4/2/2024 football Edit

Austin Riggs details his journey from Idaho to Zimbabwe to Utah to Rutgers

Richie O'Leary • TheKnightReport

Publisher

This past offseason, Rutgers like many other college football programs was pretty active via the Transfer Portal adding players at quarterback, wide receiver and a defensive lineman.

Now one position that they added via the portal, which came as a surprise to some was long snapper as the Scarlet Knights added BYU transfer Austin Riggs.

Following practice on Thursday, Riggs was able to sit down with The Knight Report to detail his journey so far.

"So I hit the portal after our season, and it just kind of ended up working out with Rutgers," Riggs told TKR. "Someone from Rutgers reached out to me rather quickly. I already had a couple offers from other universities as well that are awesome, but when Rutgers reached out, it was kind of a no-brainer for me. The biggest things that I wanted when I was looking for a new school was to make sure that I can keep getting bigger, faster, and stronger with my body. I also wanted to have an opportunity to go and play at the next level and obviously Rutgers is notorious for that with their football program. Finally a place where I can get a good education as well. So, coming out here and being able to have an opportunity to pursue a master’s degree was a big push for me as well."

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The move to Rutgers was a big one for Riggs, as he's originally an Eagle, Idaho native and spent four years at Brigham Young in Utah, so the East Coast was something new to him, but the opportunity was too much to pass up.

"It’s an awesome difference, it’s definitely faster paced," said Riggs. "I love it out here in Jersey, everyone’s very welcoming. I think everyone had a stigma that Jersey people weren’t as welcoming - I will say, they’re the complete opposite. Everyone’s loving, and it’s fun to be out here. I already have 130 friends that are on the team, it’s awesome, a built-in family. They [BYU] have a really good program and a culture and a brotherhood out there, so I'm just adding to the family that I already have."

Another thing that stood out about Rutgers was all of the diversity that comes with being a student at Rutgers, as you can see specifically with the Scarlet Knights special teams unit.

"BYU taught me how to really push for diversity in your relationships, make sure that people from different backgrounds, whether they’re from this country or a different state, [that] everyone’s included in the same way, and that’s exactly what Rutgers does here as well," Riggs said. "We [Rutgers] had a punter from Australia, a kicker, that just graduated, from Ireland. Rutgers does it perfectly out here just making sure everyone’s included. Besides the fact that they’re in different states, BYU and Rutgers have such similarities in the culture and building up each other. I love how Coach Schiano pushes for us having the best opportunity to make it to the NFL, but you’re going to be a man at the end of the day no matter what. If we push and we do everything that we’re asked to do, we will be successful, and that’s what you’re here to do, I love that part."

Along with traveling throughout the states, Riggs has also spent several years on a church service mission down in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe from 2018-2020, where he spent his free time helping out those in need.

"Yeah, so I went on a church service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - a lot of people know us as the Mormons," he said. "I went out there, and it’s pretty much like a humanitarian service, and you share the gospel of Jesus Christ at the same time. I speak, it’s called is Xhosa. If you’ve ever seen Black Panther, the movie, they speak what I speak. I can fluently speak that, Zulu and Shona. Those are the three, and you have different dialects from it, but it was super unique, I mean, you live with the people, it’s [the mission] a 24/7, for two years, service for the people - you don’t come home [to the US]. It’s a very unique experience, I’m so grateful for it. I have thousands of friends out there now. I was actually in Harare, Zimbabwe, it’s right above the country of South Africa. It’s a gorgeous spot, very tropical out there, and I loved it. The people were extremely humble, very welcoming, and I was grateful to be able to live with them."

Going back to football a bit, as most know long snapping is somewhat of a unique position. It's a spot not a lot of kids grow up wanting to play, as they'd rather offensive line if they have the size or will transition to a different position on either side of the ball.

However it was actually quite the opposite for Riggs, as both he and his father knew if he wanted to play college football, this might be his best choice.

"Probably when I was in about eighth grade or so, I was already about 6-foot-2," Riggs said. "I was a big kid, but I was skinny, I wasn’t the fastest kid whatsoever. And so, like you said, my dad played in college and so I wanted to go play college football. I was a defensive end at the time, he [my dad] said let’s be realistic here, the best position you can do is a long snapper because nobody thinks about it until you have a bad long snapper. I was like “alright” and so I definitely kept working hard at being a defensive end, and it went from long snapping being a backup position, a backup to my plans in a way, to being the primary position that I wanted to play. You go to all these camps, you get tested against the best of the best throughout high school. Long snappers go through a guy named Chris Rubio, he’s actually based out of Idaho ironically, so I worked with him a lot in high school, and that’s how I ended up getting a couple offers, more in the West Coast, it worked out great with BYU. That [training] was the biggest push for me to get to college. I knew what I was good at, I pushed as hard as I can, and, if you do that and you do it to the best of your ability, you’re probably going to be successful in one way or another."

Now at Rutgers, Riggs only has one year of eligibility remaining and while his main goal is to help win the team some gams, he does have a few personal goals in mind as well.

"As a long snapper, like what I said before, [it’s an] unglorified position, so if I snap perfectly every time I'm out on the field and I perform my job perfectly, nobody should ever hear about me, nobody should be wondering if the snap is okay or not," said Riggs. "You should be worried about other things happening throughout the game. The coaches trust me with my responsibility and that’s what I’m here to do."

"My personal goals are obviously to have great snaps, right on the money every time. I have a really good group of specialists that are here to help me, and I’m here to help them as much as vice versa, it’s a really great culture on the special teams. We’re all really driven, we want the best for each other. We have Michael [O’Connor] and Sammy [El Hadidi] that are also long snappers, those dudes bust their butts every single day. They’re in the weight room pushing me, making sure that I’m getting better. Our kickers are doing phenomenal as well. It’s a really good team, and I love that. As a unit, we’re pushing to make sure that when we’re out on the field, we’re doing our job, we’re executing to the best of our abilities, whether that’s making field goals, having really good holds on PATs and field goals, or just snaps that you don’t have to worry about - you’re not worried about if that ball’s gonna go on the ground, above the punter’s head, that the ball is right on the money every time, straight to his hands, that’s my goal. To make it to the next level, but it’s step by step, day by day, and if I'm able to do that day by day, then whatever happens after my time here, I’m gonna be grateful. I’m gonna be happy that I came here, I already am, but I know that if I trust that process, then everything’s going to work out."