Former Director of Football Strength & Conditioning Mark Hocke to leave Florida

One of the legit criticisms of the Billy Napier Era is that he tends to keep guys around Florida Football even after he himself has established they aren't good enough for the standard in Gainesville. This was on display after the 2023 season when Napier demoted then Director of Football Strength & Conditioning Mark Hocke but kept him on staff as the Director of Player Relations.

After one season of staking a backseat, Hocke took to social media to announce he is leaving Gainesville to return back to Louisiana.

Florida Football: Weight Room

As with any program, we don't know for sure what went on in the weight room when Hocke was in charge, but we did get some clues along the way.

In March of 2022, Anthony Richardson detailed how the Gators weren't focused on trying to bulk up:

"He's focused on your body a little more. For the last staff, they were trying to get us to bulk up and be a lot stronger. But, Coach Hocke, he wants us to be like, a faster team, because you can't really teach speed, but you can get guy's body right so they can move a little faster."

Princely Umanmielen would later echo these sentiments after he transferred from Florida to Ole Miss:

"With them [the new staff] coming from Louisana Lafayette, I'm not trying to put anyone down, I don't know, it felt like we were training to be in the Pac12 instead of the SEC. The last two years it felt like we focused more on conditioning and running than lifting weights. I was getting so small in the off-season because we weren't lifting enough heavy weights. No joking, if you looked at our offseason workouts, you would think we were a track team."

As the perceived lack of progress in the weight room became a relevant storyline during the 2023 campaign, Napier demoted Hocke and brought in Craig Fitzgerald to take over. Fitzgerald would bail on the Gators after one month, and Napier then promoted current strength coach Tyler Miles.

Hocke originally came to Florida with Napier from Louisiana, and after one year of serving as the Director of Player Relations in Gainesville, he is heading back to Louisana as the Director of Quality Control and Football Analytics.