Florida announces hiring of defensive assistant coach Charlton Warren

Dan Mullen made his latest addition to his Florida Gators staff on Friday, with the school announcing the hiring of former Tennessee defensive backs coach and special teams coordinator Charlton Warren as a defensive assistant in a release.

Warren comes to Florida from Knoxville, where he spent the 2017 season on Butch Jones’s staff and forging one of the stingier secondaries in the country. Tennessee finished its season ranked sixth nationally in passing yardage per game allowed, though its pass efficiency defense was only No. 60 at the end of the regular season. And despite being coupled to an atrocious run defense, the Vols currently sit at No. 29 nationally in defensive Passing S&P+ — a clear sign that Tennessee’s pass defense was the best part of a bad team.

Of course, Warren’s defensive backs were partly at fault for that one Hail Mary.

Warren also previously worked at North Carolina and Air Force, the latter of which is his alma mater. Warren played for the Falcons in the late 1990s, graduating from the academy in 1999. In his post-collegiate career, he served as an active duty Air Force officer at Warner Robins AFB in Georgia and Eglin AFB in the Florida Panhandle.

Warren is the fifth assistant coach hired under Mullen, following offensive assistants Billy Gonzales, John Hevesy, and Brian Johnson and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. (Mullen has also hired Nick Savage as his strength coach.) Warren, however, is the first coach hired by Mullen to not have previously worked with him at a prior stop.