Although he led the Gators to a decisive win over archrival Florida State, Florida interim coach Billy Gonzales will not be back in Gainesville next year.
According to On3's Pete Nakos, Gonzales, a fixture at Florida, “is not being retained” by new head coach Jon Sumrall as he builds his inaugural Gators staff. Sumrall was officially hired and introduced as Florida's coach last week, and since then, he has reportedly hired Georgia Tech's Buster Faulkner and Kentucky's Brad White as UF's offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively.
Gonzales, 54, first arrived in Gainesville back in 2005 with Urban Meyer, for whom he worked at Bowling Green and Utah. From 2005 to 2009, Gonzales served as Meyer's wide receivers coach, while adding the title of recruiting coordinator before the 2008 season.
He spent two seasons at LSU in a similar position before becoming co-offensive coordinator at Illinois in 2012. Then, he linked up with Dan Mullen at Mississippi State, which would lead him back to The Swamp when Mullen left MSU after the 2017 season for Florida, bringing Gonzales with him. Gonzales had been at UF since then, aside from a one-year stint at Florida Atlantic when Mullen was fired and replaced with Billy Napier.
Despite Gonzales' experience at UF, as well as a stated desire to remain on the new staff, Sumrall apparently wanted to hire his own wide receivers coach. It remains to be seen who that will be, though, as Sumrall has made it clear that he doesn't plan to hire “friends” and did not bring over his own coordinators to be Florida's.
If he did do that for some of the position coaches, that could mean Carter Sheridan, Sumrall's current Tulane WR coach, joining the staff. Sheridan, a Florida A&M alumnus, has deep roots in New Orleans, having spent the last two decades with Tulane, LSU, or the New Orleans Saints.
Sumrall will be hiring coaches as a part of his double duty, considering Tulane qualified for the College Football Playoff (CFP) and will be playing at Ole Miss in the first round.
