Gators Online Show: Jeremy Crawshaw talks UF special teams, Chris Couch

Welcome to the Gators Online Show! For episode 78, co-hosts Zach Abolverdi and Nick de la Torre have an interview with Florida punter Jeremy Crawshaw.

Crawshaw handled punting duties for the third-straight season in 2023 and earned AP All-SEC Second Team honors, setting the single-season program record average of 48.9 per attempt with seven punts 60-yards or more, a career-best 21 50-yards or more, 15 inside the opponent’s 20-yard line and a long of 68 yards.

“It was one of my better years for sure,” Crawshaw said. “I believe I didn’t start the season off real hot. Probably just had to get myself out of a funk there, but I think that start kind of pushed me. It kind of bugged me seeing that I wasn’t playing up to the standards that I knew I had. So in that, I ended up putting the most time and effort into punting that I ever have.

“I spent probably hours a day in the facility watching film on NFL punters as well just doing ball drops, line work, everything I could to make sure I was better. And that ended up correlating and you could see throughout the rest of the season that it was showing up in games. … So, if I wasn’t doing that in the first few games, I had to check myself, reevaluate what I was doing and come back better.” 

Despite Crawshaw’s individual success, the Gators had multiple special teams blunders last season. They were flagged for two players with the same number at Utah, an illegal substitution before missing a game-winning kick against Arkansas and lined up with less than 11 on the field multiple times.

Crawshaw addressed those issues during his interview, but also shared some statistics on UF’s special teams units.

“It’s a terrible thing when plays don’t quite go how they are expected to go,” Crawshaw said. “I know on those special teams blunders last year we obviously didn’t mean to have that happen, but after the games we reevaluate ourselves, we look at how it went. You know, we’re incredibly sorry for having those plays to the fans and having an impact on the game like that. But in the sense of looking at those blunders that happened, we also had quite a good season special teams wise.

“I mean, net punting we were fourth in the NCAA/Power 5 and first in the SEC. Kickoff return efficiency, we were 13th in Power Five with 62% efficiency. Kickoff return we were sixth in the Power 5, second in the SEC. Punt return average, we were 18th in the NCAA/Power 5. And in overall efficiency, we were ninth in the NCAA and 4th in the SEC. So I mean, considering we had 37 freshmen play for us on special teams last year, we still did really well. We had young guys who were inexperienced and we gave them experience.

“So, coming into this year, we should be a lot better off. We had those woes and we’re sorry for that and we’re doing our best to get back to the prestigious standard that is UF special teams. But we still really had a good year compared to what some think. We did really well in expected points as well. In situations where we were expected to do this or do that, we outperformed in those and were one of the top special teams in the country in that aspect as well.”

Florida’s GameChanger coordinator, analyst Chris Couch, was under scrutiny from fans in the fall after the aforementioned blunders. Couch is back for his third season with UF and will be joined by new staff hire Joe Houston, a senior analyst for special teams.

Crawshaw has yet to meet Houston, who was an assistant with the New England Patriots, but he’s looking forward to working with him as well as spending another year with Couch.

“In my honest opinion, he’s an absolute mastermind when it comes to special teams,” Crawshaw said of Couch. “His schemes and other things like that, they work. Like I said, I think we just had young freshmen who as the game goes on, things can happen and it becomes quickly a blur. But he’s great, you know, as a coach and as a person as well. I love coming in every day and chatting with him and going over things for punt.

“And he’s always really open and responsive to things that I bring up like, ‘Hey, maybe we could do this better or maybe we could do that better.’ And he says, ‘OK, let’s see if we can implement a little bit of this, a little bit of that.’ And I think that’s why, although we had those plays that people like to hold on to and say that is special teams, we turned it around and finished the season pretty well and a lot of that can be put to him.”

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The Gators Online Show is a weekly Florida Gators podcast on the On3 Network! Join Zach Abolverdi and Nick de la Torre of GatorsOnline.com every week as we go in-depth on UF football, recruiting, basketball, baseball and the rest of the Florida Gators championship teams.

Zach and Nick, who have covered UF for more than 20 years combined, will be joined by current and former Florida athletes, staffers, Gator Greats, media members and more. You can listen or watch the show on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and 34 other platforms.

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