Florida DL coach Terrell Williams leaves for NFL, to be replaced by Chris Rumph of Texas

By Adam Silverstein
February 5, 2015

Updated Friday at 3:30 p.m.

Less than a month after hiring of defensive line coach Terrell Williams, the Florida Gators have already been forced to replace him. According to Sports Illustrated, Williams has departed for a return to the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, and Florida head coach Jim McELwain has already replaced him with Texas defensive line coach Chris Rumph.

Since that initial report, The Gainesville Sun‘s Robbie Andreu noted that while Rumph has been offered the job with the Gators, he has yet to accept it.


Williams, who waxed poetic about his move to the Gators by citing his wife’s connection to the state and school, said coaching at Florida was “a great opportunity” for him and his family. He also said he would “rather be at Florida than anywhere in America.”

Despite indicating that he had numerous offers while with the Raiders to join other powerhouse college programs, Williams said he turned them all down until the Gators came calling. Apparently, he preferred life in the NFL, and coaching for the Dolphins gives him the opportunity to still coach in the state near his wife’s family.

“Any time you coach football and get a chance to be around players, you start to develop a relationship. I think those guys at Florida, Coach McElwain is going to be a heck of a coach for the Florida Gators,” he said on Friday. “At the end of the day, it was just a decision that we felt was best for us as a family and that’s why we ended up leaving Florida and coming down here to Miami.”


Rumph, who coached with both McElwain and Florida offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier at Alabama from 2011-13, spent the 2014 season as the assistant head coach for defense and defensive line coach at Texas.

He began his career as a graduate assistant at South Carolina (1997) and then took over as head coach at Calhoun County High School from 1997-2001. From there, he became the defensive backs coach at South Carolina State (2002), outside linebackers coach at Memphis (2003-05), and defensive line coach at Clemson (2006-10).

Noted as a strong recruiter and talented coach, Rumph should be able to pick up right where Williams left off if he ends up being hired by the Gators.

According to ESPN.com recruiting analyst Derek Tyson, Williams’s departure from Florida is not the hold up in the Gators receiving a National Letter of Intent from five-star defensive end commitment CeCe Jefferson.

15 Comments

  1. Gator84 says:

    What?

    Musical Chairs at DL Coach?

    Where’s the NEW WR coach?

  2. Joseph says:

    So should we assume this is the reason we don’t have Jefferson’s LOI? Unreal.

  3. Ryan D says:

    Oh NOOO! Good luck to him. Sucks we couldn’t see what would have been. But does this effect Jefferson or did he send the LOI in?
    Thanks Adam.

  4. GatorKen says:

    This is the DL coach I had hopes we’d hire first. Now bring that LOI CeCe

  5. Ken (CA) says:

    Good opportunity, but wow.. how lame. Guess Byron was right not to trust him

  6. JLBOB says:

    It’s not cool to keep this stuff under wraps until after kids sign binding letters.

  7. 1974Gator says:

    Williams is a rat fink. Hope Charlie is sorry to see Rumph go.

  8. 305Gator says:

    Dude should have never accepted the Gator job if he wanted to stay in the NFl to begin with. But concluding that “Byron was right” not to trust him is ludicrous, any coach can come and go and so will Muschump soon enough and leave Byron behind.
    The problem with Jefferson has been widely reported as being his father, not whoever the Gator DL coach happens to be.

  9. G8rman95 says:

    At least one Texas board is claiming the SI report is false.

    Tweets from their DL recruits make it sound false also.

    Charles #⃣7⃣ @charless_94 · 1m 1 minute ago

    Got the truth so I’m chillin now ��

  10. Mike The Red says:

    Did Coach Mac just get played? How did the offer become public knowledge? Is Chris Rumph looking for a raise at Texas?

  11. SW FL Joe says:

    Great, its the Matt Lubick thing all over again

  12. 1974Gator says:

    What kind of rag and bogus .com site has SI turned into? If they reported this rumor w/o confirmation first……….it’s CNN journalism. Back to the real world, has CeCe’s LOI made it to our offices yet?

  13. Ken (CA) says:

    You know, the really crazy thing about this is that Williams replaced Lawing. If Mac had kept Lawing, we probably would have Cowart and Holland, too.

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