Florida football: Tracking all of Billy Napier’s staff additions

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Here are Florida football's assistant coach hires under Billy Napier

New Gators coach Billy Napier has only been on the job for just over a week, but his coaching staff is already starting to come together. Though there are still some key roles that still need additions, Napier has already hired a number of on-field coaches and off-field supporting staff.

We knew that one of the factors that ultimately led to Napier accepting the job was an expanded salary pool for both assistant coaches and support staff. During his opening press conference last Sunday, we got a better idea of how he’s going to build his staff. One thing he mentioned was the fact that he will call plays and coach the quarterbacks with the help of an assistant, opening the door for the team to have two offensive line coaches.

We’ll keep you updated on all the moves Florida makes as it completes its staff. Here are the coaches and staff Napier has already hired. UPDATED 4/6/22

Mark Hocke - Assistant Head Coach/Director of Football Strength and Conditioning

Though there were a large number of players clamoring for Napier to keep previous strength coach Nick Savage, the new coach ultimately brought his strength coach from Louisiana with him. Hocke joined Napier’s initial staff at Louisiana, and the two had worked together at Alabama, where Hocke was on Nick Saban’s staff from 2009-15.

He served as the head strength coach at Georgia in 2015, followed by stints on the strength staff at Florida State and Texas A&M in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Hocke brings a lot of SEC and high-level experience to the table, and he’s very familiar with Napier.

Patrick Toney - Co-Defensive Coordinator/Safeties

One of several on-field assistants to follow Napier to Florida, Toney is just 31 and is considered a rising name in the sport. He spent the last two seasons as the defensive coordinator in Lafayette, guiding the Sun Belt’s best defense in 2021.

He initially joined Napier’s staff as a safeties coach before being promoted to DC (he also switched to coaching linebackers this season). Prior to working at Louisiana, he was an assistant at UTSA, Sam Houston State and Southeast Louisiana.

Jabbar Juluke - Running Backs/Assistant Head Coach (Offense)

Like Toney, Juluke follows Napier to Florida after spending the last four years on his Louisiana staff, where he coached two drafted running backs in Elijah Mitchell (now a budding star for the San Francisco 49ers) and Raymond Calais. In 2019, he was named FootballScoops’ Running Backs Coach of the Year as his unit set school records in rushing yards and touchdowns while averaging more than six yards a carry as a team.

He also has Power Five and SEC experience, coaching at Texas Tech and LSU (where he worked with Leonard Fournette and Darius Guice) before joining Napier’s staff. He started his career as a running backs coach at Louisiana Tech.

Ryan O'Hara - Offensive Analyst (Quarterbacks)

Napier said that he will coach the quarterbacks himself with the help of an analyst, and that analyst will be a familiar face in O’Hara, who had the same job at Louisiana. Napier and O’Hara developed the best quarterback in Ragin’ Cajuns history in Levi Lewis, and before he was hired by Napier in 2018, he was the offensive coordinator and receivers coach at Alabama A&M. Before that, he was a quarterbacks coach at Mt. San Antonio College and Santa Monica College.

He played at Arizona in college where he was the starting quarterback before transferring to Division II Central Oklahoma, where he was an all-conference selection in 2006.

Corey Raymond - Cornerbacks/Assistant Head Coach (Defense)

The most noteworthy of Napier’s hires so far, the new Gators coach managed to steal Raymond from his alma mater at LSU. He spent the last 10 years with the Tigers as an assistant and also served as the recruiting coordinator the last two years. He’s known as an excellent recruiter, and his list of all-time top recruits is a spectacle to behold. At LSU, he produced seven First Team All-Americans and 14 NFL draft picks (four of which have become Pro Bowlers).

He was a three-year starter for the Tigers in college and played six seasons in the NFL, starting 60 games in the process. He started his coaching career with three years as a high school defensive coordinator in Louisiana. His first college job was as an assistant at LSU from 2006-08 when he was a part of the 2007 national title team. He then had stints with Utah State and Nebraska before returning to Baton Rouge, where he’s played a big role in building the school’s “DBU” claim.

