William Peagler has been hired as the Gators’ tight ends coach, head coach Billy Napier announced on Friday.
Peagler, 36, coached Michigan State’s running backs over the last two seasons. This year, Kenneth Walker won the Doak Walker Award and finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting after rushing for 1,636 yards and 18 touchdowns.
He helped the Spartans finish the regular season with a 10-2 record and earn a berth in their third New Year’s Six bowl in program history.
Peagler began his career as a student assistant coach at Clemson from 2006-09, and he coached the tight ends at Valdosta State in 2010.
He joined the Louisiana staff in 2011 as a quality control coach and was promoted to an offensive graduate assistant coach for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The Ragin’ Cajuns won the New Orleans Bowl in all three of those years, a tremendous accomplishment for them.
After a year coaching junior college football and a year in the high school ranks, he was hired as a quality control coach by Minnesota in 2016.
The North Carolina native left for a graduate assistant job at Georgia in 2017. He primarily worked with the offensive line that year and helped Isaiah Wynn earn first team All-SEC honors. The Bulldogs won the SEC Championship that year and came up just short against Alabama in the national championship game.
He returned to Louisiana for the 2018 season to work for Napier. He served as the director of player personnel and quality control coordinator that year and helped the school sign the Sun Belt’s highest-ranked recruiting class.
Peagler worked at Colorado as the director of quality control for the offense in 2019 before leaving for his first on-field coaching job at the FBS level at Michigan State in 2020.