Down to my core, there are two things that I think lead to football victories: line play and special teams.
Show me a coach who knows both, I’ll show you a winner.
I love a pretty play as well as the next football man, but the most important parts of the game are blocking and tackling and execution in special teams.
No, it’s not that simple, but it speaks volumes that first-year Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman made his new special teams coach one of two assistant head coaches on his staff.
Then, as I dug through Scott Fountain’s resume, there was clear evidence that any words typed should be in bold-faced caps. Fountain played in the offensive line in high school and college, then got his start as a college assistant as an O-line coach.
When a reporter suggested those two areas of coaching are important, Fountain said, “I think my background coaching O-line helps me coach special teams. The two areas are really detail oriented. Technique is important in both. So many little things are important.”
From the reporter’s perspective, both areas are important. And, nothing is little about either.
Fountain, who has essentially coached in four national title games working at Florida State, Auburn and Georgia, began his career in the high school ranks. He got a nudge toward special teams when legendary Florida State coach Bobby Bowden hired him as a graduate assistant in 1994. He played for Terry Bowden, Bobby's son, in college at Samford.
“Coach Bowden asked if I would teach the long snappers,” Fountain said. “I really enjoyed it. I was intrigued. In time — and that’s over several years — it became obvious to me that coaching special teams is what I wanted to do.
“I’d been a high school coach for six years, but I really didn’t know much about technique for long snappers. I started reading books and studying it.”
There was a lesson in the importance of a good snapper early in spring practice.
“We had two snappers,” Fountain said. “One of them was Darren Bush, a starting linebacker. The other, Clay Ingram, was just a walk-on and had never played in a game.
“Coach Bowden asked who was the best snapper. I told him I thought we should play Bush because he’d played in some games.”
It goes without saying that a starting linebacker would be good covering punts.
“Coach Bowden said, ‘No, I asked who is best,’” Fountain said. “It was Ingram. He said, ‘That’s who you play.’
“That’s what I did. We started Ingram. Then, we play North Carolina in Week 1 and our first punt was from the minus-1-yard line.”
It’s not clear who was more nervous, Ingram or Fountain.
“He did great, a beautiful snap,” Fountain said. “As they say in coaching, you live to play another down.”
Fountain’s first full-time coaching job was as offensive line and recruiting coordinator at Central Florida.
“They had a special teams coordinator and about the time I got there," Fountain said. "He asked if I would help him by taking the kicker, punter and long snapper for a 15-minute meeting before every practice. It forced me to start learning more about kickers and punters and technique.”
It wasn’t long after that Fountain sought out a real expert in special teams, Bill Curry’s now famous assistant at Georgia Tech.
“Curry hired the first woman assistant coach in Division I football, Carol White,” Fountain said. “I went to see her and she gave me incredible insight.
“What I learned is that God kept putting special teams coaching in front of me. It became more and more obvious that’s what I had a passion to do in coaching.”
Soon after joining Gene Chizik’s staff at Iowa State in 2007, special teams became an integral part of what Fountain did on a daily basis. His bio indicates his primary responsibility under Chizik was tight ends and recruiting coordinator, but Fountain began to take special teams, too.
After moving to Auburn, eventually special teams became part of his job description. That’s been his only responsibility the last three years - two at Georgia and one at Mississippi State.
Meanwhile, staffs all across the country are still splitting duties with a position coach dabbling in special teams. Kirby Smart at Georgia was one of the first to use the 10th position allotted by the NCAA just solely for special teams.
“I think 75 percent of the 10th coaches in Division I coach a position as well as special teams,” Fountain said. “That’s a bad idea. Not having to coach another position really frees me up to cover the details.”
Covering the details means Fountain went “six or seven deep” with his special teams on the first day of camp this summer.
“We are down to four deep now,” he said. “Every player has learned two spots. We coached them in two spots at Georgia, too.
“With covid-19, we did go a little deeper to start camp this year. I wanted everyone on the team to have a little foundation on special teams. We don’t know what we will get into as far as depth as the season goes along. Having a foundation is going to help us.”
