The Florida Gators were tasked with finding a new punter after Jeremy Crawshaw was selected in the 6th round of the 2025 NFL Draft this offseason. Michigan transfer and former National Champion Tommy Doman decided to spend his last season of college eligibility in Gainesville.
Doman, a 6’4, 218 pound punter out of Rochester Hills, Michigan, spent four years with the Wolverines where he averaged 43.4 yards per punt with a long of 71 yards.
Gator Country met with Doman for the first time during fall camp. He’s a few selected quotes from his Q&A with the media.
Q. Rocco Underwood says you’re a punting geek, it’s almost a sickness?
“To a point. I like to take my offseason time and time off the field watching film, like every little detail, trying to get that timing down. But when it comes to on the field, it helps me relax a bit, ‘Hey, I did all the way I can do and I can just go out there and have fun.'”
Q. Some aspects of what that entails? Your process?
“When it comes to punting, there’s a lot of balance involved because you’re walking straight and swinging straight, and then you also have to release the ball and kind of depending where you want to place it, when it comes launch point, trajectory, all those types of things, they’re all different feels, all different shots, all different clubs in the bag. So having really good body control, feeling with every little step, every little hand motion, trying to find your maxes. Because if you think about when you release the ball, it’s like here, like different elbow angles and everything like that, then it might not be as consistent. But if you hit your max every single time, and you’re extending it at the same spot every single time, or how it releases off your hands … I can break down every single little piece of those things and exactly what I’m feeling for. So, I could talk about this for hours.”
Q. How much time do you put into this a day to refine those things?
“Well, Coach Houston gave me a challenge when I got here, and especially during fall camp, catch 200 JUGS a day, and I’ve been hitting that pretty much every single day. If I don’t hit it, then obviously make up for the JUGS day – that is kind of how I like to look at it. But I’d probably say maybe three or four hours something like that. It’s always calibrating, always trying to make sure it’s right. So, you’re building something dependable that you can count on when you need to and have to not think about that. There’s a lot of other things when you’re out there on the field that can happen. I bought – this is where Rocco calls me a punting geek – I bought a Meta headset. You can wear it. And I watch all the different Skycam games, like us versus Georgia or us for other games, just like, these are a lot of new venues, a lot of new teams, a lot of new schemes. So I kind of copied Jayden Daniels. I thought that was a really cool idea, just feel like you’ve seen it, it’s not the first time you’re seeing it. So then you can just kind of let everything go back into normal rhythm.”
Q. Punting in the Big 10, obviously cold weather, elements and stuff. How much of that was a selling point to come to the SEC where it’s a little warmer?
“It’s a nice bonus. Yeah, Coach Houston was like, hey, it’s not as windy, it’s not as cold. I’m like, gey, going out those later practices, oh, my muscles are a little tight, this and that. So it definitely was a nice selling point.”
Q. Can it affect your kicking too, distance and so forth?
“100%, just the way the ball compresses, the way the ball flies, especially like winds and different types of stadiums – I can geek out on that, too. There’s a science to every single piece to it. So that’s why I like to spend my time off the field when I’m doing film review, taking account all those aspects of punting and circumstances, so that when I get out there I have a plan for every single situation, like whether different spots where the snap are, whether it be different types of winds, whether it be different temperatures, or how the ball is feeling, like every single thing that you can think of, I got something to plan for.”
Q. Super athletic guy. What else have you played growing up?
“Growing up before high school, I played every normal sport, but in high school I committed to playing football and like punting since fourth grade. So every little thing outside of that was like, Hey, let’s do a sport that kind of adds to punting. So when I was in high school, my freshman, sophomore year I was on the rowing team, just like, leg strength, good balance and stuff like that. And then my senior year, I was supposed to early enroll. But there was one spot left, and it was me or Xavier Worthy. So I think a first-round draft pick wide receiver was a better pick. So I was sitting there, it was COVID and no one’s really doing anything. I’m like, golf was getting popular, and I always heard that was helping the kicking game. So I think I’ve definitely used that now if there’s different circumstances or situations, it’s just playing the course. You’re not always gonna be perfect, but it’s better to be just outside the fairway or in the woods. It’s kind of that mentality of my Hey, this is something Coach Houston has helped us out a lot with is that, hey, you can have misses, but no one else knows that they’re misses – they’re still very playable, they still help the team, and they put us in a good spot.”
Q. When you entered the portal, how did you discover Florida? Did you kind of know about the punter history that they’ve had here? What was that process like eventually ending up here?
“Yeah, so I was in the portal, a lot of different people reached out to me, and just doing my homework on every place you get to see … culture is a very big thing for me, just kind of the lineage of players, and that definitely adds to the room and the culture. So having NFL talent like Rocco, Jeremy and Trey it’s obvious why they’re good. They work really well together. They have a great culture in the room. And Coach Houston with how he organizes that room to be act like a pro, where you can relax and have fun, but everything’s calculated, everything’s for a reason. You just really have a develop a love for the game in a different way. Really being a football player is my favorite part about that. So, we go over tackling drills, or here’s different situations, like what helps us in maybe a cloudy situation here? Here’s the situation in the game. Or who’s the returner? What’s the type of look like? What are different things that we have to take into account to really help the impact of the game? It’s not always what’s best for us. It’s like, hey, we get judged on distance. I think that’s what Jeremy, I think, was one, like, top two players in the country, but he didn’t win the award for the best punter in the country because he played to be the best person for the Gators. So I think that mentality is something I’ve definitely grown on to, and I love it, and I’m just excited to carry that into this year.”