Drew Hughes new UF director of player personnel

Florida has a new director of player personnel. Friday morning it was announced that Drew Hughes, who oversaw all recruiting operations at North Carolina State last year, has filled the position vacated by Jon Haskins, who resigned from his position in November.

Hughes held the same position at UCF prior to making the move to N.C. State.

“Drew will be a great asset to our program,” said Muschamp. “He is extremely organized, and based on his experience he has a very good understanding of how we operate and should fit right in.”

The job of director of player personnel isn’t one that most fans know a whole lot about. For the most part, they operate behind the scenes, working with the recruiting coordinator, contact recruits for the coaching staff and are heavily involved in official visits and Friday Night Lights.

At N.C. State, Hughes was in charge of all operational aspects of recruiting, including all on-campus visits, official visits, unofficial visits, junior day and mailing recruits among other responsibilities.

While his last two stops were at UCF and N.C. State, Hughes has experience recruiting in the SEC. While attending Alabama he served as a recruiting specialist for Nick Saban from 2007-2011, assisting with player evaluation breakdowns and daily operations for Saban’s summer camps.

Hughes is young but is ready for the task.

“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work for Coach Muschamp and the University of Florida,” said Hughes. “It will be great to get back to the state of Florida and the SEC – the best conference in the nation. I’m very much looking forward to helping the Florida coaching staff attract student athletes who will be champions both on and off the field.”

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC