Scott Satterfield Clears Up Special Teams Coaching Hierarchy For Cincinnati Football in 2025

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats special teams unit is going to be tackled by committee in 2025. Head coach Scott Satterfield addressed the dreadful unit, which cost Cincinnati dearly last season.
Assistant special teams coach Tim Connor is spearheading the effort after Cincinnati moved on from former cornerbacks and special teams coach Kerry Coombs.
"Tim Connor is still on our staff here, and Tim's been with me for the last four years, I think his role this spring will be increased, but we're gonna utilize our whole coaching staff in special teams," Satterfield confirmed. "In the past, we have not done as much of that. I want all eyes on it. I don't want a guy in practice to slip under the cracks because we didn't have eyes on say, the left side of a punt team, like we got to have everybody all eyes on it, and not let anything slip under the crack."
The Bearcats' net field position this past season ranked 80th nationally, including a massive falloff in November. Mason Fletcher's punting production completely tailed off in the back month of the season as well (42.6-yard punting average in 2024, career low). On top of that, Cincinnati had no punt returns of 20-plus yards or kick returns of 30-plus yards this season.
All in all, they ended up with a 69.9 special teams grade on PFF (86th nationally).
"We got to put the best guys on the field," Satterfield said about boosting the talent fielding those roles. "It's great to be able to rest some guys, but we need the best 11 guys we can put on the punt team. That's how important it's going to be this spring.
"And we're going to do all we can to emphasize our special teams and all hands on deck in the coaching staff. But Tim will kind of oversee that this spring. We'll evaluate it at the end of the spring, as we do, everything offense and defense, because that is certainly an area for improvement. We got to get better there."
The staff knows how big of an issue this is and a meeting of the minds could flip it into a strength for a UC team that lost four one-score games last season.
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