Florida is adding former Washington Huskies linebackers coach Robert Bala to its coaching staff in the same role, according to 247Sports’ Matt Zenitz.
Bala will oversee the Gators inside linebackers room and is also the new co-defensive coordinator in Gainesville. He replaces Ron Roberts as Florida’s linebackers coach, freeing him up to call plays as an executive head coach.
“We potentially could hire another coach on defense and let Ron kind of walk around, much like we did the last two-thirds of the year,” Florida head coach Billy Napier said Wednesday. “I think that’s kind of when we started making progress.”
Robert Bala Coaching History
Bala has been coaching since 2009, but he’s only spent two seasons with a Power Four program — most recently with Washington and as Alabama’s linebackers coaching 2023.
He started his coaching career in the JUCO ranks with Snow College and moved on to Palomar College after two seasons. He spent five seasons as Palomar’s defensive coordinator across two stints separated by an internship with the Oakland Raiders in 2014.
In 2017, Bala joined Ottawa University in Arizona (NAIA) as the special teams coordinator before spending four seasons with Southern Utah in his first FCS job. The Thunderbirds initially brought him on as the cornerbacks coach, but he was promoted to co-special teams coordinator in 2019 and then earned the safeties coach and defensive coordinator titles in 2020. In his final year with Southern Utah, Bala was the team’s linebackers coach and defensive coordinator.
Bala’s first FBS job came in 2022 with the Liberty Flames as an analyst in its first year as an independent Division I program. He joined Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama as the linebackers coach in 2023 but was not retained by current Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer.
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/florida-football-adding-robert-bala-000818742.html
Author : Gators Wire
Publish date : 2025-02-08 00:08:00
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