Billy Napier hires former Alabama defensive lineman at Florida

Former Alabama defensive lineman Alex Watkins is headed back to the SEC. He’s also reuniting with Billy Napier.

Watkins is joining Florida as an assistant strength and conditioning coach, the Gators announced Friday. He spent the last two years at Mississippi State, where he worked as a strength and conditioning coach. Before he went to Mississippi State, Watkins worked at Alabama-Birmingham, Texas Southern and Stillman College.

He played at Alabama from 2007-11 and won two national championships with the Crimson Tide. Napier worked as an analyst at Alabama on that 2011 national championship team.

Watkins played a year with the Tennessee Titans in 2012 before joining the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders in 2013. That’s when he headed to Stillman as head of the strength and conditioning department in 2014.

Billy Napier, Florida bring back program legend in coaching role

Florida has hired former Gators linebacker Mike Peterson as an assistant coach, coaching the outside linebackers and also serving as an alumni liaison for first-year head coach Billy Napier, according to a release.

Peterson is no stranger to the SEC, not just from his playing days but also from his coaching career. The former Florida linebacker coached the last six seasons at South Carolina as an outside linebackers and defensive ends coach, with some of his products — Kingsley Enagbare, TJ Brunson, Ernest Jones and DJ Wonnum — receiving All-SEC honors and/or being selected in the NFL Draft.

A native of Gainesville, Florida, Peterson attended Santa Fe High School before committing to the University of Florida under Steve Spurrier. He played for the Gators from 1995 to 1998 and was a member of the 1996 team that went 12-1, defeated the top-ranked Florida State Seminoles, 52-20, in the Sugar Bowl, and won the national championship. Peterson started 24 of the 42 games in which he appeared at Florida, and he posted 249 tackles, three forced fumbles, 8.5 sacks and 13 tackles for loss. His senior season, in 1999, Peterson was a first-team All-SEC linebacker and a first-team All-American, prompting the Indianapolis Colts to select him in the second round, with the 36th overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft.

He played 13 seasons in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons, notching 951 total tackles, 21.5 sacks, eight forced fumbles and 19 interceptions, while once being named a second-team All-Pro in 2005, before beginning his coaching career in 2013.

The first role Peterson landed out of the NFL was also with Florida, as he served for three seasons as the program’s strength and conditioning coach. In 2016, after his first Florida coaching stint concluded, he accepted a role at South Carolina.