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Florida to reportedly hire Washington assistant Robert Bala as LB coach, co-DC
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Florida is heading to the Big Ten and to the Pacific Northwest to continue filling out its coaching staff for 2025, hiring Washington’s Robert Bala as co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, sources told Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports and 247Sports on Wednesday.
Before spending what appears to be his 1 and only season at Washington as inside linebackers coach, Bala was the linebackers coach at Alabama during the 2023 season. Bala coached standout Crimson Tide players like Dallas Turner and Deontae Lawson while in Tuscaloosa, and now he’s reportedly heading back to the SEC to coach under Billy Napier at Florida.
Bala had a little taste of the NFL a little over a decade ago as an intern for the Oakland Raiders before his collegiate coaching career really got going in 2017. He was the special teams coach at Ottawa University (Kansas) for 1 season, then spent 4 years at Southern Utah between 2018-21 as the defensive coordinator, linebackers coach and cornerbacks coach.
Bala was then an analyst at Liberty in 2022 before heading to the big time at Alabama the following season to coach under Nick Saban in what turned out to be his final season at Alabama.
Now, it appears that Bala is going back to the SEC after a 1-year stop in the Big Ten.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
