Billy Napier’s “army” of staffers at Florida will include a former NFL scout to evaluate transfers from the JUCO level and college players in the portal.

On Monday, Florida announced the hiring of Bird Sherrill as director of college personnel.

Sherrill comes to Florida after working for the Detroit Lions for the past 6 seasons. He joined the Lions in 2016 and worked as a scouting assistant for 2 seasons. The last 4 seasons, Sherrill has been a scout for the franchise.

Florida’s announcement says Sherrill’s responsibilities with the Lions included evaluation and production of scouting reports, annual draft prep and free agency acquisitions. At UF, he will focus on the evaluation of the transfer portal and JUCO players.

Sherrill was a student recruiting specialist at Alabama from 2013-16, a 4-year period when Napier was the Crimson Tide’s wide receivers coach.