Florida head coach Jon Sumrall met with the media Monday morning ahead of the Gators’ season opener against FAU. Here’s everything he had to say.
Opening statement:
“Alright, game week. exciting. Obviously, do all this work all year to play football games, and I look forward to watching our guys go compete and put their hard work to use. We got a really good opponent in FAU, played them last year when I was at Tulane. Explosive offensively. I think the 15th or 16th most production returning in college football. You look at the quarterback, he’s played a lot of football. Really experienced, a big guy with a good arm. He makes all the throws, he runs a little bit better than you think. Receiving corps they’ve got is really good. This No. 8 sticks out from last year to me. He’s the guy they target a lot, and makes a lot of plays. But they got other good players around him. They’ve added good pieces through the transfer portal at tight end. The running back room they have is good. The O-line is solid. They do a nice job operating with their scheme. And defensively, this No. 1, I remember him being a game-wrecker last year on the D-line when we played them; it felt like he was a problem. And they’re really well-coached across the board. They’re good at special teams. I think that’s probably something that doesn’t get talked about enough. They were top 40 in every special teams category that we evaluate last year. So that’s an area that we have to be dialed in and be well prepared. But excited to watch our guys go play, and we need an unbelievable home-field advantage. You know, when I went through the process of taking this job, I remembered playing here in 2004 and how electric the venue is. We need it to be that way every time we play home. When we play this Saturday night, there shouldn’t be an empty seat, and we need Gator Nation to turn out to support our guys. If we want an elite-level program, which I think we all want, it takes everybody. Takes the fans, takes the coaches, it takes the players, it takes everybody. And so, we need Saturday night; it needs to feel like we want to be a top 20, top 10 team, a playoff team. That’s our goal and our vision. It needs to feel like that every time we plan that state. So I look forward to hopefully seeing that crowd Saturday night embrace our football team, and our guys are ready, they put in a lot of work. I tell people this all the time around our building: Monday through Friday, those are my days; Saturday’s the players’ day. I can’t wait to watch them go play Saturday night. We got a lot of work to do before we get there. So with that, we’ll open it up.”
On Sumrall’s excitement level for his debut:
“I’ll be amped, I’l be amped. But the day’s not about me. Never will be. You know, like I said, coaches’ days to me are Sunday through Friday. We coach the hell out of our players all the time. I mean, you’re not fortunate enough to be at practice, but today on the offensive field, I mean, they were coaching everything. The defensive field, everything. Special teams. I lost my mind during the special teams period at one point because I saw something I didn’t like. Our guys are getting coached every play, every day, Sunday through Friday. I mean this, Saturday I want to be about the players. And yeah, I’ll get critiqued when things don’t go well, I’m fine there, and get credit when they go good, whatever. But Saturday, the game day, at that point, you’ve coached them. They don’t rise to the occasion, I think they fall to the level of their training. Well, I want them to be so trained that Saturday night, they can go cut loose and play the game the right way. For me personally, I will be excited. I’m excited every time we play. I don’t care if playing in the parking lot, I’m excited. I don’t care who the opponent is, I’m excited. It’s an opportunity. I told our team this morning, you get 12 regular-season games. I’m not going to say who, I had another colleague this summer say, ‘I don’t know, you can’t get your team up for all 12 games.’ I’m like, ‘Well, maybe you can’t. But if you can’t get up for all 12 games, you got a problem.’ You work so dagnum hard, I’ll be really excited about the opportunity to watch our team go play and all the work that’s been put in. Go cut it loose.”
On his journey from playing here 22 years ago to coaching Florida now:
“Yeah, I’m getting older. It’s funny, I talked to my head college coach, my last two years, on Saturday afternoon. Rich Brooks was head coach at Oregon from 1977 to ’94. The field that Oregon’s named after, Coach Brooks, it’s Autzen Stadium but it’s Rich Brooks Field. And then Coach Brooks was my college head coach in ’03 and 4, my last two years as a player. Every time we talk, I kid around with him: in 2004, he almost got fired because he was starting guys like me. But I called him just to tell him thank you. I said, ‘Coach, it’s crazy to think that, you know, 22 years ago, I was playing in the stadium as a below-average linebacker in this league. And now I’m getting a coach as a head coach in this stadium, in this venue, at this program.’ I just wanted him to know, like, without you, I wouldn’t be here. There’s a lot of people that have helped me get to where I am. I haven’t gotten here on my own. Now, don’t discredit, I’ve worked really, really hard to be here. But there’s so many people that have invested in me as either a young person, as coming up in this game, or as a coach. There’s a ton of people that have helped me get to this point and I’ll think about a lot of those people this week. I do every year, game one, about all the people that have helped me become the football person that I am.”
