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Florida has room to improve in return game

Dan Mullen promised a renewal of special teams upon his return to Florida. In some ways, it has paid off. Putting more starters on special teams shored up some of the deficiencies, and, for instance, revealed Tyrie Cleveland to be a superlative gunner on punts.

One place it hasn’t really shown up is in the return game. In large part, Mullen’s Gators have taken a pass on returns.

In 2018, the punt return situation was still fairly normal. Freddie Swain returned 22 punts, and he took one of them back for a touchdown. The team as a whole had 27, and that’s in line with most of the last decade of Florida football.