Jon Sumrall made a late addition to his coaching staff when he brought in Greg McMahon as a special teams assistant in late July.
McMahon, 66, has an extensive special teams background, which includes stints as special teams coordinator with the New Orleans Saints and LSU. He has been around winning football, having won a Super Bowl with the Saints in 2010 and a national championship with the Tigers in 2019.
Sumrall and McMahon worked together at Tulane in 2024, but they first met when both were working in New Orleans.
“Yeah, so Greg McMahon, I’ve known for a long time. As a young coach, when I was at Tulane, he was the special teams coordinator for the New Orleans Saints for Sean Payton. I used to sit in the back of some of those meetings at the Saints’ facility and watch Coach McMahon run special teams meetings, and just being in awe of, like, how he commanded the room and the level of detail and the energy he brought,” Sumrall said.
McMahon retired prior to last season but continued doing some consulting work for Sumrall on the side in 2025. This past spring, he visited Florida for one of the team’s practices. That’s when the ball got rolling to bring McMahon onto the staff.
“He’ll be an analyst. Galante is running the special teams. Nothing’s changed. There’s not some big restructuring of what we’re doing with special teams,” Sumrall said.
“I’m a former special teams coordinator. I have a great deal of respect for that job. It is a demanding, hard job, and so Jonathan’s [Galante] really good at it. But to have another person like Greg McMahon on your staff that can be another set of eyes to help you maybe do some things is good, and then Jonathan and him have a great relationship and history together as well,” Sumrall added. “So we’re on the same team. We got each other’s back, and there’s a lot of camaraderie there. So Greg’s a really good football coach, but also an unbelievable person.”
Florida special teams coordinator Jonathan Galante built a relationship with McMahon last season and is looking forward to continuing to lean on the veteran coach, particularly on game days.
“He’s such a voice of reason,” Galante said on McMahon. “Special teams headset on game day can be kind of quiet until four down. Whoever your main assistant is – and Coach Mac has seen a lot of ball – you’re on that and having the proper dialogue the whole drive. A situation can come up, we’re watching the game for injuries, for substitutions, we’re watching the opponent.”
“He’s such a great coach in the meeting room and such, but he’s a great source. I lean on him. I’m young and understand that,” Galante added.
McMahon will also play a role in scouting opposing special teams units. With recent coaching rule changes allowing analysts to have a more hands-on role, he’ll be involved in preparing Florida for its opponents.
“He’s going to do a little bit of that too,” Galante said. “He’s freed up now. He can help us coach and be involved. We can divvy things up, where maybe I’m coaching an entire unit, but he can take the gunners of that unit and we can fine-tune some things. But then having him when we start the season to look at the week ahead, his experience in the SEC is obviously huge. He’s worked at LSU and some others. But he’s been around so long, he knows all the coaches and knows how they coach and what we’re going to be up against. He’ll be a huge asset for us.”
Florida has placed an increased emphasis on special teams under Sumrall, and the addition of McMahon is another reflection of that commitment.
After spending decades coaching special teams at the college and professional levels, McMahon now brings that knowledge to Gainesville as the Gators look to make special teams a strength.