Darnell Stapleton - Offensive Line

The first of Florida’s two offensive line coaches to be announced, Stapleton makes the jump to the Power Five after spending just one season on Napier’s staff at Louisiana in 2021. Prior to that, he spent four seasons as the offensive line coach at Sam Houston State, where he won a Football Championship Subdivision national championship last season. That followed stints as an offensive line coach at Pace University and Bucknell after he was a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Rutgers.

Stapleton started 25 games at center in two years with the Scarlet Knights, and he was a finalist for the Rimington Award as a senior. He spent four seasons in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2007-10, starting 18 games and winning a Super Bowl. Following his NFL career, he coached for the New York Sharks, a women’s professional football team, and he coached both offensive and defensive lines at Montclair Kimberly Academy before returning to Piscataway as a graduate assistant.

Jamar Chaney - Defensive Analyst (Linebackers)

Chaney returns to Florida, where he was an assistant director of player personnel under coach Dan Mullen during the 2019 season before leaving to become a senior defensive analyst at his alma mater, Mississippi State. A former Bulldogs linebacker, Chaney earned All-SEC honors as a junior and was a seventh-round pick in the 2010 NFL draft.

He played for five seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Denver Broncos and the then-Oakland Raiders. Before joining UF’s staff (his first collegiate job), he was the head coach at his high school alma mater, St. Lucie West Centennial.

Joe Hamilton - Personnel Analyst

Hamilton follows Napier and takes a similar off-field staffer role. While his job at Louisiana was his first in the industry, per his LinkedIn account, he was previously a recruiting analyst covering the state of Texas for 247Sports and SB Nation. He graduated from Texas Southern University in 2017.

Andrew Burkett - Director of Research and Evaluation

Burkett held the same role on Napier’s staff at Louisiana. It’s also a new role for UF that, judging by the name, will likely be used to improve the evaluation of recruiting prospects. Per his LinkedIn, Burkett graduated from Alabama in 2016, working as a recruiting specialist while still in college.

After one season as a player personnel intern at Arizona State, he returned to Tuscaloosa to get a Master’s in sports business administration. He was hired by Napier at Louisiana in 2018 after graduating.

Nick McDonald - Personnel Analyst (Offense)

Napier has transported much of his support staff from Lafayette, and McDonald is the latest analyst to follow him to Florida. At Louisiana, he worked in football personnel and recruiting, per his LinkedIn page. It’s unclear if his new job as a personnel analyst is a bigger role than at his previous post, but he seems to be the offensive counterpart to Hamilton.

McDonald is a graduate of Alabama, where he worked as football recruiting specialist from 2015-18 before rejoining Napier, who he worked with when the pair were on Saban’s staff.

Keary Colbert - Wide Receivers

Colbert carries a lot of big-time position coach experience. He joins Napier’s staff after spending six years at USC, where he had been the receivers coach for the last two seasons, developing Indianapolis Colts receiver Michael Pittman and possible 2022 Day 1 pick Drake London. He was the Trojans’ tight ends coach in 2018 after spending two years as an offensive analyst. Before that, he worked with Napier at Alabama from 2014-15 after a one-year stint as the receivers coach at Georgia State.

He was a standout in college at USC, and he was taken in the second round of the NFL Draft in 2004 by the Carolina Panthers. He also played for the Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks and Detroit Lions before leaving the league to work as a graduate assistant at his alma mater in 2010. He returned to the NFL after that, however, playing one final season with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Katie Turner - Assistant Athletic Director of Recruiting Strategy

Turner is one of the biggest off-field support staff hires Napier has made so far. She spent the last two seasons at Georgia as the director of recruiting operations, where she contributed to two top-five classes. Before that, she worked under Napier at Louisiana from 2018-20 as the director of football on-campus recruiting, landing the top-ranked class in the Sun Belt in 2019 and 2020.

