Stampede Bonus: 2025 USF Special Teams Breakdown

When we’ve finished profiling an entire unit, we’ll run through a final breakdown of that position group at large. We’ll touch on a quick overview of the group, then I’ll break it down by tiers as far as how I see playing time shaking out. Finally, I’ll pose one Big Question that I have about the unit approaching the season, and my general level of confidence.

Now that we’ve hit late August, our position group breakdowns are about to come flying in at hyperspeed. We’ve already covered the offensive line. Today, we’re tackling special teams.

The Overview:

Note: from left to right, the columns are player number, player name, specific position, eligibility, a handful of 2024 stats (field goals made, field goals attempted, and longest field goal; number of punts, punting average and net punting average; and number of kickoffs, average field position on kickoffs, and percentage of kickoffs that were returned) and the school they played at in 2024, if different from USF.

The good news: USF’s special teams were generally a strength in 2024. The Bulls ranked 20th in ESPN’s special teams SP+. John Cannon was a pretty solid kicker from inside 50 yards, and Nico Gramatica made headlines with a few booming 50+ yarders. Andrew Stokes had a career year at punter. Ta’Ron Keith returned a kickoff for a touchdown in the Hawaii Bowl. Even Sean Atkins, who was not exactly known for his breakaway speed, had a career-best season returning punts.

The bad news: apart from Gramatica, every single one of those players is gone this season. I think most Bulls fans feel confident in Nico at kicker, but the other spots are very much question marks.

The Prospectus:

I won’t do our usual “tier list” here, because the format doesn’t really fit well with special teams. Instead, here’s a quick breakdown of what I’m expecting at each position.

Kicker: As mentioned above, Nico Gramatica is the heir apparent at kicker. His cameos last season from beyond 50 yards were incredible - in fact, all five of his attempts were from 50+, so the 3 for 5 number on field goals is slightly misleading. Kicking for a full season and from all over the field is a different animal, but it’s hard not to be excited about Nico in 2025.

The Bulls brought in Adam Zouagui from Davidson this offseason, likely as a kickoff specialist. As you can see above, Zouagui - who handled field goals, kickoffs, and punts for the Wildcats in 2024 - had good kickoff numbers last season. In each of Alex Golesh’s two seasons in Tampa, the Bulls have had different players handle kickoffs and field goals, so I suspect the plan is for Zouagui to take kickoffs off of Nico’s plate. I like the move. It’s also nice to have a backup kicker with extensive college field goal experience, even though Zouagui was inconsistent on field goals last season.

Chase Leon, another incoming FCS transfer, also handled kickoffs for Lamar last season and did pretty well, so he could be in the kickoff mix as well.

Punter: Leon, a ProKick Australia alum who spent his freshman season punting at Lamar, is one of two options to replace the excellent Andrew Stokes. His numbers were promising, though your interpretation may depend on your preferred angle: his 45.4 yard average ranked sixth in FCS last season, but his net average of 37.4 would rank much lower.

Fellow ProKick Australia grad Luke Goater will be competing with Leon for the job this offseason. Perhaps Leon has an edge due to his year of experience playing college ball, but this appears to be a battle that won’t be resolved until next Thursday.

I should also note that Zouagui had pretty decent punting numbers last season, but I’ve seen no indication as of yet that USF plans to use him there.

Returners: USF lost both their first-choice punt returner (Sean Atkins) and kick returners (Kelley Joiner and Ta’Ron Keith). If you’d like some hints as to who might take their place: based on what Alex Golesh has been saying about him, I think incoming RB transfer Sam Franklin is a good bet to take over kickoff returns, which he handled a bit at Oklahoma in 2024 and UT Martin in 2022. Beyond that, it gets less clear, though the speedy JeyQuan Smith and Tavin Ward handled punt return duties in the spring game. Golesh also mentioned Alvon Isaac, Josh Porter, Chas Nimrod, and Fred Gaskin as players who could see action as returners.

Long Snapper: We’ve only covered one, but USF currently has three long snappers on the roster:

• Garrett Cates, a senior who handled USF’s snaps last season.
• Turner McLaughlin, a sophomore transfer from Tennessee Tech who played as a freshman and earned all-conference honors.
• Easton Bonnett, who redshirted last season as a freshman behind Cates.

All indications are that Cates will continue to handle lengthy snaps in 2025.

Holder: Chase Leon is reportedly going to be the Bulls’ holder. Cool!

Special Teamers: I want to use this space to shout out two players who didn’t make the cut to be featured in this series, but were nonetheless key parts of USF’s special teams units last season, and should be again in 2025:

• Per PFF, senior linebacker Amer Amer led the Bulls in special teams snaps in 2024. He’s a regular on the kick and punt coverage and return units.
• Receiver Christian Helms has been with the Bulls since 2019 (shoutout the Chaotic Eligibility Goblin). He’s stuck with the team through three different head coaches now, and was a key part of the kick return unit last season. He was also honored this offseason for his community service work, and Golesh has gushed about his contributions to the team.

The Big Question: Should we expect growing pains?

The Bulls did well to add some solid FCS transfers this offseason in Leon and Zouagui, which helps somewhat to offset the losses in this unit. But while there are promising options at each position, I would describe exactly zero of them as proven. Even Gramatica, who most Bulls fans are understandably jazzed about, hasn’t kicked a full season at the college level yet.

If I had to pick a position that makes me sweat, it’s punter. I like adding Leon, but it does bear mentioning that his net punting average last season would’ve been the Bulls’ lowest since Stokes’ freshman season in 2021. Additionally, from what we saw in the spring game, the punting unit was not exactly firing on all cylinders yet.

That said: the questions here don’t scare me in the way that the questions on the other positional groups do. I am, in fact, expecting some growing pains, but I’m expecting a decent unit nonetheless. And yes, I am very excited for a full season of Nico.