On mock game week and what Sumrall wants to clean up this week:
“Yeah, mock game week, it’s as much about everybody understanding the battle rhythms as I like to call it. Like the rhythm and the routine about how you get ready for the Saturday game. And so today, Monday practice, our guys experienced last Monday what that looked like. Tomorrow’s Tuesday practice, they understand what it looks like. They understand the flow of meetings and the operation of how we install. And so I wanted last week to run through as many of the scenarios that come up during the game week to eliminate the clutter or the mishaps. We’re gonna make mistakes Saturday night. I can promise you. I’ve never been a part of a game one where there weren’t plenty of them. I showed our team all the Week 0 games. I showed 20 plays this morning of — there was one game, there was 12 guys on the field on field-goal block three times in the same game on Saturday. I’m not going to act like we’re perfect, but I’m going to dang-sure try to make sure we get 11 guys on the field. We’re gonna work our tail off. We do all those things to try to make sure we get the processes done right. The pre-game warm-up done right. A lot of those things, just so that guys don’t have to think. One of the things that I thought was really cool was last week on Friday, we had Justin Gaethje talk to the team — the UFC fighter, the lightweight champion of the world in the UFC right now. And one of the answers he gave about his preparation is he talked about wanting to be so prepared that when you’re in the ring, you’re in the octagon, you don’t think; you just do. Like, I don’t have to think about anything. I’m so trained, I just do it because it’s what I do. And so, I wanted our guys last week to go through those rhythms so this week, they’re not thinking about, like, what time is the special teams meeting? What time’s this or what time’s that? How does the practice flow? They understand. And that way, hopefully Saturday, we’ve taken some of the extra thought out of what goes up to playing the game, and they can just go cut a loose and play and go have fun with it.”
On navigating depth chart conversations:
“We’re really, really direct. I don’t hide things with our players. I’m brutally honest. My wife would tell you that’s one of my greatest strengths and maybe one of my greatest weaknesses. I’m going to tell you the truth.If you like the truth, you’re gonna love being around me. If you hate the truth, you’re gonna hate being around me. Everybody on our depth chart, wherever they are, they know why. There’s no, like, surprises, so, we take things head on. I think the players deserve that. They put in too much time and too much work to not have real conversations with them. You get what you earn in this game. You want to play more, practice great. When you get your opportunities in games, if you want to play more after that, play good in the game. You’ll get to play more.”
How did you see Lacota Dippre emerge at the Y spot:
“Yeah so Lacota’s been really, really steady, all training camp. He’s been really consistent his entire time here. I’m fired up about what he’s done just from a consistency standpoint. The way he shows up is very impressive. Behind him I think, you know, Heze’s made as much improvement for a freshman as anybody on our team since January. In January, I would have told you there’s a low percentage chance Heze Kent was gonna be ready to compete and play this year and then through the summer, I’m like, okay, this guy’s got a shot. And then in training camp he just got better. Um, the other two, Amir and Luke, they’re ORed I have to look down and make sure I know exactly, but they’re both ORed because they done some good things in their own right, unique to how they play the position and the game. And then the other one is (Evan) Chieca, he’s been back moving around at practice. Not sure about his availability for Saturday yet. It’s not off the table but it’s not green light yet. We like what he’s done, too.”
On freshman that have stood out, made progress since spring:
“Yeah, I think KJ Ford had a really good spring. I think sometimes as a freshman, you hit a wall, and KJ hit a little bit of a wall, you know, maybe early in training camp and responded the last week of training camp, which I was pleased with. There’s a lot of guys who helped themselves. We are going to play the players we trust. And so there’s not going to be a ton of them right of the gate playing. There’s a few. KJ will play Saturday night, I think. I want to play as many freshman as are ready to play. I think you’ll see some of them that maybe aren’t on the two-deep elevate as the year goes, and then there are others that will have big special teams roles. CJ Bronaugh is one that, you know, CJ was out during the spring, but when he’s been available, he’s flashed as a player that I think has a high ceiling and just really good potential. He was probably just a little bit behind because he was out all spring. Had he been available all spring I think he’d probably would be closer to prime time action in regards to where the depth chart sits.”