She also has NFL experience, working for the Buffalo Bills from 2016-18 as an assistant in the community relations and business development departments. A 2016 graduate of Alabama, Turner worked as a recruiting staffer with the Crimson Tide while still in college. Her recruiting experience speaks for itself, and getting her to come to Gainesville was a major win for Napier over UGA’s Kirby Smart.

Jacob LaFrance - Director of Player Personnel

LaFrance held the same role under Napier at Louisiana last season where, according to Florida’s press release, “he oversaw prospect evaluation, roster management, and assisted with NFL liaisons on visits and research, among other duties.” Before that, he was the director of player personnel at Texas-San Antonio from 2016-19 after a two-year stint as a recruiting analyst at Maryland.

He’s a Baton Rouge native and a 2012 graduate of LSU. Both while in college and after, LaFrance served as a personnel assistant working in recruiting for the Tigers from 2009-14.

Joe Danos - Director of Player Athletic Development

Danos has a wide range of experience when it comes to working in sports. He was most recently the head strength and conditioning coach for the Inter Miami Futbol Club in 2020 and 2021 after spending seven seasons with the New York Giants as a performance manager and strength and conditioning assistant coach. He has college football experience, working as an assistant on Florida State’s strength staff from 2010-12.

He has also previously worked on the strength staffs at SMU and LSU. A New Orleans native, he worked as a student strength assistant while in college in Baton Rouge from 2000-04. He was also the USA junior Olympic and national junior weightlifting champion in 1996.

Given the fact that his background is mostly in strength and conditioning, he will likely work closely with new strength coach Mark Hocke to develop player training programs.

Doug Domingue - Director of Recruiting Innovation

Domingue is another staffer who follows Napier from Louisiana, where he joined the staff in 2018 as the director of digital strategy, producing video content for all varsity Ragin’ Cajuns teams. He was promoted to senior director of digital strategy in 2020.

He’s a Lafayette native and graduated from Louisiana in 2004. Before joining Napier’s staff, he spent eight years as a regional freelance content creator. He has a new title at Florida, director of recruiting innovation, and given his background, it seems fair to assume he will be responsible for overseeing video content, especially as it pertains to recruiting.

Ashour Peera - Assistant Director of Football Operations, Logistics and Analytics

Peera spent the last three seasons with Napier at Louisiana as the director of player engagement. Before that, he spent two seasons as director of recruiting at Central Arkansas. Peera has a background in high school coaching in Florida, as he was the coach at East Ridge High School in Clermont from 2014-17. He followed that with a brief period of time at Northwestern Oklahoma State University before joining Central Arkansas’ staff. Though this hire was just announced, Peera has been recruiting for Florida for a while now.

Kyle Kazakevicius - Assistant Director of Football Operations for Quality Control and Assistant to the Head Coach

In addition to having the longest title on Florida’s staff, Kazakevicius is another staffer that followed Napier from Louisiana, where he was the director of recruiting and a running back analyst the last two seasons. He joined the program in 2018 as a strength and conditioning intern before becoming director of player engagement in 2019.

An Ocala native, Kazakevicius played football at Alabama as a wide receiver under Napier from 2013-15, where he won a national championship. He was also a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch at one point.

Edward Thompson - Assistant Strength and Conditioning

Mark Hocke’s strength staff saw another addition as Thompson comes to Gainesville after spending the 2021 season as Louisiana’s head assistant strength coach and director of speed development. Thompson played defensive back for the Ragin’ Cajuns from 2014-16, beginning his career as a strength coach as an intern for his alma mater in 2017. He has since worked on the staffs at Houston, Georgia Tech, Austin Peay State, LSU and the New York Giants.

William Peagler - Tight Ends

Peagler comes from Michigan State, where he spent the last two seasons coaching running backs and developed Kenneth Walker III, the best running back in college football in 2021. However, the running backs coach spot is already filled by Jabbar Juluke, and Peagler will coach tight ends, instead.

