Steve Spurrier wasn’t satisfied with the way his defense played last season so he called on an old friend to assist for the 2015 campaign, taking play-calling duties away from Lorenzo Ward in favor of Jon Hoke.

Ward is thankful he was retained and isn’t worried about sharing the title of defensive coordinator if it means improvements will be made.

“With anything in life you have to go through changes and it’s how you handle it that makes you the person that you are,” Ward said Monday during Hoke’s introduction. “There’s a lot of coordinators that have been coordinators that are position coaches now, there are a lot of head coaches that are position coaches now, those things are happening.”

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Hoke worked as Spurrier’s defensive coordinator at Florida from 1999-01. One of those teams won the SEC Championship, the grand prize that has eluded the Head Ball Coach during his time with the Gamecocks.

“I think there’s no secret I’ve mentioned we were going to add a (defensive) coach, probably after recruiting was over and we did,” Spurrier said. “The timing was such that Jon was able to come and we were together 13 years ago at the University of Florida. Our defensive staff is in excellent shape, I can spend most all my time with the quarterback, wide receivers and offense like I’ve done in my whole coaching career and away we’ll go.”

Since leaving Florida, Hoke has worked in the NFL on defensive staffs for the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears. Hoke is known as a heavy-blitzer, but his plan is to keep terminology and scheme simple during spring practice while the Gamecocks adjust to a coaching change.

“This is a wonderful opportunity, you could probably talk to a lot of coaches in the NFL that’d have an opportunity to come here and coach with Coach Spurrier and this program would be very interested in this,” Hoke said.

Spurrier also announced that assistant coach Grady Brown will move away from the sideline and into a quality control role to make room for Hoke.

Last season, South Carolina suffered its worst defensive showing during the Spurrier era, finishing 13th in the SEC in total defense and 119th overall in sacks (14.0). The Gamecocks’ minus-4 turnover margin was their worst since 2008 (minus-11).