Multiple sources have told Gator Country that former Texas offensive line and assistant head coach Stacey Searels has accepted an offer to become Florida’s offensive line coach. Searels, who served on the staff with Florida head coach Will Muschamp at LSU, is expected to be announced either Sunday or Monday.
Muschamp made it clear that the 2013 season was unacceptable. He said he would “fix it” following the Georgia Southern game and that fix began with dismissing both offensive coordinator Brent Pease and offensive line coach. Former Duke offensive coordinator Kurt Roper will take over as the Gators new offensive coordinator and Searels will join him Gainesville coaching in the trenches.
Searels was a first team All-American offensive lineman at Auburn, where he played at from 1984-87. He was part of an offensive line that paved the way for Bo Jackson to win the Heisman in 1985. He played three years in the NFL, two with the San Diego Chargers and one with the Miami Dolphins.
After working as a graduate assistant at Auburn, Searels broke into coaching with Appalachian State (1994-2000) before moving on to Cincinnati (2000-02). Searels joined the LSU staff in 2003 where Muschamp was the defensive coordinator and now Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher was the offensive coordinator. LSU won the national championship in 2003. When Nick Saban and Muschamp left for the Miami Dolphins in 2004, Searels and Fisher remained on Les Miles’ staff at LSU until 2007 when Fisher went to Florida State as offensive coordinator and head coach in waiting and Searels went to Georgia where he spent four years as the offensive line coach.
At Georgia, Searels’ offensive lines gave up only 42 sacks in the 39 games from 2007-09. Dealing with injuries and a freshman quarterback in 2010, the Georgia O-line gave up 25 sacks but the Bulldogs did produce a 3,000-yard passer and an 800-yard rusher despite numerous injuries both on the O-line and the backfield.
Searels was at Texas three years (2011-13). He was named assistant head coach in 2012. His best year was the 2012 season when Texas averaged 35.7 points and gave up only 16 sacks in 13 games. The Longhorns averaged 4.6 yards per rush and 8.5 per pass attempt. In 2013 with quarterback injuries that derailed the offense, the Longhorns still averaged 4.44 per rush and 6.4 per pass attempt while giving up only 16 sacks.
Searels is known as a strong recruiter. Since arriving at Texas, Searels has signed 10 4-star and four 5-star offensive linemen. He also sent five offensive linemen from LSU to the NFL.
The Gators currently have five offensive linemen committed to the 2014 recruiting class including consensus 5-star offensive tackle David Sharpe from Providence High School in Jacksonville.
Congrats on breaking this story, Gator Country. No one else is running with it yet. Looks like a great hire. This is an area where the Gators need to improve the most. The fact that Searels is a strong recruiter is icing on the cake.
In retrospect, there was likely a good reason no one else was running with it. May be a good idea to take this story off the front page?
Actually four different websites all ran with this story.
Jeremy Fowler just tweeted that UF is interviewing UCF’s OL coach, Brent Key, tomorrow…
You realize that the Gainesville Sun is reporting someone else has been hired, right?