Before joining the Spartans staff, Peagler was the director of quality control for the offense at Colorado. In 2018, he worked under Napier at Louisiana as the director of player personnel and quality control coordinator. He boasts SEC experience, as he worked as a graduate assistant at Georgia in 2017 during the Bulldogs’ College Football Playoff run. He worked as a quality control assistant at Minnesota in 2016 after two years working as an assistant at the high school and junior college levels in Mississippi.

Peagler is a Clemson graduate, where he worked for the football team as a student assistant while in college. He was the tight ends coach at Valdosta State in 2010 and worked a prior stint at Louisiana from 2011-13, first as a quality control assistant and later as a graduate assistant.

Marcus Castro-Walker - Director of Player Engagement and NIL

Castro-Walker is one of the few support staff members on this list that never worked under Napier at Louisiana. He spent the 2021 season as Nebraska’s director of player development after four years as the director of college personnel at Arizona State, where he worked with Billy Napier in 2017 when Napier was the offensive coordinator for the Sun Devils.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Castro-Walker graduated from Eastern Washington and got his Master’s from ASU while working as a graduate assistant. He was hired out of grad school as an academic coach for Arizona State, kickstarting his career in player support. He will help Florida’s players navigate the new world that is NIL in college sports.

Frank Ogas - Assistant for Player Development

Ogas has spent the last four seasons with Napier at Louisiana, where he began as the strength and conditioning quality control coordinator before becoming the director of player development. Ogas is a graduate of Arizona State, where he played football for the Sun Devils as a tight end and linebacker from 2014-17.

Bri Wade - Director of On-Campus Recruiting and Football Events

Wade comes from Louisiana, where she spent the last two seasons with Napier in the same role and was one of the primary off-field recruiters for the Ragin’ Cajuns. Before that, she was a football recruiting assistant at Mississippi State after working as a graduate assistant in the office of diversity and inclusion at MSU. A graduate of Mississippi State, she worked as a student recruiting assistant while in school from 2014-18.

Matt Bergeron - Offensive Analyst (Wide Receivers)

Bergeron is another analyst Napier has a lot of experience with. He’s worked at Louisiana for the last four seasons, spending the last two as an analyst working with receivers in 2020 and tight ends in 2021. He spent his first two seasons with the team as a graduate assistant, working with quarterbacks in 2018 and receivers in 2019. He followed Napier from Arizona State, where he served as a graduate assistant and quality control coach for the receiving unit. Bergeron is a Southern Miss graduate who played quarterback at the school from 2013-16.

UPDATE: Bergeron is returning to Louisiana as the running backs coach.

Paul Pasqualoni - Director of Advanced Scouting and Self Scout [UPDATED]

One of the few names on this list who isn’t a new face, Pasqualoni will remain on staff in a new role after spending the last two seasons as a special assistant to former coach Dan Mullen. When Florida fired defensive coordinator Todd Grantham after the loss to South Carolina in November, Pasqualoni moved into an on-field role coaching outside linebackers.

Pasqualoni is a veteran coach at both the collegiate and professional levels He brings FBS head coaching experience to the table, as the 72-year-old spent 14 seasons as the head coach at Syracuse from 1991-2004. He later spent three years as the head coach at Connecticut from 2011-13. Pasqualoni has NFL experience, as well, serving as the defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins (2008-09) and Detroit Lions (2018-19), in addition to a number of other assistant coaching roles with the Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears and Houston Texans.

UPDATE: Pasqualoni was hired as the defensive line coach for the Carolina Panthers on Feb. 8.

Kelsee Gomes - Director of Sports Nutrition (Football)

Nutrition is a key but often underappreciated aspect of a program’s success, and for the director of sports nutrition position, Napier brings in Gomes from North Carolina, where she ran the nutrition program since 2015 for multiple sports and was a part of five national championship teams. She returns to Gainesville, where she worked prior to taking the position in Chapel Hill as a sports nutrition coordinator from 2012-15 after stints as a nutrition consultant at UCF from 2011-12 and with the traumatic brain injury and rehab unit at Orlando Regional Medical Center from 2009-11. Gomes is a Charlotte native, and she swam collegiately at UNC-Wilmington from 2002-06.

