Dan Quinn heads back to NFL

That didn’t take long.

Shortly after his name popped up as a candidate, the Seattle Seahawks have hired Dan Quinn as their next defensive coordinator.

The Seahawks announced Quinn has been hired on Thursday afternoon.

The position opened up when Gus Bradley left to become head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Before coaching the past two seasons at Florida Quinn spent 10 seasons as an assistant coach in the NFL. His name had surfaced as a candidate for several NFL openings over the past few days. He served as defensive line coach with the San Francisco 49ers (2003-04), the Miami Dolphins (2005-06) and the New York Jets (2007-08) before spending two seasons as the Seahawks’ assistant head coach.

Quinn officially was the Gators defensive coordinator and defensive line coach, although he shared responsibilities for the latter with fellow assistant Bryant Young. Florida finished fifth in the nation this past season in total defense and was eighth in the same category last season.

Other than searching for a replacement, another thing to watch will be if Quinn will try to convince any of the other UF defensive assistants to join him in Seattle.

One possible replacement for Quinn that coach Will Muschamp may look at is DJ Durkin, who coaches linebackers and serves as special teams coordinator.

 

mikecapshaw
Mike Capshaw brings a wealth of experience to the Gator Country team. He’s been overseeing all editorial aspects of GatorCountry.com and Gator Country magazine by managing our team of staffers, interns and freelancers. He is now moving into a bigger role as a reporter by covering the football and basketball beats as well as providing coverage of all sports on campus. Mike’s 15 years in the business has included more than six years of covering SEC sports and recruiting at a daily newspaper in Arkansas. He has also helped launch a newspaper, magazines, websites and even a sports talk radio show. Because Mike puts family ahead of his career, he left the place where he was established when his wife received an opportunity to further her career at UF. He took a leap of faith that he could find a job in the Gainesville area and worked for a year at a newspaper group before joining the Gator Country family in November, 2011. Mike has won Florida Press Association awards for Best Sports Game Story and Best Sports Feature Story in the past two years as well as a company-wide award at his former newspaper group that includes some 60 publications, for Excellence in Sports Reporting. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeCapshawGC.