Florida Football special teams stand to benefit most from NCAA rule change on coaches

One of Florida football's major deficiencies over the past two seasons has been special teams. The overall metrics would tell you that special teams have been a strength, with Trey Smack and Jeremy Crawshaw doing their part as some of the best kickers in the country. But the tendency for sloppy mistakes and backbreaking penalties was a major black eye for the Gators in 2023.

However, with a new rule change effective immediately, the Gators will have no excuses for those same sloppy mistakes in 2024.

Florida Football: Not So Special

During his tenure with the Gators, Billy Napier has opted not to have a special teams coordinator among his ten on field assistant coaches. Instead that task has fallen to Chris Couch, an off the field analyst. This offseason Napier hired Joe Houston to help out with special teams but also as an off the field analyst.

While it is largely assumed that analyst all over the country help provide on field instruction, official NCAA rules have stated that only the head coach and the ten paid assistant coaches are allowed to provide instruction on the field.

That rule has now been changed as the NCAA gave the green light yesterday for analysts to also provide on the field coaching, essentially paving the way for unlimited assistant coaches.

The biggest benefit for Florida is that they can now have a dedicated on the field special teams coordinator with Houston and Couch. With that the Gators hope to clear up some of their structural flaws which saw Florida constantly only have 10 players on the field, had two players wearing the same number, and had Florida completely confused as to when to run on the field to attempt a game winning field goal against Arkansas.

And frankly, if Florida can clean up their operations on special teams, more wins might just follow suit in 2024.