CJ Wilford - Quality Control (Defense)

Wilford joins Napier’s staff at Florida after spending the last three seasons with the coach in Lafayette, where he worked as a quality control assistant for defensive backs from 2019-20 before becoming a graduate assistant working with nickels and safeties in 2021. Before working at Louisiana, Wilford spent three seasons at Southern Utah, where he was a defensive assistant from 2016-17 and the inside linebackers coach in 2018. At 23-years-old, he was the youngest position coach in Division I that season. He played two seasons of college football at Ventura Junior College from 2014-15.

Braxton Morris - Quality Control (Defense)

Morris is yet another coach from Louisiana, and he held the same role with the Ragin’ Cajuns for the last two seasons. He was actually a baseball player in college at Moorehead State from 2015-18, and he played one year professionally before switching to football, which he played overseas in 2019 and 2020.

Bird Sherrill - Director of College Personnel

Sherrill comes from the NFL ranks, where he has worked for the Detroit Lions since 2016. He spent his first two years with the Lions as a scouting assistant before being promoted to the position of scout, which he has held for the last four seasons. He graduated from Alabama in 2016 and worked as a student recruiting assistant while in school.

Hiring an NFL coach with a scouting background makes a lot of sense for Napier, and per Florida’s official release, Sherrill will focus on evaluating transfer portal and junior college prospects.

Tony Hill - Associate Director, Sports Health for Football

Hill is very experienced when it comes to athletics training. He held the same role last season at Louisiana under Napier following a four-year stint as the head football athletic trainer at Colorado State. He also oversaw football training at Fresno State from 2008-16. He began his career at Florida as a training intern for football and men’s tennis from 2003-04, and he’s worked in a training capacity at Kentucky, Texas, California and Arizona.

Vernell Brown Jr. - Senior Director of Player Development and Alumni Relations

Brown, a former Gators star cornerback from 2001-05, has been on staff at Florida since 2018 as the director of student-athlete development. He’s seeing his role change to include alumni relations, which the other former UF star on staff, Mike Peterson, will also work on. Brown focuses on aspects like personal development, mental health and collegiate affairs for players, and he will now serve as a liaison between current and former players, as well.

Tiger Jones - Director of Speed Improvement and Skill Development

Jones will be under the strength department in this role as he comes from Arizona, where he spent the 2021 season as an assistant strength coach. Before that, he worked with Napier at Louisiana from 2018-20 as the assistant director of strength and conditioning. That came following a stint with the strength and conditioning department at Texas A&M in 2017.

He played receiver in college at Louisville from 2000-04, and he played for Washington in the NFL in 2005 before starting an eight-year arena football career, where he was a three-time First Team All-Arena selection. He concluded his career as a training camp member with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2012.

Paul Silvestri - Director of Sports Health (Football)

Silvestri is the longest-tenured Florida staffer on this list, as he has been with the program since 2013 serving as the head athletic trainer for football. After navigating the COVID-19 pandemic the last two seasons, he has received a promotion from Florida but will continue to oversee football training. He carries with him a lot of experience, as the Boca Raton native began his career as an athletic trainer with Florida Atlantic from 2003-05 before serving as an assistant athletic trainer at Kentucky from 2007-08.

He left Lexington before the 2008 season to take a head football training position at Utah, and he remained in Salt Lake City for five seasons before taking the same role at his alma mater in Gainesville. He graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science and earned a Master’s in Kinesiology at Kentucky in 2003.

Kareem Reid - Quality Control (Defensive Line)

Reid is a North Miami native who spent the 2021 season at his alma mater UCF, where he was a defensive lineman from 2004-06, as the director of player development. Before that, he had a lengthy career as a high school coach in both Florida and Georgia from 2007-19. He was the head coach at Westlake High School in Atlanta from 2016-19, winning three straight state titles, and he was also the head coach and assistant athletic director at Coconut Creek High School in Florida from 2013-16.

