Interim head coach Billy Gonzales announced on Monday that quarterbacks coach Ryan O’Hara will call offensive plays for the Florida Gators moving forward after Billy Napier’s departure. Russ Callaway will remain the offensive coordinator.
“Coach Callaway is going to be the OC, but I’m going to let Coach O’Hara call the plays,” Gonzales said during Monday’s press conference. “I think the most important piece to that is there’s a rhythm piece between him and DJ. I think it’s really important that the quarterback is an extension of his teacher. In this particular setting, for the next five games, I think that’s going to be critical. DJ has got a great relationship with both.”
O’Hara is in his fourth season with Florida after joining the staff as an offensive analyst-quarterbacks ahead of the 2022 season. Prior to his time in Gainesville, O’Hara was on Napier’s staff at Louisiana where he served as the quarterbacks coach from 2018-21. O’Hara served as the offensive coordinator at Alabama A&M University (2016-17) and coached the wide receivers. O’Hara also coached quarterbacks at Mt. San Antonio College and Santa Monica College (2013-15).
“He knows what I like. He knows what I don’t like,” starting quarterback DJ Lagway said. “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.”
Gonzales did say the game planning would be a ‘collaborative effort’ from the staff.
“It’s something I’ve been used to over the years,” Gonzales said. “Coach Sale, Coach Juluke will have a lot of input as far as the run game, what we’re doing to make sure that we’re going to be able to break down and see what the opponents are going to be giving us that we’re going to have an opportunity to hopefully take advantage of. And then obviously in the pass game, you’re going to have Coach Callaway, who is our offensive coordinator, who leads the offensive staff. He does an unbelievable job. He does a fantastic job at leading. He does a fantastic job of making sure that everybody’s on the same page.”
Gonzales later stated that Callaway would “put those plays together for us.”
A decision has not been made on whether O’Hara will be in the box or on the field calling plays, but Gonzales added that he “likes him on he ground.”
“As of now we’ve not talked about that. I do like him on the ground, getting a chance. I think it’s important that he has an opportunity to sit and talk to DJ and have DJ look at him in the eyes,” Gonzales said. “I think that’s always something that I’ve always thought was an important piece as a quarterback coach, getting a chance. That’s the main reason to me why I would like him to call plays, just because of that relationship of being able to look at the quarterback, talk to the quarterback, visualize the quarterback, so they’re seeing the same things and hearing the same things.”
Florida’s offense struggled under Napier’s guidance and had their worst output yet in 2025, ranking 90th in total offense and 103rd in scoring offense through seven games.
“I see the same things,” Gonzales said. “Obviously, we want to be more productive. We want to be more explosive. That’s going to be something that we’ll talk about as a staff, offensively, to see what we can do.”
Gonzales was asked about potential wrinkles and changes within the offense.
“I think you’ll see some things that are a little different,” Gonzales said. “I think one thing that I want to hopefully continue to assert in the offense is I think we’ve got a lot of playmakers, and I’d like to be able to spread it out a little bit hopefully and get some of those players involved.”
Gonzales mentioned tweaking some of the plays to put his guys in the ‘best possible position and play to their strengths.”
“We’ve got great players here. If we can get some guys the ball in space and let them work, I think you’ll see a Florida offense that’s ready to roll,” Gonzales added.”
Gonzales was previously Florida’s wide receivers coach. While the interim still plans to be ‘hands on’ with the receivers, Gonzales would like to move into ‘more of a manager’ role as the process unfolds. This would create an opportunity for quality control coaches Chad Lucas and David Doeker to work closely with the receivers.