Name: Jeremy Crawshaw
Position: Punter
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 190 lbs
Hometown: Sydney, Australia
High School: ProKick Australia
Twitter: @jeremy_crawshaw
247Sports Composite: ⭐⭐
Rivals.com: ⭐⭐
Overview:
For the first time since the 2012 season, the Florida Gators’ roster will not feature one of the Townsend brothers.
The older brother, Johnny, exhausted his eligibility in 2017, finishing as the program’s all-time leading punter with 11,090 yards on 240 punts (46.2 avg.). The younger Townsend, Tommy, joined the Gators in 2016 after spending his freshman year with another Southeastern Conference (SEC) East Division school, the Tennessee Volunteers, then-coached by Butch Jones.
Tommy was required to sit out his first season on-campus in accordance with National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) transfer guidelines and redshirted in 2017, but handled the punting duties each of the last two years, totaling 4,162 yards on 93 punts (44.8 avg.).
To fill the void left by Townsend’s departure, Florida is expected to utilize redshirt senior Jacob Finn, a Jacksonville native, this fall, but Australian Jeremy Crawshaw, a member of the 2020 class, will compete for the job, too.
Presented annually to college football’s most outstanding punter and first gifted in 2000, the Ray Guy Award has seen five of Crawshaw’s countrymen capture the honors, the Memphis Tigers’ Tom Hornsey in 2013, Tom Hackett of the Utah Utes in 2014-15, Mitch Wishnowsky, another Ute, in 2016, Michael Dickson of the Texas Longhorns in 2017, and the Kentucky Wildcats’ Max Duffy in 2019.
The long-term hope in Gainesville is Crawshaw can add another name to this list.
Listed at 6-foot-3-inches and 190 pounds, the Australian took his official visit to campus on September 20, 2019 and committed three days later. Interestingly, he holds the distinction of being the earliest enrollee in program history, faxing his Letter of Intent (LOI) to the school’s compliance office on Tuesday, December 17, 2019.
How is this possible with last winter’s Early Signing Period not beginning until December 18? Crawshaw’s hometown is 14 hours ahead of Gainesville, meaning it was Wednesday there.