Tennessee football at Florida: 10 keys for Vols and Gators

10. Field position

Florida is playing with a former Tennessee football punter in Tommy Townsend who transferred to the Gators after losing his job to Trevor Daniel back in 2015. Meanwhile, the Vols have a new walk-on punter in Joe Doyle, entering his sophomore year, who can compete with Townsend.

Similar to what Daniel did to Townsend, Doyle also beat out a highly touted punter in Paxton Brooks. But Brooks’s leg is still valuable, as Jeremy Pruitt uses him on kickoffs. Anyway, the combination of the two is going to turn this into a field position battle.

For the first three games, the Gators have sputtered at times on offense. They have also made numerous mistakes. That also holds true for UT, who hasn’t consistently moved the ball yet and has a horrible offense when moving past the 50.

In this game, the accuracy of the punters, not just the leg power, could make a huge difference. That’s because they’ll often be tasked with pinning the opposition deep while punting from near midfield. Townsend is currently averaging 45.6 yards per punt, while Doyle is averaging 47.8 yards per punt.

However, all five of Townsend’s punts have been pinned inside the 20. Meanwhile, only three of Doyle’s five punts have done so. As a result, it will be interesting to see how both are able to fare in this game. The better punter could definitely determine the winner given how these offenses have struggled. And one bad punt could change everything.