North Florida Fires Smoke Laval After Seven Seasons

North Florida on Wednesday fired head coach Smoke Laval after seven seasons. The Ospreys went 33-24 this season, and Laval was 237-160 in his tenure, including 45 wins in 2015.

Laval, whose given first name is Raymond, became the UNF coach on July 1, 2010 after previously coaching at Louisiana-Monroe and at Louisiana State, where he was an assistant for 10 years under Skip Bertman before taking over for Bertman and bringing LSU to the College World Series in 2003 and ’04.

The Ospreys twice won 40 games under Laval, who was a pro scout for the Blue Jays (2007-09). Laval was also known at LSU as one of the nation’s best recruiters.

He began his coaching career in 1977 as an assistant at Jacksonville before moving to Wolfson High School in Jacksonville as a baseball and football coach.

2017 COACHING CHANGES
School	Departures	Arrivals
Alabama	Greg Goff
Cincinnati	Ty Neal
Citadel	Fred Jordan
Dayton	Tony Vittorio
La Salle	Mike Lake
Massachusetts	Mike Stone	Matt Reynolds
North Florida	Smoke Laval
Santa Clara	Dan O’Brien
Stanford	Mark Marquess (retiring after season)
Tennessee	Dave Serrano
Texas-Rio Grande Valley	Manny Mantrana
Towson	Mike Gottlieb
Virginia Tech	Patrick Mason