Rob Sale - Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line

Sale comes from the NFL where he just completed his first season as the offensive line coach for the New York Giants, where he oversaw the impressive development of second-year offensive lineman Andrew Thomas. He takes the mantle of offensive coordinator in addition to his duties coaching the offensive line alongside Stapleton, but Napier will call plays and Sale will assist with scheming and game-planning during the week. His hire had been rumored since Napier arrived at Florida, but the Gators had to wait for the conclusion of the NFL regular season to make it official.

Sale previously held the same role under Napier at Louisiana from 2018-20 before he took the job with the Giants. The two had also worked together at Arizona State in 2017 when Napier was offensive coordinator and Sale was the offensive line coach and run game coordinator. He has prior experience in the state of Louisiana, coaching the offensive line at UL-Monroe in 2016, as well as the SEC, holding the same role at Georgia under Mark Richt in 2015. He also coached at McNeese State from 2012-14, serving as offensive line coach his first two years before being promoted to co-offensive coordinator in his final season.

He started 25 games as a guard at LSU in college from 1998-02, and he began his coaching career at Catholic High School of Pointe Coupee in New Roads, Louisiana, in 2006 before taking a strength and conditioning assistant position at Alabama, which he held from 2007-11.

Cheston Blackshear - Quality Control (Offensive Line)

A former Gators guard, Blackshear started 28 games from 1995-99, earning Second Team All-SEC honors his final season. After a brief stint with the Carolina Panthers and XFL’s Orlando Rage playing professional ball, he began his coaching career as a UF graduate assistant from 2002-04. He followed Ron Zook to Illinois in 2005 before serving stints as an offensive line quality control coach at Columbia (2006-08), New Mexico (2009-12) and Nevada (2014-17). He was the tight ends coach at Georgetown in 2013.

He most recently worked at Dartmouth from 2018-21 as the offensive tackles and tight ends coach. He also has experience at the NFL level, participating in training camp internship programs with the Jaguars, Falcons, Browns and Dolphins.

Savannah Bailey - Senior Director of Player Relations and GatorMade

Bailey comes from Clemson, where she spent the last five seasons as the director of life skills and community service, working directly with athletes for both personal and societal development. She will lead the “GatorMade” program, which Florida’s official release describes as “a holistic player-focused and purpose-driven initiative that develops each Gators football team member during their tenure at Florida and beyond.” She oversaw a similar program for the Tigers.

A graduate of Tennessee in microbiology in 2016, Bailey also earned a Master’s of education in student affairs/counseling from Clemson in 2019 and is working toward a doctorate of philosophy in education leadership.

Jay Bateman - Inside linebackers

An experienced defensive playcaller, Bateman will take a position coach roll on Napier’s staff after he was let go as North Carolina’s defensive coordinator and safeties coach, a role he held for the last three seasons. He’s a great recruiter, and his unit was among the best in the ACC in 2020, but it dropped off this season. Still, he developed a First Team All-American linebacker in converted quarterback Chazz Surratt while in Chapel Hill.

He has previous defensive coordinator experience at Army (2014-18), Ball State (2011-13) and Elon (2006-10). He has Division I head coaching experience, as well, as he led Siena’s program from 2000-03, though he had just a 5-35 record.

Ty Darlington - Quality Control (Tight Ends)

Darlington spent the last five seasons at his alma mater, Oklahoma, where he began as an offensive analyst and later served as a graduate assistant working with quarterbacks. He was named the interim quarterbacks coach in the Sooners’ bowl win over Oregon, and now he joins Napier’s staff to work with tight ends in a quality control capacity.