One of the early moves Fountain made was with Treylon Burks, the sophomore kick return specialist. Burks handled both jobs last year with an odd “hands above your face” catching technique.
“I studied our guys when I first got here and saw that was his style,” Fountain said. “That was right after Signing Day.
“I pulled him in. I told him...it could effect his draft potential. If an NFL team looks at two players with phenomenal return ability and one guy catches it properly and the other one doesn’t, who are they going to draft?
“That resonated and he changed immediately. No questions were asked. I will say, he’s really flashed so far in camp and the ball is secure catching it the proper way. I look at him now as a great and true fielder of the football.
“I am so glad Treylon Burks is a Razorback. Here is what I say about Treylon: he’s a great talent on the field, a great student off the field and just has phenomenal character.”
Who will do the kicking is still undecided. There is true competition at all the specialist spots in the kicking game. There is a host of new arrivals at punter, kicker and snapper.
“I believe that if you work hard in recruiting, you get to celebrate at the end of the year,” he said. “In between, there are the games and you grind.
“We did bring in some kickers this year. I had hoped we were going to have spring to evaluate what we had returning, but that didn’t happen. I had to take game film and practice film to evaluate. I even got tape on where some guys were before here — like Sam Loy — to watch tape. So we brought in a punter, kicker and two long snappers and let them compete.”
Kicker A.J. Reed transferred from Duke and punter George Caratan transferred from Michigan. True freshman kicker Vito Calvaruso arrived from Jefferson City, Mo.
Among the new long snappers is transfer H.T. Fountain from Lindsey Wilson, an NAIA school in Columbia, Ky. He is Scott Fountain's nephew. H.T.'s father — Scott’s brother — Hugh Fountain won two Alabama high state titles at Escambia Academy.
“We will have a better feel on where we are in a couple of weeks,” Fountain said. “What I tell them every day, just be solid. That’s all of them. For example, our kickoff guy needs to hit the zone on the field, the right hang time and distance. All we need is solid. Being solid solves problems.”
Fountain’s overall goal is simple.
“We call it do your 1-11,” he said. “We start and end every meeting talking about our 1-11. Your 11 guys on special teams are only as good as one. One guy can’t let the other 10 down. It’s a big thing with our special teams.”
Fountain also preaches “play special teams, get on the bus.” Not everyone has always wanted to play special teams.
“Everyone knows if you are a starter on offense or defense, you make the bus (for road trips),” he said. “But playing special teams is another way to make sure you are on the bus.
“And, I tell them it’s a ticket to the NFL. All things being equal, a guy who can really play well on special teams enhances their draft prospects. I had guys at Auburn that were drafted because they were good special teams players. I sell them on that.”
Fountain preaches the rich tradition Arkansas has with special teams. He knows about Steve Little, a first-round draft pick as a kicker, one of the first soccer-styled kickers in college football.
Told that Lance Alworth and Ken Hatfield both led the nation in punt returns twice, Fountain became excited. He was more aware of the many All-America kickers.
“I’m so glad to be here,” he said. “I want to add to that. I thought this was a great opportunity when Sam asked me to come here.”
“I know the names on that NFL board in our hall. I know who Steve Little is and what he did here. I phoned our kicker from last year, Connor Limpert, and talked to him to learn a little bit about our history. It’s rich.”
The idea is to make some of these guys rich.
“I’ve got a guy with the Atlanta Falcons making $800,000 in his sixth year," Fountain said. "I tell my guys if they get good, they can make a living doing this, a great living.”
It’s a fun job for Fountain. He’s working for his old next-door neighbor. He and Pittman had homes in a cul-de-sac in Athens, Ga., and became close while working together on Smart's staff.
The idea of working together at Arkansas was first hatched “about six or seven games into the season. That’s when Sam told me maybe it could happen.”
Would he come?
“I said I would,” Fountain said. “Then, the morning after the SEC Championship Game, Sam came to me again. He said, ‘You remember what I asked you about? I think it’s about to happen. You still coming?’ And, here we are.”
Yes, and what no one knew then, first up for the Razorbacks is No. 4 Georgia. It’s makes you focus on the details a little harder.