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Update: Florida announced Davis's firing Sunday afternoon. Original story follows.
Florida has fired offensive line coach Tim Davis, according to CBS Sports reporter Bruce Feldman.
Davis oversaw offensive lines that were porous at their worst and adequate at their best in his two years at Florida after being hired to replace Frank Verducci in 2012. Florida allowed 39 sacks in 2012, a staggering three per game, but balanced that poor pass protection with excellent run blocking that allowed Mike Gillislee to become the first Florida runner since Ciatrick Fason to gain more than 1,000 yards in a season and paved the way for a healthy 4.5 yards per carry for Florida runners.
In 2013, however, Florida's pass blocking improved marginally — the Gators allowed 27 sacks in 12 games — and its run blocking took a dive, as injuries to three starting offensive tackles forced constant shuffling of the offensive line. Florida managed just 145.8 rushing yards per game in 2013, but, more importantly, saw its yards per carry drop nearly a full yard, to 3.63.
Running back Matt Jones suffering a serious illness in the late summer and a season-ending injury midway through the season also factored into that result, but Florida's line gave Mack Brown and Kelvin Taylor few holes to run through, and its flaws affected both its attempts to throw and run: A lack of pass protection made passing the ball riskier, and led Florida to run more often, but a lack of success on running downs left Florida in third and long repeatedly, permitting defenses to tee off on Florida quarterbacks.
We'll have an exhaustive list of potential candidates to replace Davis in the next 24 hours, but one name to note is Western Kentucky offensive line coach Neil Callaway, who has previously served in the same role at both Alabama and Georgia, and who was mentioned by Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel as a candidate for the position last week.
