Gators targeting Familiar Face For Front Office Role

The Florida Gators continue to piece together its front office for the football program.

The Florida Gators continue to piece together its front office for the football program. | Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

The Florida Gators are reportedly targeting Drew Hughes, the former director of player personnel under head coaches Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain, for a front office role, per CBS Sports' Matt Zenitz.

Hughes, a highly experienced candidate most recently working as a scout for the Senior Bowl, spent three years with the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2021-2024 as a player personal coordinator, with previous stops in personnel roles at South Carolina and Tennessee. He was at the University of Florida from 2014-17 under both Muschamp and McElwain, helping the Gators to three top-12 recruiting classes in four years.

Florida is targeting Drew Hughes for a front office role, sources tell @CBSSports.

Has most recently been a scout for the Senior Bowl after three seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Was previously a college DPP for teams like South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida. pic.twitter.com/O9nHOOxiVR

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) January 29, 2026

Hughes has spent almost 20 years in the college football landscape after beginning as a recruiting specialist at Alabama while attending the school in 2007. He was hired at Florida at just 26 years old, in a stint where he would assist in bringing in talented recruits such as Teez Tabor, Taven Bryan, Kadarius Toney, CJ Henderson and Will Grier.

Initially a volunteer practice videographer at Alabama, Hughes built a career through player scouting, once having to bug Crimson Tide’ graduate assistants to join them in breaking down film. Since 2012, he has helped in bringing in 30 NFL draft picks at programs he has worked with, including 12 in the 2018 draft.

His most recent college stint was at South Carolina in 2020, where he would reunite with Muschamp for a year before leaving for the Jaguars. The Gamecocks would finish with the 19th ranked recruiting class that season, highlighted by five star Jordan Burch, who was the program’s second highest rated signee of all time behind just Jadeveon Clowney.

Now back at Florida, Hughes will join a front office headlined by former Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell. The Gators have made multiple new additions to the staff since the hiring of new head coach Jon Sumrall, while Hughes seemingly brings a shared mindset to the new Gators staff and specifically head coach.

“Identifying the players that can come in and help us win championships, and [developing] the process of doing that,” Hughes previously said in 2014 describe his role with Florida. “There are no hours, you go until the job is done.”

The addition of Hughes will help Florida in an attempt to re-establish the standard of the program, with Sumrall seemingly determined to recruit at a high level early on at University. The Gators have already gained solid momentum on the trail, while there has been a serious focus on adding elite high school talent from the new staff.

“I believe that the lifeblood of your program is recruiting good high school players, and at Florida, elite high school football players.” the new Gators coach Sumrall said in his introductory press conference. “This is a unique environment because I'm going to have an opportunity to recruit the best players in the country. Like there's no reason why we shouldn't attract the very top end of the talent coming out of high school. That excites me.”

Hughes and the rest of Florida’s front office will be tasked with giving Sumrall and Florida every resource needed to add such talent in the new NIL era of college football, while the Gators hope to re-establish a dominance on the recruiting trail the program once had, while also looking for the once dominance on the field as well.