Our Nickname For Jonathan Hernandez, Explained

We got really excited the week before the season when punter Jonathan Hernandez was added to the USF roster. Then we got even more excited when we saw the Florida State transfer might end up being the opening night starter. And then we got positively giddy when we saw that Hernandez was six-foot-four and 241 pounds. For years, we’ve seen other teams with oversize punters and kickers, and we’ve coveted them. They’re fun! They’re jolly! Some of them lay some Richter scale hits on unsuspecting returners!

We immediately started calling the tight end-sized Hernandez “Large Adult Punter.” But where did that name come from? Let’s explore.

The nickname is based on the phrase “large adult son,” which is very popular on Twitter. I’m pretty sure the concept originated with Weird Twitter pioneer @dril, but it doesn’t look like he’s ever used the exact phrase.

I think we can declare @dril the spiritual inventor of this idea. But the phrase “large adult son” didn’t come into consciousness until January 2015. A family picture, probably out of a Christmas card, of smarmy conservative pundit and occasional Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee with his wife and kids started circulating on the Internet. His two sons, dressed in the same shirt as him, are very large and well over 18 years old. So Twitter user @JuliusIrvington put two and two together for the first time.

You can go to this page to read more about the initial wave of “large adult son,” which is admittedly a hilarious set of words no matter what context they’re placed in. It especially peaked in May 2015 when Huckabee decided to try and run for President again (as you are probably aware, he did not succeed).

Since then, “large adult son” has split off into two distinct categories. There’s still the original use, for doughy, shiftless ne’er-do-well types, and general Weird Twitter-ness.

At the same time, Sports Twitter has taken “large adult son” and applied it to any athlete it likes a lot, even if they aren’t particularly large.

Of course, there are variations. Penn State fans have rallied around 270-pound kicker Joey Julius. First he smoked Kent State kickoff returner Raekwon James in the opening game of the season. Then last week Minnesota assigned a blocker to beat him up every time he kicked off, which made folks mad. Eventually they went too far and put a cheap shot on him, leading to a targeting penalty and an ejection.

And that brings us to Jonathan Hernandez, our sweet, beautiful Large Adult Punter.

Never, ever change, Jonathan. Keep bombing those punts and putting teams in terrible field position. And if you lay out a punt returner someday like Joey Julius did, we’re going to absolutely lose our minds.