Welcome to Gainesville, Joe Houston! (Photo credit: Mannat Saini, Daily Trojan)
It took a year and change longer than most fans would have liked, but at long last, Billy Napier is hiring a new special teams coach for the Florida Gators.
Joe Houston, a special teams assistant for the New England Patriots, is in the process of being hired at Florida to coach special teams. The news was first reported by Jacob Rudner of 247Sports.
Houston was a kicker for the USC Trojans from 2007-10 in the twilight of the Pete Carroll years and sunrise of the Lane Kiffin era in Hollywood before jumping right into the coaching ranks. He got his start in the coaching world at Iowa State, before eventually departing to coach the special teams unit at Alabama. However, that move dissolved when Bill Belichick and the Patriots came calling mere weeks later.
At Iowa State, kick returner Kene Nwangu was selected to the 2018 All Big 12 second team with a kick return average of 26.8 yards per return, good for twelfth in the country. That same season, punt returner Tarique Milton ranked third in the Big 12 with an average of 12.67 yards per return.
But perhaps it was the actual kicking situation that most impresses from that 2018 Cyclone team. Connor Assalley came into the Cyclone program as a walk-on, beat the scholarship kickers out, became the starting kicker– and held the job for four years. Assalley drilled 48 field goals in four seasons, including a walk-off field goal to beat Texas in 2019. That was the first walk-off field goal for the Iowa State program since 1983.
Over the course of his career with the Patriots, Houston’s kickers connected on greater than 85% of the field goals they attempted. The job Houston did with the kickers specifically repeatedly earned praise from his bosses in New England, including Belichick and special teams coordinator Cam Achord.
One thing to note about the arrival of Joe Houston in Gainesville: he’s being hired to work in tandem in the same position as Chris Couch, which can be seen as both a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. It’s a good thing because Florida’s special teams were putrid (and that’s being generous) under Couch. But it’s a bad thing because Couch’s role is that of an analyst, i.e. a glorified intern. Joe Houston is being hired as an analyst, not an on-field assistant– which means he won’t take up one of the eleven allotted staff spots, but also could lead to some of the same problems that Couch oversaw on his own.
Regardless, Florida’s special teams was so astoundingly incompetent over the past two years that a change– any change– in this area is good. So welcome to Gainesville, Joe Houston!
