GAINESVILLE, Fla. – What do
Dan Mullen,
Bill Curry,
Bobby Johnson,
Mike Shula,
Sylvester Croom,
Joker Phillips and
Kevin Sumlin all have in common?
If you answered they have all been head coaches in the Southeastern Conference, you are correct. If you answered they all have hired
David Turner as an assistant coach, well, you know your way around Dixieland's Saturday shrines.
Mullen announced the hiring of Turner on Sunday to replace
Sal Sunseri as defensive line coach, marking the third time the two have worked together. When Mullen took over at Mississippi State in 2009, he opted to retain Turner from Croom's staff.
Turner hung around for a year before leaving for Kentucky to rejoin Phillips, the former UF receivers coach (2013) who served as Kentucky's head coach from 2010-12. Turner considers Phillips one of his best friends, so an opportunity to reconnect – both were on Curry's staff at Kentucky in the early 1990s – was an ideal scenario. They had promised each other over the years that if one should become a head coach, the other would join his staff.
When Phillips was fired after the 2012 season and landed with the Gators, Turner returned to Starkville and rejoined Mullen.
"He's coached here, there and a long time in the Southeastern Conference,'' Mullen said then.
He could say the same today.
Turner's
bio is lengthy, his track record opening one door when another one shuts.
For those interested in more information on Florida's newest assistant coach, here are some tidbits from my research:
PLAYING CAREER: Turner was a three-year letterman at Davidson College, a small Presbyterian school in North Carolina where NBA star
Steph Curry first burst onto the national radar years later. A halfback/receiver, Turner played for the Wildcats from 1982-84. He had his best season as a senior when he rushed for 578 yards and caught 29 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns. He then played a season of semi-pro ball in Italy and had a deal with the USFL's Orlando Renegades in 1986. However, the league folded before he ever played a game.
COACHING START: Soon after retiring as a player, Turner took a job at a sporting goods store in Raleigh, N.C. That career faded quickly. By the fall of 1986 Turner was back at Davidson as running backs/tight ends coach on second-year coach
Vic Gatto's staff. If Gatto sounds familiar, perhaps you watched the
excellent 2008 documentary "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29," a famous headline in the
Harvard Crimson after Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds of the 1968 game between the rivals. A 5-foot-6 running back and Harvard's captain, Gatto caught a touchdown pass with no time left to trim Yale's lead to 29-27. A two-point conversion tied the score and prompted a joyous celebration at Harvard Stadium in a game that featured actor
Tommy Lee Jones (a Harvard offensive lineman) and Yale star running back
Calvin Hill (later of the Dallas Cowboys and father of former NBA All-Star
Grant Hill).
SEC VETERAN: Turner's coaching career got off to a modest start. He spent two seasons at Davidson, two as a graduate assistant at N.C. State, and then made stops at Indiana University in Pennsylvania and James Madison. He broke into the SEC in 1993 when Curry hired him as defensive ends coach. In his second game with the Wildcats, Turner was on the opposite side of one of Florida's most famous victories: a 24-20 win at Kentucky in 1993.
Danny Wuerffel's touchdown pass to
Chris Doering in the final seconds allowed UF to escape Lexington with a victory despite seven combined interceptions by Wuerffel and
Terry Dean. Florida is Turner's eighth stop in the SEC (six schools). He has served two stints as an assistant at Kentucky and Mississippi State, and has also coached at Vanderbilt, Alabama and Texas A&M. When Phillips hired Turner in 2010, he was introduced on the same day as another assistant, former Kentucky and Florida offensive line coach
Mike Summers.
QUOTE OF NOTE: "Here's the thing with Coach Turner. I think Coach Turner does a phenomenal job, one of the best defensive line coaches I've ever been around. He believes a three-technique is the same as a five-technique is the same as a nine-technique is the same as a shade. And that two eyes is the same as a four eyes is the same as a six eyes. Regardless of where you're lined up, you're playing that technique." – Former Gators defensive coordinator
Geoff Collins when he was Mississippi State's defensive coordinator in 2014 and Turner was the D-line coach
FINAL TIDBIT: Turner has not had much success against the Gators in his career. In his previous SEC stops, Turner was 1-11 against Florida, going 0-5 with Kentucky, 0-4 with Vanderbilt, 0-1 at Alabama and 0-1 at Mississippi State. His only win came with Texas A&M in 2017.
