this past week a dream come true. On Tuesday, it became official that Kuntz made the Steelers’ 53-man roster and is set to be his hometown team’s long snapper in 2021. He’s the only WPIAL product on the active roster and the first Duquesne University alumnus in the NFL since 2011, when cornerback Leigh Bodden retired.
“It hasn't really hit me yet, honestly,” Kuntz said Wednesday, not quite 24 hours after the Steelers released Kam Canaday, who had been their snapper since 2017. “My family’s like, ‘You don't seem excited.’ Obviously, I’m excited. But it’s still my job. As quick as I got on the 53, I could be off the 53.”
Kuntz, 27, called the incoming stream of congratulatory calls and texts “pretty hectic” once the outside world learned he won the gig. Coming into training camp, few even expected it to be a competition, given Canaday’s experience.
But the 6-foot-1, 228-pound Kuntz did everything right. He was there for rookie minicamp in early May, which gave him a chance to start developing his rapport with seventh-round draft pick Pressley Harvin III, who replaced another veteran in Jordan Berry as the Steelers’ punter. From there, Kuntz found consistency with his snaps, and as an added bonus, the all-time sacks leader at Duquesne even made a couple of tackles on punt coverage in the preseason.
“The funny story with that is I always tried to get him to do it,” said Duquesne head coach Jerry Schmitt, who has put himself in charge of his team’s snappers. “And he always laughed at me.”
Kuntz did enough of it to be considered an emergency option, if need be, but going into his junior year, he approached Schmitt during training camp and told him he wanted to be the No. 1 snapper. The way he saw it, as an outside linebacker who led the FCS level in tackles for loss per game, snapping would ensure that he’s on punt coverage. And being on punt coverage meant a chance to pad his stats with more tackles.
“That’s exactly the reason he came over to start doing it,” Schmitt said with a laugh, explaining that in his punt scheme, the snapper has zero blocking responsibilities. “He knew he could get down there to make tackles. And of course, the way he approaches everything, he practiced it like crazy.”
After going undrafted in 2017, despite earning multiple FCS All-American honors, Kuntz got his first tryout in Tampa Bay’s rookie camp. He was in and out of Patriots training camp in one day that August, then had a workout with the Packers. It was in Green Bay where he learned that chasing an NFL career as a linebacker wasn’t a total waste of time, but that snapping was his more realistic path.
From there, Kuntz spent the following spring with the Broncos. He then spent a couple weeks on the Jaguars’ practice squad later that season, but Jacksonville waived him in June 2019. A couple months later, he signed with the Steelers to join them in training camp and actually had three tackles and a sack playing linebacker in the fourth preseason game, but didn’t make the team.
“I’m not really sure,” Kuntz said when asked what kept him going through so many stops and starts. “I just had something on my mind. I wanted to make it to where I am now.”
Kuntz landed in the XFL to try his hand at snapping, and while that league didn’t last long, he latched on with the Dallas Renegades — perfect for a Pittsburgh kid whose snaps might now precede the Steelers playing “Renegade” at Heinz Field. That might’ve seemed like a long shot last year when Kuntz was signed then waived by the Steelers again between March and August, came up empty in tryouts with the Texans and Colts, then signed back to the Steelers practice squad only to be released twice more before inking another contract with them this past January.
“He’s one of those kids that finds a way,” Schmitt said. “He works his tail off, just does what he has to do. Even the exhibition games, I got a chance to watch some. The TV shows the punt, then at the end you see the returner, and I’m looking for that 46 [jersey]. I know he’ll be around.”
McConnell, who’s still the most famous pro athlete from Chartiers Valley — though he might have to cede that title here in Western Pennsylvania — always saw the same in Kuntz. A senior when Kuntz was a sophomore, McConnell was the star of the Colts squad that finished as the Class AAA state runner-up in 2010. But Kuntz was a starter, even playing through a torn meniscus — until it was discovered he also had a fractured vertebra from football season and wouldn’t be able to play in the state playoffs.
A Steelers fan himself, McConnell already plans to get himself a No. 46 Kuntz jersey now that his buddy plays for the local NFL team. He wants to frame it and hang it in his man cave — but not until he wears it on opening night of the NBA season, before suiting up for the Indiana Pacers.
“It’s just something so special for him, growing up rooting for the Steelers,” McConnell said. “I’m just so happy and proud of how hard he’s worked. He’s scratched and clawed and earned this spot. And he’s not the type of person who will get comfortable. He’ll continue to work.”
Kuntz will take a quick break Tuesday to have lunch with McConnell, and he joked that despite his own recent financial security, the guy who just signed a four-year, $33 million contract with the Pacers is picking up the tab. McConnell’s reply? Not so fast.
“I told him to bring his piggy bank,” McConnell said. “He is paying — 1,000 percent.”
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: September 4, 2021, 12:00 p.m.