Five weeks after joining the Florida Gators, a former Tennessee Vols assistant is leaving.
Earlier this summer, Florida hired Craig Fitzgerald, a former strength and conditioning coach with the Vols, to take Mark Hocke’s place as the Gators’ former director of strength and conditioning.
This past weekend, word leaked out that Fitzgerald is leaving Gainesville to accept a similar role at Boston College, where Bill O’Brien, the former head coach of the Houston Texans, was just appointed as the team’s new head coach. Fitzgerald and O’Brien had previously collaborated in Houston and at Penn State.
Fitzgerald released a statement saying, “It is with a heavy heart that I announce my decision to leave the University of Florida Football programme.” “After careful consideration, I have chosen to coach at Boston College alongside my buddy Bill O’Brien for the next ten years. I’ve collaborated with Bill for about a decade. While I’m excited to work with him again, I’m sad to be leaving a programme that has such promising young men and personnel that work hard and are dedicated to their profession.”Billy Napier, the head coach of Florida, made a statement regarding Fitzgerald’s leaving.
Fitz has been at Florida for five weeks, and in that time, he has performed admirably, Napier said. He is a highly esteemed and proficient person who has proven to be an invaluable asset to both our players and our organisation. We recognise that these choices are a necessary component of our line of work and that we have all encountered these situations at some point. This game is about relationships, as I’ve mentioned before, and Coach O’Brien and Coach Fitz have a very long history together.”From 2018 to 2019, Fitzgerald was the head strength and conditioning coach for Tennessee. He then left to accept a similar position with the New York Giants, where he worked from 2020 to 2023.
At a crucial juncture in the offseason when strength training assumes paramount importance, Fitzgerald’s abrupt resignation has left Florida searching for a new strength and conditioning coach.
