Contract update on Florida Gators receivers coach Billy Gonzales

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Gators wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales has agreed to a contract extension with the program, Gators Online has learned. His current contract is set to expire Jan. 31.

The terms of his new contact are not yet known.

Gonzales is in his third stint at UF as the WR coach. His first was 2005-09 and he returned from 2018-21 before joining Billy Napier’s staff in March 2023.

Of the 27 draft picks that Gonzales has coached in his career, 18 have been receivers and four were first-round picks, including LSU’s Odell Beckham Jr. The others were Percy Harvin, Kadarius Toney and Ricky Pearsall, three of 12 receivers drafted from Florida after being coached by Gonzales.

Gonzales has also had eight WRs selected in the first two rounds, with the latest being Pearsall. He had a breakout season in 2023 under his tutelage, recording career highs in catches (65) and receiving yards (965) with four touchdowns. He was a first-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers.

“Billy G, he’s got a big resume. He put a lot of guys in the league, you know, especially coming out of here, Florida,” Pearsall said. “The biggest thing for me is how much knowledge I can take away from Coach G. He’s a knowledgeable guy. He knows a lot about techniques as being a receiver.

“There was an NFL receiver coach that came into our meeting and he was just giving a lot of props to Billy G. So, you can just kind of see what he means to those guys at the next level. I’m just taking as much knowledge as I can away from him and implementing it into my game.”

Toney has been one of the most vocal supporters of Gonzales, who developed him from a high school quarterback into the No. 20 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. With his guidance, Toney improved his route running and his trademark move was the jerk route, a shallow crossing route with a stutter step.

“It’s all about patience when you’re running a route like that because you have to wait on the defender to make his move, react off that,” Toney said in 2020. “With Coach G working on footwork drills, I feel like he helped me take off to another level, as you guys saw.”

Toney blossomed as a receiver in 2020, catching 10 touchdowns (tied for seventh in the FBS) and hauling in 70 receptions (tied for sixth on Florida’s single-season record list) for 984 yards (13th nationally), just 16 yards away from the 12th season of 1,000-plus receiving yards in school history.

“Any receiver looking to go to college and be successful, I’ll say go to Florida for real, because of Billy Gonzales,” Toney said at his UF Pro Day. “He really transformed me into what you see today.”

Gonzeles made history in the 2020 NFL Draft when Van Jefferson, Freddie Swain and Tyrie Cleveland became the first trio of UF receivers selected in the first seven rounds of the draft. It marked the first time three Florida WRs were drafted since Wes Chandler, Terry LeCount and Derrick Gaffney in 1978.

This past season, Gonzales helped transfer receivers Elijhah Badger and Chimere Dike boost their draft stock with breakout years. Badger led the Gators in receiving yards (806) and touchdowns (4) on 39 receptions. He averaged 20.7 yards per catch, which ranked No. 5 nationally.

Dike recorded a team-high 42 receptions for 783 yards, which marked a single-season career high for him, and two touchdowns. His 18.6 yards per catch ranked No. 17 in the country. Badger had three 100-yard games in 2024, and Dike had three games with 90-plus receiving yards.

Other notables on Billy Gonzales

The last UF receiver with a 1,000-yard season was Taylor Jacobs in 2002 (1,088). Since then, only five Gators have hit the 900-yard mark in a single season — Chad Jackson (2005), Dallas Baker (2006), Riley Cooper (2009), Kadarius Toney (2020) and Ricky Pearsall (2023) — and all of them were coached by Gonzales.

Only four Gators since 2002 have caught touchdown passes in four straight games — Baker (2005-06), Harvin (2008), Toney (2020) and Trevon Grimes (2020) — and all of them were coached by Gonzales.

In addition to the back-to-back Super Bowl rings by Jefferson and Toney, Gonzales also coached four of the nine players in UF history to win a national title and the Super Bowl: Baker (Pittsburgh, 2009), Deonte Thompson (Baltimore, 2012), Andre Caldwell (Denver, 2016) and Harvin (Seattle, 2014).

Baker shared an emotional moment with Gonzales when he spoke to the Gators football team in 2019.

If you knew my story. You would understand my emotions🤷🏾‍♂️I want to give God & EVERYONE thanks who always helped make my dreams a reality. Coach how I was coached. #ActionsFamilyNotJustWords
🧡💙🐊🤘🏾⚪️💚 check the tree WE ALL learned from him(BG)🧡💙🔴⚫️💜💛💚⚪️ & OUR tree the best pic.twitter.com/OPJKvurBh3

— Dallas Baker (@CoachDBaker81) March 26, 2019