A standout center in Norman from 2012-15, Darlington earned All-Big 12 honors as a senior and won the Wuerffel and Campbell awards. Before he started working at Oklahoma in a coaching capacity, he worked as an administrative fellow for the athletic department in addition to a role with Sooner Sports TV.

Sean Spencer - Co-Defensive Coordinator/Defensive Line Coach

Florida’s on-field staff is finally complete as Spencer, whose hire had been rumored, officially joins Toney as co-defensive coordinator and will also work with the defensive line. Nicknamed “Coach Chaos” for the pressure his teams generate, Spencer comes from the professional level where he spent the last two seasons coaching the defensive line for the New York Giants.

Prior to that, he spent six seasons at Penn State in the same role while also holding assistant head coach and run game coordinator titles in his final two seasons from 2018-19. He followed coach James Franklin to State College after working under him at Vanderbilt from 2011-13. He had previous stops at Bowling Green (2009-10), Massachusetts (2001-03, 2007-08) Hofstra (2006), Villanova (2005), Holy Cross (2004), Trinity College (1998-2000), Shippensburg (1996- 97) and Wesleyan (1995).

Chris Couch - GameChanger Coordinator

Though his title isn’t the most descriptive in the world, Couch’s role will be as an analyst working with special teams, and this role seems to be the equivalent to special teams coordinator on Napier’s staff. Couch was also the special teams coordinator and director of quality control and analytics with Napier at Louisiana in 2021.

Before joining the Ragin’ Cajuns’ staff, Couch spent five seasons at Tulane as a special teams analyst and recruiting coordinator. He coached special teams and linebackers at Point University in 2015 following a stint as a defensive graduate assistant with Georgia Southern, working with defensive tackles in 2013 and linebackers in 2014. He spent 2012 as the slot-backs coach at Missouri Southern State.

Corey Bell - Quality Control (Running Backs) [UPDATED]

Bell joined Mullen’s staff last offseason as the director of player personnel, and he is being retained by Napier, albeit in a different role as a quality control coach for running backs. Bell returned to Florida, where he was the secondary coach in 2017, after a three-year stint in the same role at UCF. Before that, he was the secondary coach and director of player personnel at Florida Atlantic from 2014-16 and was previously the director of football operations at Miami from 2007-10.

He’s also been a high school head coach in Florida, working at Miami Edison (1997-07) and American Senior (2011-13).

UPDATE: FIU hired Bell as its cornerback coach and recruiting coordinator, it was announced on Jan. 29.

Joshua Thompson - Director of Football Operations

Thompson hails from Auburn, where he held the same role this past season. Before that, he spent two years as the director of recruiting and player personnel at Arkansas and was Napier’s director of recruiting and football logistics at Louisiana in 2018. That followed an eight-year stint working in recruiting, personnel and operations for his alma mater, Texas A&M.

James Thomas Jr. - Quality Control (Cornerbacks) [UPDATED]

Thomas comes to Gainesville after spending the 2021 season as a special teams quality control analyst at Maryland. Prior to that, he spent two seasons at Division II Angelo State as the co-defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach. He spent 2016-18 at another Division II school in Clarion, where he was the defensive coordinator.

His career began in 2010 at Western New Mexico where he coached receivers from 2010-11 before serving as special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach from 2012-13. In his final two seasons with the team, he was its defensive coordinator.

UPDATE: Maryland Terrapins hired Thomas to serve as outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator on Feb. 18.

Mike Richard - Quality Control (Offensive Line)

Richard spent the last eights seasons at Louisiana, preexisting Napier on the Ragin’ Cajuns’ staff. He held the same role in the four seasons he worked under Napier. Richard is a Louisiana alumnus who spent his first three seasons on staff as a student assistant.

Lamar Sorey - Quality Control (Personnel)

Sorey is another coach that comes from the NFL ranks, where he spent the 2021 season as a scouting assistant for the Jacksonville Jaguars. An Army veteran and 2020 graduate of Middle Tennessee State, Sorey served as a student assistant for the Blue Raiders from 2018-20. In his role at Florida, he will assist personnel staff with player evaluations and recruiting.

