Napier's Florida staff starts taking shape with Toney, Hocke

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — New Florida coach Billy Napier's staff is starting to take shape.

Napier named Patrick Toney the team's co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach Monday and Mark Hocke the team's associate head coach and director of strength and conditioning.

Toney and Hocke were Napier's first — and probably most obvious — hires. They spent the last four years alongside Napier at Louisiana-Lafayette, where the Ragin' Cajuns went 40-12 and won the 2021 Sun Belt Conference title.

Napier negotiated a $7.5 million salary pool to hire 10 full-time assistants. He is expected to part ways with most or all of former Florida coach Dan Mullen's staff, which is preparing the team to play UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa on Dec. 23.

Toney served as ULL's defensive coordinator the last two seasons. He also coached safeties and outside linebackers during his four-year tenure there. The Ragin' Cajuns tied for ninth nationally in scoring defense (18.3) in 2021.

Hocke has significant Southeastern Conference experience, having worked at Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M. He began his coaching career at Alabama in 2009 and spent six seasons on Nick Saban’s staff. He was part of three national championships (2009, 2012, 2013) and trained more dozens of players who went on to sign NFL contracts.

Hocke also spent time at Georgia (2015), Florida State (2016) and Texas A&M (2017).

___

More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25. Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25