Florida Football: No, Gators coaching staff is not in disarray

If you listen to the trolls on Twitter, you could be led to believe that the sky is falling for Florida football. Patrick Toney left in the middle of the night for the NFL and it has come out that TE coach William Peagler is also heading west to Arizona.

News then came out Thursday morning that wide receiver coach Keary Colbert was also leaving for the NFL, as he will join the Denver Broncos.

Combined with quality control assistant Kareem Reid leaving to take a head coaching job at a high school in Georgia and it is easy to fall into the trap of believing the sky is falling.

But if one were to take a step back and a deep breath, one would see that the sky is quite stable for Florida football.

Florida Football: Merry-go-round

Billy Napier’s vision is built on stability. He believes if you can keep continuity within a coaching staff that the program will benefit in the long run compared to constant turnover.

Losing Patrick Toney in a vacuum has its pros and cons. His defense last year simply wasn’t good enough to hang in the SEC, but it will be the third playbook in three years the Gators have to learn.

Likewise, having Peagler depart as well means that Napier, given the amount of 12 personnel he likes to use, has to fill a key position for his offense two weeks before Spring practice.

But like Toney, Peagler didn’t stand out as an SEC-level position coach. While it is unfair to judge Florida tight ends in the post Kyle Pitts era, it is fair to ask why Peagler didn’t sign a single recruit in 2023.

If these moves were made a month ago, most fans of Florida football would be celebrating. The timing may seem odd, but the result is the reality that you are either good enough or you aren’t.

Losing two coaches that were among the lower-performing coaches is not the end of the world, no matter what the trolls tell you. The bar to find a replacement that at a minimum can match what they did is low and Florida football should carry on just fine.

Losing Colbert is the biggest loss of the bunch. He was instrumental in the recruiting process and helped bring Aiden Mizell and Eugene Wilson to Gainesville. The flipside to losing two underperforming coaches is that high achieving position coaches are also not going to stick around very long as position coaches. As Nick Saban and Alabama can attest to, guys are always looking to take the next step for their own careers.

So, Florida football should be just fine and as indicated by Napier’s quick hire of Austin Armstrong, these departures are moves that Napier anticipated.

I looked outside today, the sky was still blue.