How Call of Duty Formed Bond Between 2 Indiana Football Specialists

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.

If Indiana's offensive production last season is any indication, punter Mitch McCarthy won't be needed much this fall.

But the 6-foot-5, 233-pound McCarthy won't be hard to miss on the sideline.

He'll be intently watching each play he has no other choice and will be in long snapper Mark Langston's shadow.

"If I get distracted and try to start playing with the fairies, I'll completely get lost," McCarthy said Friday.

"I'm so nervous and locked in that I don't miss anything.

I'll be attached to Mark's hip and I will not move anywhere from him, because when he's going out, I'm going out." Apart from their relative anonymity within an Indiana program spearheaded by coach Curt Cignetti, the friendship formed between McCarthy and Langston is, on paper, improbable.

Langston hails from Savannah, Ga., which sits roughly half an hour west of the Atlantic Ocean.

He spent his first two college seasons at Kennesaw State, just north of Atlanta, and his next three campaigns at Georgia Southern, which is just west of Savannah.

He's southern born and bred, and in addition to long snapper, Langston was a standout defender in high school he earned second-team all-state honors at linebacker in 2018, collecting 186 tackles.

McCarthy, meanwhile, is from Melbourne, Australia, and didn't play an organized game of American football until 2022.

He was a basketball standout in high school before being selected No.

7 overall in the 2016 Australian Rules Football Rookie Draft.

Yet Langston and McCarthy have formed a close bond.

McCarthy is 27 years old, only a few years older than Langston, who's entering his seventh season of college football.

They've both transferred, as McCarthy spent the past three years at UCF.

And they're both big into video games which is, in McCarthy's eyes, the uniting factor between two specialists who grew up nearly 10,000 miles apart.

"A lot of Call of Duty," McCarthy said.

"That always helps.

We play Call of Duty, especially in fall camp when we got any time off, we'll sit down, play some COD, some Warzone." Indiana divvies its players into groups for lifts and workouts during the offseason, and McCarthy and Langston were always separated.

As such, they didn't get to bond or deeply connect apart from their specialist-specific training sessions.

But ever since McCarthy added Langston as a friend and they began playing Call of Duty this summer, they've taken off.

"We're as close as ever," McCarthy said.

"I know his shortcomings, he knows mine.

So, as funny as that sounds, it actually has built the relationship a lot, being honest." McCarthy and Langston forming chemistry matters to Indiana more than just calming McCarthy's nerves on the sideline.

In their two losses in 2024, the Hoosiers struggled punting.

Against Ohio State, James Evans dropped a snap, setting up a Buckeye touchdown, and sent another kick spiraling to the opposite side of the field from where Indiana's coverage team was headed, which led to a punt return touchdown.

At the 2025 Big Ten Media Day in Las Vegas, Cignetti described Indiana's punting results as "awful" in its College Football Playoff loss to Notre Dame, during which Evans averaged just 33.7 yards across six boots.

McCarthy averaged a career-high 44.1 yards per punt in 2024 at UCF and landed a career-best 42.5% of his 40 punts inside the 20-yard line.

He's also the Hoosiers' holder during field goals and extra points, meaning he's responsible for telling Langston when to deliver the snap.

Both Langston and McCarthy are individually talented.

Cignetti believes Langston is "as good as there is in the country" at both short and long snapping, while McCarthy has impressed with his leg strength, hang time and the quickness with which he gets off punts.

"I really like our specialists," Cignetti said during fall camp.

"I think we have a chance to do some special things this year." And if Indiana's special teams unit delivers, Langston and McCarthy figure to be significant factors and they've already gone through one "Warzone" together.

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