Chase Clark - Assistant Director of College Personnel/On-Campus Recruiting Coordinator

Clark is one of the several retentions, as he joined Florida’s staff under Mullen in 2019, but he’ll be in a new role after spending the last three seasons as an assistant director of player personnel. Before working at UF, he was the director of recruiting at UAB in 2018 and spent 2017 in the NFL as an intern for the Seattle Seahawks. Clark is a 2016 graduate of Alabama and worked in player personnel as a student for the Crimson Tide from 2012-16.

Tamsyn Stonebarger - Associate Director of Digital Strategy

Stonebarger will help lead Florida’s digital contents efforts after hopping over from the NBA, where she spent 2021 as a social media associate for the Los Angeles Clippers. Prior to that, she was a social media specialist at Washington State from 2019-21. She has also been a digital media coordinator at Texas A&M – Corpus Christi, a role she held from 2017-18.

She’s a 2016 journalism graduate of Arizona State, where she worked in football recruiting and operations for the Sun Devils as a student.

Rachel Adamkowski - Football Performance Dietitian

Adamkowski spent the 2021 season working in performance nutrition for the Cleveland Browns after serving as a sports nutrition intern for North Carolina from 2019-21 and at Duke in 2018. She’s a graduate of South Carolina and got her masters of public health from UNC last year.

Mike Peterson - Outside Linebackers, Alumni Liason

Napier is bringing a Gator great back to his staff, as Peterson joins after spending the last six seasons as the outside linebackers/defensive ends coach for South Carolina. A member of UF’s team from 1995-98, he was a team captain and won a national title in 1996. He was also named a First Team All-American while in college.

He played 14 years in the NFL as a second-round pick for the Colts, also seeing time with the Jaguars (where he spent most of his career) and Falcons. When his playing career ended, he returned to Florida to finish his degree and work as an undergraduate assistant strength coach, earning a full-time position of strength and conditioning coordinator when he graduated.

Benedick Hyppolite - Quality Control (Running Backs)

Hyppolite comes from his hometown school in Miami, where he was a graduate assistant for the last two seasons. He was recently promoted to a wide receiver analyst position, but he decided to head to Florida for a quality control position.

He was previously the offensive coordinator at Florida Memorial University and had a lengthy coordinator and position coach career at high schools in the Miami area, including his alma mater Booker T. Washington (where he’s a member of the school’s athletics hall of fame).

Jordan Herald - Associate Director of Creative Media, Football Recruiting

Herald returns to Florida after a brief stay as an assistant director of creative design/head photographer at Ohio State. He was previously in a similar role for the Gators from 2020-21, and he’s also worked in creative media for the Charlotte Hornets and West Virginia.

Brandon Taylor - GameChanger Graduate Assistant

Taylor spent the past two seasons as a graduate assistant on special teams at LSU. Prior to that, he had stints at Jacksonville State, Florida International and Lousiana Tech.

He made his coaching debut at Southern University in 2016 as an offensive assistant for tight ends and offensive line.

Before hanging up his cleats for the final time, he was a long snapper from 2011-2015 for the Panthers where he appeared in 35 games. — Zachary Huber

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Brooks Gillerlain - Football Performance Dietitian

Gillerlain comes to Florida after spending the last season with the Virginia Tech Hokies as a Gatorade sports nutrition fellow. Before that, she was a sports nutrition intern with the North Carolina Tarheels from the fall of 2019 to the spring of 2021. — Zachary Huber

Sierra Griffin - On-Campus Recruiting Coordinator

Head coach Billy Napier announced Griffin will join his off-the-field staff as an on-campus recruiting coordinator on Wednesday, April 6. She comes to the Gators after working as an assistant coordinator of on-campus recruiting at Auburn last season and as a football creative intern at Miami in 2020.

She earned a bachelor of science in exercise science from Auburn and received a master’s of science in sports administration from Miami. — Zachary Huber

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