Florida special teams coordinator Johnathan Galante emphasized the importance of using starters on fourth down and in the return game during his pre-fall camp press conference Tuesday.
Galante came over from Tulane with Jon Sumrall, and his kicker, Patrick Durking, and punter, Alec Clark, both followed. There's some familiarity in the kicking game that should help things come together, but there are a completely different set of expectations than the "gamechangers" unit under Billy Napier.
Vernell Brown III and Jadan Baugh will both return kicks, and some of the quicker players, such as Brown, could be in the mix to play gunner on the punt team. Galante expects a few blocked kicks this year, and noted that defensive line coach Gerald Chatman feels
the same way.
He'll also get some help from Greg McMahon, who oversaw the Green Wave's special teams unit before retiring and turning the reins over to Galante. McMahon has experience coaching the SEC, which is a huge asset to a coaching staff that's mostly stepping up a level.
Here's what Galante had to say.
How well do you know Greg McMahon, and how do you envision your working relationship?
Yeah, Greg’s great. He’s been around the game for a long time. I think he and I met in 2019. He was the special teams coordinator at the time for LSU, and I was a quality control analyst at Alabama. We met for the first time in pregame, and he gave me a hug like he knew me my whole life. That just speaks to who he is. He’s a great person, great coach, but an even better person, and it’s going to be a lot of fun having him around, for sure.
What is your philosophy on starters playing on special teams?
Absolutely, and that goes as the head coach goes. He allows us to use starters on special teams. He knows how important it is, especially on punt, so you’ll see a lot of starters on punt.
The thing is, that’s been a standard for most good programs. If they want to be good on special teams, they’re going to play their best players on offense and defense on special teams, especially punt and kickoff plays. It’s just changed a lot now because kickoff has become a little bit — you’re not covering every play. You can fair catch. Obviously, you’re going to hit touchbacks. But he allows us to use our best players on special teams, and we will.
Has the transfer portal changed how players view special teams?
Yeah, every player is a little bit different. When the transfer portal really started to become a big thing, as a special teams coordinator, the hard part was getting the transfer players to buy into playing on special teams because they hadn’t been in your program as young freshmen. Most guys probably don’t transfer to play on the punt or punt-return team. They’re coming in to earn a spot on offense or defense.
But what’s changed now, which is unique, is we’ve got some transfers here—I won’t name names—there are a couple of guys that are in their last year, maybe, and they’re going to be key contributors on offense and defense. They want to play on special teams because they see now, as older players, the value they can produce for themselves at the next level and play in the NFL if they can put some game tape on special teams. So it’s just changed, and it’s individual. It’s unique to each person.
What do you look for in a gunner, and how do you foresee that competition developing?
Speed. You’re talking about gunner? Yeah, speed first and foremost. We’ve got a lot of great team speed. They’ve got to be smart. I’ve had gunners where speed is a big deal, but I’ve had guys that are really good gunners that are great technique players. They know how to leverage the football. They know how to tackle well.
But speed has always been a priority. If you can match the speed at gunner with the hang time of your punter, you shouldn’t have to make a whole lot of tackles. You can force what we call fair catches, and that’s a big deal if we can eliminate big plays.
Speed and instincts. It’s hard because it’s not all defensive players that make great gunners. Some great offensive players make great gunners. One of the best in the NFL ever to do it was an offensive player. VB (Vernell Brown III) could be great at it. He’s going to spend most of his time catching those punts, not repping it at gunner, but he could do it, and he could do a lot of different things.
Eric Singleton is going to play some gunner. He can run, and he’s willing to do it. He’s a wideout. J'Vari Flowers did it some last year. He’s good at it and is a willing tackler. Want-to may be even more important than speed, and those guys want to do it.
Has Florida traditionally had strong players at gunner?
We’ve had some gunners here that have made some plays, for sure. They had a—I can’t remember his name—who wore jersey No. 4. He’s from New Jersey. When I was at Alabama, we played in The Swamp in 2021, Week 3, and he was a gunner at the time. The year before, we played them in 2020 in the SEC Championship.
There have always been elite gunners here at Florida, and we’ve got a couple of really good ones coming back, too. There are some times you turn on the tape and you just see him run right by the corner. You’ve got to maybe double that guy or something because he’s pretty good, pretty fast.
Can embracing a role as a gunner provide an unconventional path to the NFL?
One hundred percent. One thing that was a really good opportunity was my assistant and I went to the Jags’ OTA when they started, and it’s just so much fun to watch the pros operate.
