Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel is reporting that former Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni is taking a special assistant to the head coach position at the University of Florida.
Thamel mentions in the piece that Pasqualoni’s job with the Gators will be much different than the ones he previously held. “Pasqualoni is expected to take an off-field role… He’ll be working with the offense at Florida in a role where he helps the offensive staff break down opposing defenses and also helping head coach Dan Mullen evaluate the program from a macro view.”
Like Lions’ coach Matt Patricia, Mullen is a former pupil of Pasqualoni — he was a graduate assistant at Syracuse in 1998 — and will be leaning on his former mentor to help improve the program.
It’s an interesting move for Pasqualoni, as his departure from Detroit was explained as him “stepping away from the Lions to be closer to his family” who live in Connecticut. But as the Athletic’s Chris Burke pointed out on Twitter, “Whenever he spoke to the media last year, Pasqualoni did not sound like someone ready to hang ‘em up.”