Welcome to Gator Nation, Craig Fitzgerald! (Photo credit: Andrew Ferguson, Tennessee Athletics)
The Florida Gators have their new head of strength and conditioning. Even if they’re calling it something different.
Craig Fitzgerald, the New York Giants’ director of strength and performance, is coming to Gainesville to oversee the Gators’ strength and conditioning program. Though his role is being dubbed as the “Director of Football Performance,” he is effectively taking over the duties of Mark Hocke. Hocke, who came from Louisiana with Billy Napier, will be transitioning into a new role with the Gators.
Fitzgerald spent the 2023 season with the Giants after spending the 2021 and 2022 seasons with the Tennessee Volunteers under Josh Heupel. In Knoxville, Fitzgerald held the title of “Director of Football Sports Performance.” Redundant as that title may be, there’s no debating that Fitzgerald did some solid work on Rocky Top, helping pull the Vols from the crater that Jeremy Pruitt buried that program underneath and helping guide them to a bowl game in his first year before pushing them to a remarkable 11-2 season that culminated in an Orange Bowl win over Clemson.
Fitzgerald’s resume is far more impressive than just one fluke resurrection of a season at Tennessee, though. He served as the head strength and conditioning coach of the Houston Texans from 2014-17, helping the Texans win two straight AFC South championships in 2015 and 2016. The Texans also enjoyed three consecutive winning seasons for the first time in franchise history (2014-16) under his off-field stewardship.
Before his time in Houston, Craig Fitzgerald led the strength and conditioning program at Penn State in 2012 and 2013, where he became known locally for his “Iron Lion” shirts, which brought awareness to a variety of terrible diseases, such as pediatric cancer. Prior to that, he held a role at South Carolina under Steve Spurrier, helping build the Gamecocks into the SEC East Champions in 2010 and leading them to a historically successful 11-2 record in 2011.
But to really get a feel for Craig Fitzgerald, even more so than just by reading his resume, listen to what his current players with the New York Giants have to say about him leaving. “I’m gonna miss him a lot,” lamented Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. “He helped me heal a lot.” “I love Fitz with all my heart, man. We don’t want him to leave at all,” added safety Jihad Ward.
Time is ultimately going to tell how good or bad of a hire this is, because that’s the only true way to gauge a hire. You come back later and see how in panned out. But Billy Napier and Florida don’t have hindsight at their disposal; all they can dodo is use the information at hand to make the best decision possible. And with the information they currently have at hand, to grab an NFL strength coach with a resume like this is about as impressive a hire as Florida could have made.
Now, in what many fans and media members agree is a make-or-break offseason, two questions remain. What will Billy Napier do about hiring an offensive coordinator, and what will he do about hiring a special teams coordinator?
Maybe Napier moves slower than most would like, but as we saw with the hire of Craig Fitzgerald, that doesn’t necessarily mean the hire will be a bad one.
