Florida’s coaching staff rounded out on Monday night as it was announced that Todd Golden had made another assistant coach hire, this time Kevin Hovde.
Hovde was on staff at San Francisco from 2016-2021 before he went to Richmond for the 2021-2022 season. Prior to his time at San Francisco he was at Columbia, following about the same career path as Golden to get to Florida.
His move to Richmond was a homecoming as he played at Richmond and was actually a part of current head coach Chris Mooney’s first ever recruiting staff for the Spiders. Starting as a walk on, he steadily improved until he earned a scholarship.
During his time at San Francisco, Hovde saw consistent quality defensive teams and improving offensive squads.
Moving to Richmond, Hovde got a year on the staff of one of the best offensive minds in the country in Chris Mooney. The Spiders have been known for their elite five-out, Princeton-inspired offense for years and this last season it’s what propelled them to an Atlantic 10 Tournament title and an upset win over Iowa in the NCAA Tournament. Richmond’s offenses have been modern, well-spaced, and innovative, and experience on a staff like that makes Hovde an intriguing hire.
At San Francisco Todd Golden always had an offensive coordinator, while he took over the defense. While on staff at San Francisco Hovde was the offensive coordinator, and you can expect him to take over that role at Florida. His experience as the play caller at San Francisco and the fact that he spent last year on a fantastic offensive staff at Richmond should give Gators fans hope that they’ll roll out a quality offense this next season.
Much like San Francisco, Richmond has also been known for their analytical approach to the game and especially recruiting. Hovde fits Golden’s mindset of data-driven decision making and results-based science and they’ll use that approach to try to get things going in Gainesville in a hurry.
With the staff rounded out the Gators can now go full speed ahead on trying to keep players eligible to return back on campus as well as attack a transfer portal that is loaded with talent. Florida’s staff has innovative minds that will use all the tools possible at their disposal to try to get talent into Gainesville and we should start to see the building blocks in place soon.