STARKVILLE — Winston Chapman and Hunter Bradley have found a unique way to practice their craft.

The Mississippi State long snappers do what all of their peers do in practice: snap the ball. But they have found a way to mix it up when they are away from the practice fields.

It’s called trick long snapping, and the duo tries to hit targets that can be just about anything. Their work has made the rounds on

YouTube, Twitter, and other social media sites.

“We’re always messing around with it,” Chapman said. “We have a lot of time during the summers where we’re practicing and hitting targets and all sorts of stuff. It’s always been kind of a fun end up exercise we do.”

One video shows Chapman knocking a bottle off a teammate’s head. Another shows the Fairhope, Alabama, native knocking a smaller bottle off a bigger bottle that’s on a table.

They might be doing it for fun, but it helps them have better accuracy when snapping the ball to punters Logan Cooke and Devon Bell or quarterback Dak Prescott, who doubles as the holder on field goals.

“We’re always practicing hitting our targets,” Chapman said. “We always try to be the best we can, and trick shots kind of play into that. If you can hit a target, then it’s proving your skill. You just go out there and try to hit everything you aim at.”

Chapman, who is in his final season at MSU, has been the starting long snapper for the past three seasons.

Bradley, a junior, hasn’t seen any playing time for the Bulldogs.

“It’s really good work to focus on an object and snap at it because you know with us we’re always focusing on snapping at the hip,” Bradley said. “It’s good work to see an object and change your release point and focus on hitting that spot.”

The trick shots also have brought out the competitive sides of Bradley and Chapman, who try to outdo each other. They hope the competition translates to better performances on the field.

“We’re always trying to beat each other at all sorts of competitions,” Chapman said. “We both go back and forth. He hits something, then I have to hit it. If I hit something, then he’s got to hit it.”

Chapman and Bradley wanted to get their trick long snapping on video for a long time, but it never happened. One day in the locker room, they were messing around and Cooke decided to document some of the tricks. He posted them to several social media sites that allowed Bulldog fans to see the skill of Chapman and Bradley.

Hail State Productions, MSU’s video services department, decided to capture even more of the trick shots on camera, so they followed Chapman and Bradley for a day. They released the video Thursday and it shows the two long snappers hitting the crossbar, snapping balls into garbage cans, hitting a bell and a bulldog on campus, and knocking Frisbees out of the air.

“We made a bunch of pretty cool trick shots,” Bradley said. “We went all around campus: Palmerio (Center), Drill Field, and out in Dudy Noble (Field). I’m excited, and hopefully it will look good.”

Cooke can be seen in the video launching a high punt that lands into a garbage can. He says, “Punters are people, too.”

Targeting objects with his punts helps Cooke fine tune his placement of kicks.

“If I can put any punt in the garbage can or on a certain spot on the field every time, that’s just accuracy,” Cooke said.

Cooke will compete with Bell for the punting job this fall, while he said kickoff duty is wide open. He said early indications are Bell, Westin Graves, and Bryce Brown are competing for the field goal job.

Chapman and Bradley have heard from other long snappers that they stole their idea, but Chapman claims it was an original idea. Chapman has limited involvement with social media. He has a Twitter account, but he doesn’t have a Facebook page, so he heard some comments but hasn’t seen many of them.

“I didn’t look at somebody else’s video and say, ‘Dang, I can do that.’ I was just like, ‘Let’s start making videos. That’s been our idea since freshman year,” Chapman said.

Trick shot videos have taken the country by storm. Dude Perfect formed at Texas A&M and they do all kind of trick shots from different sports. They usually put out a video a week, and many have more than five million views of YouTube. They also have sponsors and get professional athletes to help them.

Bryan Bros Golf is a pair of brothers from South Carolina who played golf at the University of South Carolina and do golf trick shots. They recently shot a video that featured champion golfer Rory McIlroy.

An agricultural economics major, Chapman interned at State Farm this summer. He enjoyed the internship and could see himself working somewhere like that, but he said he would change his career path if Dude Perfect came calling.

“Trick long snapping could also be a career,” Chapman said. “Dude Perfect could pick me up, and that could be a whole new aspect of their operation.”

Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait

Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.