Florida Gators Assistant Coach Profiles: Who is Sean Spencer?

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier is building an army, but that lies not only within his robust support staff but with his assistant coaches as well.

Photo: Sean Spencer; Credit: Alex Shepherd 

When Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier was introduced as the team's next head coach, he promised the Gator Nation an "army" when describing his incoming coaching staff. 

The staff would consist of assistants who have gotten recognition around the college football world as some of the best in the game.

"We're going to hire an army of people here," Napier said on Dec. 5 last year. "We're going to create an infrastructure not only in the personnel department but also from an on-campus recruiting, creative media, name, image and likeness. We're going to create -- we've got a great vision for the organization that we're going to create here."

Napier, of course, was referring not only to the assistant coaches that he would eventually lock-in but also to the enormous support staff - comprised of 48 individuals that were eventually brought on to help build out the staff.

With that said, over the next couple of weeks, we at AllGators will be releasing profiles to get to know each assistant coach, including their background, recruiting history, quotes and more.

Next, we will take a look at another former NFL coach in Florida co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach Sean Spencer.

Background info:

Spencer, 51, was hired by Napier shortly after the end of the NFL's regular season on Jan. 15. He spent the past two years in the NFL as the New York Giants' DL coach (2020-21). He worked with Florida OL coach Rob Sale last year, leading to a quick reunion in Gainesville.

Spencer would begin his coaching career at the collegiate level, coaching wide receivers and tight ends for Wesleyan in 1995. He moved on to Shippensburg as the team's running backs coach (1996-97) before becoming the RB coach for Trinity for two years from 1998-99 before moving to the defensive side of the football in 2000 as the program's DL coach.

Since then, Spencer has primarily coached the DL at several universities including, Massachusetts (2001-03 and 2007-08), Holy Cross (2004), Villanova (linebackers coach, 2005), Hofstra (2006), Bowling Green (2009-10), Vanderbilt (2011-13) and Penn State (2014-19). Spencer would hold the title of Associate head coach at Penn State for his final two years there.

It was at Penn State where Spencer would be given the nickname 'Chaos' and it's stuck ever since. Chaos mentioned in 2014 to TribLive's John Harris that assistant coach Dwight Galt gave him the nickname.

“Play with organized chaos. I always use that word. I'm kind of hyper, running around all the time," he said at the time. "Coach Chaos. It's what the guys call me. You have to have that to play the position. It's not a position where you can chill out. When they see their coach like that, I think they kind of feed off that (too).”

Recruiting history:

Coach Spencer's recruiting record might be the only one on staff to come close to rivaling cornerbacks coach Corey Raymond's.

During his time at Penn State, Chaos landed several top-tier recruits, including Micah Parsons, the No. 5 rated recruit in the country at the time, Odafe Oweh, Saquan Barkley, Yetur Gross-Matos and offensive lineman Michal Menet.

All of those players have gone on to be selected in the NFL Draft with Parsons, Barkley, Oweh and Gross-Matos selected in the first or second round.

That's not a complete history of his recruiting efforts, either. He's landed 26 four-star or better players as a primary or secondary recruiter, primarily for Penn State. His resume speaks for itself in recruiting, and in coaching.

How it's going:

Though Spencer was hired after the Gators landed their 2022 DL recruits such as Chris McClellan, he has already had a hand in landing at least one player in DL Jack Pyburn, a late addition to this year's class.

Currently, Spencer is a primary recruiter for several of Florida's top DL targets for this year's class, including DL Derrick LeBlanc (Osceola, Fla), Jordan Hall (Westside, Fla.), Will Norman (IMG Academy, Fla.) and John Walker (Osceola, Fla).

Quotable:  

“He’s a great technique coach. That’s kind of what I was missing. I was playing a lot of just physical football and dominating the game just based off me and my physical ability. Coach Chaos came in and he’s – the same way coach Napier is doing – breaking the small things down and teaching me the small techniques that I may not [have] known was a problem but is a problem.”- Gators DL Gervon Dexter on Spencer.

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