Will Wagner rarely gets nervous.

The man who long snapped for 53 games at the University of Michigan, including in The Game against Ohio State, the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the National Championship, said seemingly high-pressure situations are just another opportunity.

The only time he felt pressure last year? The first snap of the season after winning the starting job for the Bengals.

"I'm very levelheaded, and so I don't really get super nervous," Wagner said. "But that first snap, my heart was going."

A mechanical engineering major at Michigan, it is not a surprise Wagner's calm and collected on gameday. Wagner applies the same thought process of the top engineers at Apple or Google to long snapping, constantly tinkering and thinking of even the smallest adjustments to make for possible improvement.

"I use my mechanical engineering degree pretty much every day in long snapping," Wagner said in an interview while at Michigan. "In engineering, I have to know how matter is going to react if I put force in one place compared to another, and it's the same in long snapping -- how is the ball going to fly if I snap it one way versus another?"

He equated the process to that of a golf swing, thinking through each step of the snap like he's hitting balls on the range.

"It's definitely evolved over time," Wagner said. "I've been doing this since eighth grade, so I've figured out some tricks."

Wagner's engineering background comes to the foreground when he's working alone and can focus on the key details. Under the lights, though, he hones in on a few key things to improve the snap.

"You're tinkering to help, but sometimes it can mess some stuff up, so I try and stay away from it during games," Wagner said.

His special teams coach at Michigan Jay Harbaugh said he could see aspects of an engineer in Wagner, calling him a cerebral and self-aware player.

"The tinkering aspect is certainly relevant with him," Harbaugh, now the special teams coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, said. "Looking for answers, wanting answers… He wants to understand the full picture. He's a really intelligent person that has the mental horsepower to handle those things."

Wagner may have picked up long snapping in eighth grade, but he didn't snap in a varsity game until his senior year of high school. Most of his film for recruitment came from attending camps. Harbaugh said recruiting a long snapper has similarities to recruiting a quarterback.

"You like to see them do it live because there's certain things you just can't see that well on film," Harbaugh said. "That's where individual workout film or film from snapping camps comes into play."

Wagner had offers from Mercer University and Brown University when the Wolverines offered him in December. Wagner and his father visited the campus on his birthday, and he was sold after researching and seeing Michigan's engineering school.

Wagner started 53 games for the Wolverines beginning his sophomore season. Harbaugh said he had an unusual maturity about him that made the coach comfortable enough to start Wagner in his second year on campus.

"My recollection of it was just the readiness, a consistency," Harbaugh said. "Same guy day in and day out… I got that sense from him."

Originally, Wagner thought he could make the NFL after his junior season. However, he tore his ACL in his senior season. After that, it took until he was done with his sixth year, snapping in seemingly every big game imaginable, for him to realize the league was realistic.

"I've done it for four years at a high level, so it was just like 'yeah, I can do this,'" Wagner said.

Harbaugh said while it's hard for him to pick a specific moment when he knew Wagner could play at the next level, he pointed to the 2021 Big 10 Championship against Iowa as one example. The Hawkeyes brought a look the Wolverines weren't expecting and hadn't prepared for, but Wagner adjusted and solved the problem on the fly.

"You think about the great players, the consistency day to day is super important," Harbaugh said. "The really special ones, they find ways to go above and beyond their regular responsibilities outside of the baseline expectations, and that was an example where he did that. I probably still owe him for that."

After his time in Ann Arbor came to a close, Wagner received interest from a few teams during the predraft process, including his former head coach Jim Harbaugh's Los Angeles Chargers. Ultimately, he made the deal with the Bengals during Day Three of the draft: If he wasn't picked, he was coming to Cincinnati.

"I'm glad it happened, I have family in Cincy and have grown up coming to Cincy," Wagner said. "It worked out pretty well."

Wagner competed with incumbent long snapper Cal Adomitis throughout 2025 offseason workouts, training camp and the preseason before ultimately winning the job. Wagner said it's a night and day difference mentality wise entering 2026.

"I was competing with Cal, and Cal's a great guy, but [we] knew one of us is going to have the job, and one of us isn't," Wagner said. "It was just that added tension… There was definitely added pressure."

Adomitis had spent the previous three seasons snapping for K Evan McPherson and worked with P Ryan Rehkow during the 2024 season. When Wagner came in, the new specialist unit had to feel each other out. Harbaugh guessed it takes six weeks or so on average for the field goal unit to develop the chemistry needed to be successful, but he said certain units can gel much more quickly.

"The better the players are, the faster anything like that is going to happen. It's a trust and a predictability," Harbaugh said. "The better you are, the less variability there is which is going to lead to an increase of that chemistry and that trust being developed."

The newly formed specialist trio of Wagner, McPherson and Rehkow didn't miss a beat to start the 2025 season. Harbaugh wasn't surprised.

"I know the way [Wagner] approaches things, I know that he's good," Harbaugh said. "I have respect for those players (McPherson and Rehkow) ... Those are talented, good players with a really good coach (special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons)."

With the chemistry fully formed entering year two, Wagner focused on getting his punt snaps lower and getting his laces better on field goals. Last season, he said the laces were slightly turned in. While that doesn't seem like much, it could be the difference between a make and a miss.

"Think about it, if the holder catches laces, all he has to do is put it down," Wagner said. "If [the kicker] sees the holder catch it and spin it, it's another variable."

Long snapper isn't typically mentioned when discussing the most difficult or most important positions on a football field. The spotlight is rarely on them, and they only see a handful of snaps per game. If they do their job, no one notices. That's just fine with Wagner.

"I've been doing it for so long, I don't really care," Wagner said.

Wagner compared the thanklessness of the job to being an engineer. He used the example of a new iPhone, saying that while the public just sees the phone, the engineers are the ones who did all the testing and specifications. While the public only sees if the kicker makes or misses a kick, it all starts with the snap.

"I think it's lost on people how difficult that is," Harbaugh said. "Being upside down before the play then throwing the ball at that velocity with a very minimal margin of error… Being able to do that play in and play out with the expectation of perfection, combined with getting no credit, it's a pretty unique combination of factors."

The steady and consistent Wagner continues to tinker in the trenches as training camp gets underway, trying to eliminate any unnecessary variables and, hopefully, go unnoticed.

"He's so proficient and consistent that it becomes an afterthought," Harbaugh said. "Will's just going to do his job."