I brought back a couple of clips. There was a linebacker in the front of the room, Ventrell Miller, who was maybe one of the first guys I noticed in the meeting room talking, having great energy, calling out coaching points even maybe before the special teams coordinator did. I brought back that information and showed some highlights of him playing on special teams for the Jags.
He started on kickoff for the Jags last year and forced a fumble. Anytime they see that kind of stuff—gunner is one example, but there are a ton of examples—and there are more plays in the NFL on special teams now with the new kickoff rule. Those guys are seeing that tape, and they’re getting excited about playing special teams.
Were there only two punts in the 2020 SEC Championship Game against Florida?
Was there only two? I remember the last one where we had to punt to a guy named Toney, and we weren’t excited about that with, I think, 45 seconds left and Kyle Trask on offense. I think we had a sack and ended the game, but we were not excited about punting to that guy. That may have been one of the only two, but it was an important one.
How important is it to create an explosive play in the punt- or kickoff-return game?
Huge, and we’re excited about all the guys training at that. But VB having the experience he had last year as a freshman, and meeting with him, it’s fun to watch his highlights last year. We may have a couple of guys we cut loose, and he’s making all of them miss and still getting vertical for some big yardage. But he didn’t find himself in the end zone, so we’d like to get him in the end zone.
Have Florida fans reminded you about the importance of having 11 players on the field?
Yes. Yes, yes.
Who are some of the players in the mix to return kicks?
VB, obviously. I really love London Montgomery and J'ab'Vari Flowers. They want to do it, and they’re fearless, and they’re excited about it. They got a lot of reps in the spring.
A lot of guys will train at it behind them, younger guys maybe that I may not expect to play this year in those roles but are training. CJ Bronaugh and Justin Williams. He’s got a good skill set. He can run. He’s very smart. He’s got a bigger build for a wide receiver, but he’s young, and so they’re training at that.
VB had to play that position last year. Everybody thinks it’s easy. It’s not easy. That punt goes pretty high, and if it’s at night, you’re in the lights. If you’re out in the day, it’s the sun. You’ve got to catch it with people around you. You’ve got to make good decisions. You have to communicate. It’s nice, too, if you can be explosive and make a play.
So we try to train those guys early. That’s why I’m excited about VB. He got his feet wet last year doing it. He should be better this year.
Do you consider using someone else as a kickoff returner to lighten the offensive workload of players such as Vernell Brown III or Jadan Baugh?
No, because it’s not a play that you’re getting a whole lot of opportunities anymore. You may get — it depends on the opponent. We broke down in the summer what the touchback percentage was for the kickers we’re going to play this year, and it’s pretty high. They’re hitting the ball pretty far.
I think if you were getting a couple of returns in the game and you identified VB or Baugh or something like that was tired, maybe you try to get them out at that point. But no, we’re going to try to take advantage of that play.
How do you evaluate the kickers’ first experience playing in The Swamp during the spring game?
Yeah, I’m really pleased with how (Patrick Durkin) and several others that transferred have gotten acclimated to everything. We take for granted that these players are transitioning. For him, he was at Tulane for two years. He’s just getting comfortable. He had a great season last year. He transitions now to a whole new town, whole new city, whole new environment, higher level, and he did well.
He finished better than he started spring ball. In the position he’s in right now, I’m very excited about where he’s at. He’s still got work to do. He’s still a young player, but good and bad, he started really well in the spring, and he missed a late one. More of that was my fault, not having him ready. But we can learn from that and get better and be ready to play in the Swamp this fall.
How far back does your relationship with punter Alec Clark go?
Oh, yeah. Several years. We brought him to Marshall in 2023, and he redshirted. He played for me in 2024 there as a redshirt freshman. Then he went to Southern Miss, and I went to Southern Miss. Then I went to Tulane, and he came to Tulane. Now he’s at Florida.
That’s a position people don’t give the punters enough credit for. That’s a really hard position to master. Kicking is one thing. Kicking is not easy either. I’m just saying, you play soccer in America growing up. A lot of kids play soccer, and they kick the ball off the ground, so they get used to foot-to-ball contact, follow-through, accuracy.
Punting is a whole different animal. There’s not a sport we play in America where you catch a snap from 15 yards away and then have to try and punt it 40 or 50 yards downfield with really high hang time and great direction. Oh, and there’s a rush team running at you, and you’ve got to get it off pretty quick.
So it’s awesome having him here now because he’s mastering the position, and he’s getting really good at it.
How has Alec Clark developed his hang time and directional punting?
Yeah, he can improve it, and we’re always trying to improve. But one thing he’s improved a lot this summer is his direction, and in some cases, that could be even more important than hang time.
