Nick Zimmerman was the head coach at Mississippi State in 2025 and an assistant and associate head coach the five previous seasons. [Photo by Hallie Walker]
Zimmerman's Strategy: Get the Ball, Keep the Ball, Score the Ball
Friday, December 5, 2025 | Soccer, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Nick Zimmerman was 15 when he made his first national team. He was a midfielder, but the coaches put him back on defense. Nick Zimmerman
"I remember thinking, 'This is perfect. Let's bomb forward,' " Zimmerman recalled. "I knew I was supposed to stay in the back, but I wanted to dribble. I just always wanted the ball and always wanted to attack."
It was his DNA at the youth level, in club, in high school, college and over six years in four different professional leagues. And during those stints in the MLS, NASL and USL, Zimmerman – like all true devotees of the "beautiful game" – always had an eye for action across the pond. When Zimmerman went looking for a game, it was for FC Barcelona or Bayern Munich or, for the last decade, Manchester City.
They were all teams coached by the legendary player-turned-coach Pep Guardiola, whose ball-possession and attacking philosophy spoke to Zimmerman then and – even more so – after he transitioned into coaching.
A fired-up Nick Zimmerman in the Bulldogs' post-game locker room last fall.
When Zimmerman arrived at MSU, alongside head coach James Armstrong in 2019, the Bulldogs had played in just one NCAA Tournament and only twice had put together back-to-back winning seasons since the program debuted in 1995. Seven years later, Mississippi State is on a streak of four consecutive tournaments, including a 2024 season when the Bulldogs won the Southeastern Conference with a 10-0 record, earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Sweet 16.
Armstrong bolted for Auburn after the '24 campaign, with Zimmerman promoted from his associate head coaching spot and leading the Bulldogs to a 12-7-1 record in '25 that was highlighted by an upset of No. 1-ranked Tennessee.
At UF, he'll take over a program that once dominated the conference – 14 league titles, 22 NCAA berths and the 1998 national championship under Hall-of-Famer Becky Burleigh – but has not qualified for NCAA play under its three different coaches since 2019.
"Look at the history and tradition and success of what Florida soccer was when Becky created the program," said Zimmerman, a native of Rhode Island whose family moved to Tampa when he was a youth and thus has built in Sunshine State ties. "Florida is still the only SEC to win a national championship. It's Florida. It's elite. It's Jordan. It's the SEC. It's a brand. There are so many good things to say about Florida and what it means to be a Gator and all the players who have come through here. This is a place we want the top, top players to come and we're going to hit the ground running."
The rebuild he executed caught the attention of the right people.
"Nick is a proven builder of winning programs," Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin said. "His results are not accidental — he recruits at a high level, develops talent, and instills a standard that produces sustained success. He's equally committed to developing young women as competitors and leaders, and that commitment shows up in how his teams train, compete, and grow over time. Florida soccer expects to compete for championships and Nick embraces that expectation. His vision, discipline and competitive DNA make him the right leader for this moment in our program."
Nick Zimmerman (23) in his professional soccer days.
He has the pedigree. Zimmerman was a standout at Tampa Wharton High who became a first-team All-Colonial Athletic Association player at James Madison University and eventually was drafted by the MLS New York Red Bulls.
After his pro career was ended by a knee injury, Zimmerman turned to coaching, doing three years at Columbus (Ga.) State before being lured by Armstrong to Mississippi State. There, the Bulldogs incrementally improved, along the way building a fanbase that routinely praised the staff for how hard its teams played on the pitch, and eventually punched its way into weekly appearances in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25 after appearing in the rankings just three times in the program's history.
The Bulldogs posted winning records in two of the first three seasons, had a post-Covid hiccup in 2021, but in 2022 started a four-year run of going 55-22-10. Along the way, three MSU players earned All-America honors, 13 were selected to All-SEC teams and four garnered SEC Player of the Year accolades, most recently 2025 Midfielder of the Year Ally Perry.
"I think if I can recruit to Starkville, I can recruit to Gainesville," Zimmerman said.
Given all that UF can offer, the program's recruiting pitch will be multi-fold, but when it comes to the style of play on the field it will be one of aggression on offense. Zimmerman wanted the ball as a player and he'll want his players to want it more than he ever did. There will be no mistaking that objective, given his high-energy personality.
Working the crowd at a Mississippi State match.
"We're going to want to dominant the ball and that is one of our non-negotiables," he said. "And when we don't have it, we're going to hunt it like crazy and get it back. We're going to be relentless in how we defend in our actions and we're going to work together and do a job-and-a-half."
They'll need to. The Florida program struggled mightily to score goals the last three seasons, averaging 1.41 per game in both 2023 and '25 and a league-low 0.72 in between during the '24 season. The Gators won just four SEC games over that span.
So it goes without saying that paramount among Zimmerman's goals will be more goals. Many more.
And they won't score them without the ball.
Which leads back to that first goal: His players seeing the soul-breaking look on opponents' faces when Florida gets the ball, knowing they're about to defend 40 to 50 passes.
"That's the definition of crushing spirit and that ultimately is how you dominate an opponent. With the ball," Zimmerman said. "When they know they've lost the ball and they're not going to see it for minutes at a time … that's the identity I want and will never waver from. That's who I am, how I ID, and that will be who we are."
