Adam Scheier was serious about special teams early. As a four-year letterman at Dartmouth, Scheier was named his team’s special teams player of the year award as a senior.
Scheier has perhaps coached more position groups than anyone on FSU’s staff — at various times guiding defensive backs, linebackers, tight ends, running backs and receivers — in a college coaching career that began in 1996. But his expertise as a special teams coordinator is one that has taken him across the country to 11 schools as he seeks to make an impact on specialists, return teams and coverage units.
“As soon as I had my first opportunity to really dive in, probably my first or second year at Columbia, blocking two punts to beat my alma mater for the first time in 27 some years, I learned real quickly that I could have an impact,” Scheier said. “And the reason why I gravitated to special teams as a young coach was it gave me a voice early in my career on staffs that were 1/5 the size of this staff. I had a voice early.
“And then when you had a voice, and you have success, and you realize if you invest and you put the time in, you can impact the game.”
Scheier has coached an all-conference kicker or punter in 20 of his 24 seasons working with special teams groups. In the last six years (at Rutgers, Temple and UNLV), his groups have scored nine touchdowns on returns.
Now he’s at FSU, a program that has had fared well at developing kickers (Ryan Fitzgerald) and punters (Alex Mastromanno, Mac Chiumento) but will have a new-look group in 2026.
Scheier said he understood coach Mike Norvell’s commitment to special teams from the very first phone call.
“He's tremendously invested in special teams,” Scheier said after Thursday’s practice, FSU’s fifth this spring. “And I think when the head coach takes that approach, it's hard for the players not to buy into it.”
Scheier’s buy in is easy to see. He’s worked his way up through college football and in nearly every major conference. Not bad from his small school roots in the Ivy League.
“Florida State was never my goal, dream or path I thought I would take,” Scheier said. “Always had a tremendous amount of respect for this program, but I thought I would coach the Ivy League for the rest of my life, and didn't know any different. ... I told our players and our staff in several meetings that this is a dream job. This is an iconic program, and again, as the career unfolded, I certainly welcome the opportunity to do it the highest level.”
At FSU, Scheier will be working with a new group of specialists, notably kicker Gabe Panikowski and punter Daniel Hughes.
The 6-foot-5, 238-pound Hughes might look like a defensive end but was a Ray Guy Award semifinalist in 2025 at New Mexico as he averaged 45.4 yards per punt (43-yard net). Hughes is building an entertaining following on social media platforms for his videos about punting, FSU football and campus.
“He's a lot,” Scheier said, drawing laughter. “It is what it is, but I love him, and he is as serious about punting as he is about promoting Florida State football through social media. Anything that he does, whether it's showing personality, humor, whatever it is, it sheds a positive light on this program. Brings energy and excitement, and he's as talented as a punter as he is making Tiktoks and Instagram videos.”
FSU brought in two kickers this offseason in Gabe Panikowski and Conor McAneney, who is suspended indefinitely. Panikowski has been handling the kicking responsibilities and has impressed Scheier. While he didn’t kick in 2025 at Oklahoma State, Panikowski connected on 15 of 15 field-goal attempts at Idaho State in 2024.
“Very smooth, very consistent,” Scheier said. “And there's a term that I've heard lately that I like a lot when evaluating, looking at kickers: It is a very repeatable swing. There's no variance in what he does. So he may push it right or hook it slightly left, but that could be just something different with the plant foot, maybe too deep, too shallow, too tight, whatever. But his swing is consistent, smooth and repeatable.”
Scheier didn’t mention any returners by name on Thursday but said the objective is to do two things: Catch the ball and “play great offense.” What he means is to set up the offense in the best field position by not allowing it to bounce or sail over the returner’s head, which was an issue in 2026.
“How do you play good offense? Take care of the ball. That's No. 1. Catch the ball, right?” Scheier said. “How do you play your offense? Give our offense a shorter field with which to operate, like catching it, not letting it roll, and losing value to the yardage. At the end of the year, we'll look, see where we ranked in return yards and block punts, but on a play-by-play level, play great offense. How do you do that? Take care of the football.”
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