Of course, we want the ball to be as high as we can and get our guys down the field. But yeah, he smoked the first one, and then he had a couple of short ones he needs to get better at. I think that may have just been first-time nerves playing in The Swamp, but that’s good experience for him to shake that.
For him, it’s another year building. He had a really good season last year. He’s played two years of college football now. He should be ready to go.
What stands out about Jarvis Moss’ blocked field goal against South Carolina in 2006?
Very familiar. It’s on "Swamp Kings,” so we saw it. As soon as we got hired here, we had “Swamp Kings” on the TV in the special teams meeting room while we were getting our playbooks ready and our meetings prepared and all that kind of stuff.
Any mentioned play of special teams, we just went back and tagged it, pulled it to show our guys because we’re all new as a coaching staff here. We’ve got players that may not understand the standard of special teams here at Florida is very high, and so we show those clips. That was one of the first ones we pulled.
I believe that was Coach Spurrier’s first visit back to Gainesville, and that won the game. It was one of the loudest moments in The Swamp. It’s a big play, and it happened at the best time.
We’d go back in the season, and you see all these highlights of Brandon James making plays, helping set up the offense for touchdowns, if not scoring himself, and being explosive on special teams and blocking kicks. All good things.
Do you have players who could attempt to time and jump over the line to block a field goal?
We’re going to have one or two guys we’re going to try to train at that. It’s hard because it’s a hard thing to practice. You can practice with them one-on-one, but you don’t want them in a field-goal period jumping on your D-linemen that are trying to rush and falling on them and stuff like that.
We have a couple of clips we’ll show our guys. Some of those situations are only in a must-have, maybe in the game, last-second play, because you’re wasting that guy. But we blocked one last year at Tulane with that, and it got called back because we were offsides on the corner.
We had a jumper in, and they moved the field goal five yards. He hits it a little higher, and he makes it. But it was almost the difference for us in that game.
It’s a hard thing to train. You’ve got to find a guy that can jump and time it up and just meet with him and show him the kicker’s rhythm and how to time it up.
Do you feel confident that Florida can block a punt this season?
I think — I can’t decide because our D-line and the way Coach Chapman is, he’s into it, and he wants our D-line to go block some kicks. That’s a good place to start.
It depends on who you’re playing. I spoke about that a little bit in spring ball. It’s harder to block punts now because I think more head coaches understand the importance of the punt play and how to get the ball off quickly, and so they’re paying attention to that.
But I think we’ve got a chance to block some, and we’re going to try to.
What were the special teams’ areas of focus during summer workouts?
Summer was unique. In spring, we spent a lot of time on fundamentals, technique and base scheme for special teams, and then competition and evaluation with spring ball.
Summer was a lot of full group. We did punt. We did punt return. We did some field-goal stuff. Some of that is to get your specialists’ chemistry together.
Then we did a lot of full group. We didn’t do a whole lot of fundamentals in the summer because we don’t have pads and helmets on. I don’t like doing punt-block drills and stuff like that without pads and helmets on. Guys get hit in the face, or they’re not prepared for a punt-block drill.
But we taught a lot of scheme in the summer. We spent a lot of time going over what we want to do on some of the most important phases for what we’re going to do this year.
How much will you rely on Greg McMahon’s experience and knowledge this season?
I had a little experience last year working with him. He helped us on game day some. He’s just a voice of reason.
A special teams headset on game day can be kind of quiet until fourth down. Whoever your main assistant is, and if you can have another one like Coach Mac who’s seen a lot of ball, you’re having the proper dialogue the whole drive. You’re talking about the situation that could come up. We’re watching the game for injuries. We’re watching for substitutions. We’re watching the opponent.
He was a hard act to follow at Tulane. Coach reminded me all the time because I replaced him at Tulane when he retired, because he’s such a great coach in the meeting room and all those things. But he’s an even better resource, and I lean on those guys because I won’t be afraid that I’m young. I understand that.
I’ve always craved having a relationship with an older coach on the staff I can lean on to check my work, if that makes sense.
How can Greg McMahon’s experience scouting ahead help the special teams staff?
He’s going to do a little bit of that, too. He’s a lot more freed up now. He can help us coach and be involved and help me. We can divvy some things up, or I may be coaching an entire unit, but he can take the gunners of that unit and go watch practice with them, and we can fine-tune some things.
Then having him, when we start the season, to look a week ahead, his experience in the SEC is huge. He’s worked with LSU and some others. He’s been around so long, he knows a lot of the coaches, and he’s played against them. He knows their tendencies, and he knows the way they coach and what we’re going up against.
It’ll be a huge asset for us.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida special teams coordinator unafraid to use starters on returns
