Billy Gonzales Turns to Ryan O’Hara to Lead Gators’ Offense
Florida introduced wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales as the new interim coach following Sunday’s firing of Billy Napier. With Napier gone, one of the bigger unsolved questions heading into Monday’s presser was who would take over as Florida’s primary play-caller on offense.
Napier assumed that role for all three and a half years at the helm and received plenty of pushback from the media, fanbase, and administration to give up the role and hire an offensive coordinator. Napier refused, believing he was the man for the job and now leaves Florida with the 90th-ranked total offense (363 yards per game), the 103rd-ranked scoring offense (22.4 points per game) and the 65th-ranked passing attack (234 yards per game).
Given quarterback DJ Lagway’s regression this season, even with all weapons in the backfield and on the outside, the results were not good enough and ultimately, one of the big reasons he is no longer coaching in Gainesville.
Loading ...So with Napier gone, quarterbacks coach Ryan O’Hara will take over as the primary play-caller for the rest of the season. Gonzales said the responsibility of game script and strategy will be a collective effort between him, O’Hara, offensive coordinator Russ Callaway, running backs coach Jabbar Juluke and offensive line coach Rob Sale, but O’Hara will ultimately make the calls.
“It’s going to be helpful for us, but I’m going to let — Coach Callaway is going to be the OC,” Gonzales said. “But I’m going to let Coach O’Hara call the plays.”
O’Hara played quarterback at Arizona and Central Oklahoma during his college career. He has served as Florida’s quarterbacks coach since 2022, following a stint on Napier’s staff at Louisiana. Before joining Napier, O’Hara spent two seasons as the offensive coordinator at Alabama A&M from 2016 to 2017.
A large factor that went into this decision to make O’Hara the guy was his familiarity with Lagway. O’Hara is around him more than any other coach and that held weight in the decision-making process. Since Lagway wears the green dot on offense, Gonzales wanted someone with a great relationship with him and can get him to succeed.
“The most important piece to that is there’s a rhythm piece between him and DJ. It’s really important that the quarterback is an extension of his teacher. In this particular setting, for the next five games, that’s going to be critical. DJ has got a great relationship with both,” Gonzales said. “But it’s going to be an opportunity just to hit home over and over the teaching methods that go on in the meeting and let him be familiar with that voice over and over in the practice setting and in the game.”
Lagway expressed his excitement for his coach to earn the opportunity and looks forward to working alongside him in this new role. Lagway believes that the offense could hit another gear now with O’Hara and company calling the shots — including spreading the ball out more down the field and finding plays and formations that are going to give this offense the best chance to succeed.
“He knows what I like, he knows what I don’t like. He knows what I excel at, he knows what I need to work on. It’s going to be great, like coach Billy G said. Having that player-to-coach communication it’s going to be huge, and I’m excited for it,” Lagway said. “Anytime you get the ball to your playmakers and let them do what they do in space and they get yards for you, that’s always a happy thing to see.”
Category: College Football, Feature Sports News, Gators Football, SEC
