Florida seeks ‘advantageous position’ vs. Georgia, elevates Steve Spurrier Jr.
Billy Gonzales is operating with a sense of urgency as Florida’s interim head coach in the wake of Billy Napier’s firing Sunday, shuffling staff duties while focusing efforts on beating Georgia.
“We’re spearheading that right now. … They’re big, they’re strong, they’re fast,” Gonzales said Wednesday, when asked about the 3:30 p.m. rivalry game against the No. 5 Bulldogs on Nov. 1 in Jacksonville, Florida. “We’ve started looking at the film as an offensive and defensive staff already to try to put us in an advantageous position right now for the next couple of days as we get on the field.
“We’ll start to try to implement some of the game plan, not all of it, but just kind of give us a head start.”
Gonzales, on staff for Urban Meyer’s 2006 and 2008 Florida national title teams and Dan Mullen’s 2020 East Division champion Gators, revealed Wednesday that Steve Spurrier Jr. will take on an elevated role, working with quarterback DJ Lagway on the sideline.
Russ Callaway will remain the offensive coordinator, and Ryan O’Hara will move up to the booth to work alongside Callaway while calling plays and communicating with the quarterback on the radio headset.
Gonzales said it’s a win-win to have O’Hara in the booth keeping the “same voice” Lagway has heard all season while adding Spurrier’s expertise to the sideline.
“(Spurrier) has got a wealth of knowledge, so he’ll be on the ground, and in between series he’ll be the voice that gets to talk and sit down with DJ and the quarterbacks and review the film.”
Spurrier, like Gonzalez, 54 years old, was hired as an offensive analyst by Napier in the offseason after working as Tulsa’s offensive coordinator under Kevin Wilson (2023-24). Before that, Spurrier has had assistant stints working under Bob Stoops (1999-2001), his father (2002-03, 2005-15), Lincoln Riley (2016) and Mike Leach (2020-22).
“He’s getting a little bit of a promotion,” Steve Spurrier told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Ryan O’Hara will be the play-caller up top, and he’s the quarterback coach, but when Lagway comes off the field, he’ll talk with him a bit.”
Spurrier said his son called the plays for South Carolina when the Gamecocks beat Florida 23-20 in overtime in 2014, ending Will Muschamp’s tenure as the Gators’ head coach.
“Whenever you’re around one of the greatest offensive minds in history, it’s obviously going to rub off on you as well …,” Gonzales said, when asked by the Orlando Sentinel on the SEC coaches teleconference Wednesday about expanding Spurrier Jr.’s role.
“It gives us another opportunity to have a veteran coach working with a quarterback‚” he said. “… It’s going to put us in a great situation to help DJ and the quarterbacks perform on the football field.”
The Gators have won two of their past three games, including a 29-21 win over then-No. 9 Texas on Oct. 4 in The Swamp, and they will be eager to snap Georgia’s four-game win streak in the series.
The Bulldogs won last year’s meeting 34-20, but Florida held a 13-6 lead at the half and was up 10-3 when Lagway left the game at the 5:01 mark of the second quarter with a hamstring injury.
“Every year it’s a different team, and it’s a different culture, different vibe,” Gonzalez said, when asked if the Gators would carry over any confidence from the first half of last season’s game.
“This team here, I talked to the team the other day, you know, they have no quit in their DNA,” Gonzales said. “They’re an extremely talented group of players that are hungry to get back on the football field, and that’s what we’re focusing on right now.”
About the Author
Mike is in his eighth season covering SEC and Georgia athletics for AJC-DawgNation and has 30 years of collegiate sports multimedia experience, 25 of them in the SEC including beat writer stops at Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee and now Georgia. Mike was named the National FWAA Beat Writer of the Year in January, 2018.
