Cattau is finding the field at Wayne State

WAYNE - Jaymison Cattau worked his way on the field for the Wayne State Wildcats this fall.

He recently made a position change to tight end, but is finding playing time as the long snapper for field goals and punts.

“I knew I would maybe have the opportunity to play as a freshman as a long snapper,” said Cattau. “Our starting long snapper was injured and so it was my time to come up and do it.”

It’s more than just snapping the ball.

“After I snap the ball, my job is to be the first one down the field to make the guy make a move toward our gunners,” said Cattau. “Sometimes they have a guy over me and sometimes I can just go down there and force the runner to the boundary.”

Cattau was the long snapper back at Cedar Catholic in his high school days, but he hardly left the field back in those days as a Trojan.

“Yes, in high school kind of being ‘the guy’ to get the ball and rush the passer,” he said. “Here it is my whole job and my role to help the team win.”

His new head coach sees a lot of potential.

“Jaymison was a big addition last winter in our signing class,” said Wayne State head coach Logan Masters. “He’s a great athlete from a great program that knows how to win. When his number was called to go in and snap, we didn’t skip a beat. I didn’t even notice he was in there, which is a good thing in this case.” Masters looks for Cattau’s role to increase as he gets bigger and older. “He just moved to tight end halfway through the fall,” the coach said. “We’ll continue to develop him on and off the field so he can continue to grow his role helping us win.” The Wildcat regular season came to an end last week when WSC outlasted Augustana 38-31 to finish the regular season at 7-4 and win the South Division title.

Augustana came into the game ranked 13th in the country and had only lost one game on the year prior to the Wayne game.