Haskins hired as Florida’s director of personnel

Former Stanford Cardinal and NFL linebacker Jon Haskins has been hired as the new director of player personnel for the Florida Gators football team, CBSSports.com‘s Bruce Feldman reported Tuesday evening.

Haskins, who served as director of player personnel for the Nevada Wolfpack in 2011, spent four years at Stanford prior to that as assistant director (2007) and director of player development (2008-10). He worked as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for Pace (2010) and the managing editor of Rivals.com affiliate Cardinal Report (2010-11) in the 19 months between those positions.

A four-year Cardinal starter from 1994-97, Haskins went on to spend three years in the NFL with San Diego and Philadelphia (1998-2000) before playing in the first and only season of the XFL for the San Francisco franchise (2000-01). After hanging up his cleats, he took a graduate assistant role at Duke, helping coach the offensive line, special teams and tight ends from 2002-04.

He also served as the assistant general manager and director of football operations for the Sarasota (his hometown) Arena2 football franchise (2005-06) and spent nearly two-and-a-half years away from the game before being hired by Stanford in 2007.

In his role with Florida, Haskins will primarily be counted on to coordinate the Gators’ recruiting efforts and help run football operations (among other responsibilities). The classes he helped recruit at Stanford finished 50th (2008), 20th (2009) and 26th (2010) nationally according to Rivals‘ final rankings.

Three of Haskins’s four years with the Cardinal were spent with current UF linebackers/special teams coach D.J. Durkin, who was a defensive ends/special teams coach at Stanford from 2007-09.

He replaces Mark Pantoni, who left the Gators’ following the 2011 season to join former head coach Urban Meyer‘s new staff at Ohio State.