Florida Football: Lack of special teams coordinator is a problem for Gators

Florida football, like all FBS college football teams, is limited to 10 “On-field assistant coaches.” While Billy Napier has an army of support staff working with the squad off the field, one of the oddities of his staff is that he has two offensive line coaches while not having one of his on-field assistants designated as the special teams coordinator.

But after yesterday’s showing on special teams, which followed up on last season’s disappointing play, it might be time for Napier to reevaluate his use of assistants.

Florida Football: Not very special

Chris Couch is listed on Florida’s website as the “GameChanger Coordinator, ” a fancy term for saying special teams fall under his umbrella.

But Couch is also listed as part of Napier’s support staff, and per current NCAA rules, he is limited in what he is able to do on the field.

Special teams play last season wasn’t great, with frequent holding penalties and an uninspiring punt return unit that culminated in a muffed fumble for a touchdown against Vanderbilt.

One season later, the problems on special teams are even worse.

The following is a list of issues from the unit last night:

• Missed a 31-yard field goal
• Had one punt go for only 21 yards
• Twice fielded a punt inside the five
• The debacle sending out Jason Marshall and Eugene Wilson at the same time resulted in a jersey violation and a first down for Utah.
• Didn’t send out 11 players to block a Utah field goal attempt

As we pointed out in our “What went wrong” piece, it is one thing if you get outplayed. Right tackle Damieon George, for example, did not have a good night, but that can be chalked up to Utah just being better.

But the mistakes we continue to see on special teams are not a by-product of the other team being better. They are self-inflicted wounds that one could argue cost Florida the game.

The Gators lost three points on the missed field goal, another three points after Utah had a short field to work with following the shanked punt, and gifted another seven points off the double number three debacle.

That’s 13 points off botched special teams.

Florida lost the game by 13 points.

If Couch was a full-time assistant rather than a support staff guy, would things be better? We would hope so.

But if his title is merely semantics, and his role wouldn’t be much different, then Napier needs to look elsewhere for this group.

Either way, Florida needs a full-time special teams coordinator on staff, or the problems that are happening won’t get fixed.