The Florida Gators are expected to add Washington’s inside linebackers coach Robert Bala to their defensive staff, Gator Country has learned. 247Sports’ Matt Zenitz had it first.
Gator Country reported on Monday that Bala was expected to interview with Florida, which took place in Gainesville on Wednesday. Florida also interviewed Tim Skipper, a former assistant at UF who was believed to be interviewing for the same role as Bala.
Bala will handle inside linebackers and serve as Florida’s co-defensive coordinator (according to 247Sports), joining Vinnie Sunseri in that role, who was hired on January 25th.
“I think we potentially here could hire another coach on defense, you know, and let Ron [Roberts] kind of walk around, much like we did the last two-thirds of the year, if that makes sense. I think that’s kind of when we started making progress,” Napier said on Wednesday. “So, I think just the expertise and the feedback and having eyes on each position from a meeting, individual, you know, I think that part was healthy for us. So, yeah, I think we’re in the inside linebacker coach world, that could happen.”
Billy Napier told Gator Country in an exclusive interview last week that Florida could be adding multiple assistant coaches to its staff. The Gators want to take advantage of essentially having unlimited on the field coaches, per the NCAA’s new rule.
“There’s no limitations in terms of the number of people that you can add to your team that can coach football,” Napier told Gator Country. “It would be foolish not to add every good coach that we can add to the team to help develop the players. The new rule where everyone could coach on the field, so you aren’t locked into that traditional 10 coach model.”
Bala joined Jedd Fisch’s staff at Washington as the linebackers coach in 2024. He came to Seattle after spending the 2023 season in the same position at Alabama. Bala guided two Huskie linebackers to All Big-Ten selections as Carson Bruener and Alphonzo Tuputala earned third team and honorable mention. Freshman linebacker Khmori House was named honorable mention Freshman All-America under Bala.
Bala spent the 2022 season as a defensive analyst for Liberty, contributing to a Flames defense that ranked 1st nationally in tackles for loss per game (9.3) and No. 3 in sacks per game (3.46).
The 16-year coaching veteran has also made stops with the Oakland Raiders, Southern Utah, Ottawa, the University of Arizona, Palomar College and Snow Junior College. Bala served as defensive coordinator at both Southern Utah and Palomar College while coaching linebackers, cornerbacks and safeties during his career.