MHS defensive lineman and long snapper Caleb Howard, senior has committed to play football at Missouri S&T. Despite only playing football his freshman and senior years, Howard has been able to continue his football career at the next level.

After returning to football his senior year, Howard had not thought about playing college football nor did he think it was a possibility until the season was under way.

“It wasn’t really a plan or an idea until beginning, midway through the season and then I realized I might have a shot at long snapping in college,” Howard said.

During his senior season, Howard began looking at colleges he was interested in academically and athletically and Missouri S&T was one of them.

Howard said some Division III schools were interested in him, but he eventually contacted Missouri S&T’s head football coach about possibly playing for them in college.

“I wanted to go into engineering and they are a good school for engineering so it was a good fit,” Howard said.

Howard will start out as a long snapper for the Miners and hopes to put on more weight and eventually play defensive line later in his college career.

Teammate Cayden Sparks, senior describes Howard as a hard worker and a fearless competitor on the field.

“Caleb is definitely one of the hardest workers we had on the team and he was never afraid to take on someone that was bigger than him he was also very aggressive and very agile on the defensive line,” Sparks said.

Sparks explained he believes that Howard will have bright future at S&T because of his work ethic as well as his talent.

Matt Klein, head football coach said that Caleb’s work ethic and attitude helped him gain the technique that he lacked because of missing his sophomore and junior seasons on the field.

“He was extremely coachable, played with outstanding effort and those two things went a long way with him not only as a player but also just as a person,” Klein said.

Klein explained some of the reasons that Howard is able to play college football after one year on the varsity team are because of his size and his long snapping ability.