On evolving as a head coach since your first game at Troy:
“There’s some routines that have stayed the same, yeah. And there’s some things I think you constantly adapt and evolve. I’m more comfortable than Year 1. In Year 1, there were some things coming that I wasn’t fully prepared for, mentally, but like now I think I see what’s coming a lot further out. But the routines are pretty similar. A lot of the things we do are very clockwork, if you will. Personally, I’ve shared this all before, I’m very regimented. My schedule does not deviate. Every Monday, it’s the same. Every Tuesday, it’s the same. Every Wednesday, it’s the same. So I think that way you understand how to be prepared by game time, but there’s some things that have evolved and changed by how we do some things, just to be smarter with maybe a couple practice model things we do.”
Is it learning to trust your assistants more?
“No question. No question. Yeah, there’s a lot to that. My first year as head coach at Troy. I thought I had to have my hand in everything all the time. I was probably a miserable guy to work for. And now I think I’ve done a better job. We were at practice, and I can look at the call sheet on offense, defense or kicking game, and I know we got going on, and I’ll interject with the coordinator here and there. I’ll ask me what’s our thought process there, but now I let them do their thing a little bit more and probably take their feedback better. We got kind of a cool experience. I guess it’s been two weeks ago now. Training camp’s a blur. But we had a head coaches’ meeting with all the head coaches in the athletic department and had a chance to hear from Billy Donovan, and it was a really cool experience for me because I idolize the guy. I think he’s an unbelievable coach, and he said something that really resonated with me in that meeting a couple weeks ago. He said, ‘You know, as a head coach, you have to make the final decision always, but you’re never smarter than the room. So take the feedback from the room and then make a really good, educated decision to move forward. So, for me, if I’m smarter than the entire room, then we’ve got a really bad staff. So I want to have great people in the room that challenge me and help me think outside the box a little bit or maybe bring up ideas, whether it’s Buster, Brad or an analyst. I don’t care who it is that can give me ideas. Yeah, I have to make the decision exactly how we’re going to do something moving forward. It such really spot-on advice in that timing because it was a couple weeks ago. I’m like, what a great reminder as we get ready to enter the season. Take the feedback from the room and then, yeah, you got to make the final decision. But listen to the room.”
On the value of Brad White and Buster Faulkner?
“Well, you want people that you trust, and I trust both of those guys because they’ve got great experience and they’re both really qualified. And the way they carry themselves. They’re good men, and they’re good at what they do. And I think they also, kind of going back to what I just said, they’re not ego guys or prideful either in regards to they want to trust the people in their rooms. So they’re going to take the feedback. We got a solid staff top to bottom where, if you’re Buster, you can look around the room and there’s a lot of quality people to lean into in that entire room. Same thing for Brad. For me, as a head coach to have guys that are really well equipped to do a great job in their role, but then have great people around them to support them, and to know and trust that those guys that are coordinating will listen to the feedback that their rooms give them.”
On how beneficial it is going to be going against an opponent you faced last year?
“Yeah, there’s some familiarity, which is helpful. It’s not like we’re playing a team that I have no awareness of anything about them. I’d have been OK if we would have scheduled a lesser talented team for Game 1. These guys are well coached. I think Zach (Kittley) does a phenomenal job. Zach Kittley’s a really good football coach, and he’s got a great staff. And so there’s some challenges. These guys, they were the fastest offense in college football last year. They went for it on fourth down more than anybody in college football last year. I think Game 1, if I’m not mistaken, they went for it nine times in the first game against Maryland last year. Nine. Last year when we played them at Tulane – it was at our place– and you blinked and they’re inside the red zone. Like, what happened? How’d they get here so fast? They’re really good. So there’s some familiarity that maybe helps. But I don’t think you can simulate some of the things they do in practice no matter how hard you try. Their tempo is so fast. Whatever the fastest is, they’re faster because they were No. 1 in the country. But there’s some nice things about at least we know some things about them. They know some things about us, too.”
On supporting Greg Sankey?
“So I’m the head coach in the SEC, so I’m going to abide by what the SEC wants me to abide by. That’s my stance on what Commissioner Sankey did. So that’s that. No. 2, our ad drop date for academics here has passed. So while our guys get paid and there’s all this other stuff now, you still have to be enrolled in classes. It’s too late to get enrolled in classes here. So it would be against the rules because they wouldn’t be student part of student-athlete here because we can’t get them in classes. I’m always about how do you make your team better. You know, I referenced it on Finebaum or maybe to y’all. I added Jake Retzlaff to my roster at Tulane last year I think July 27. I’m all for adding a good player whenever I get a good player, but there’s some barriers to us adding a good player, which to me, one of them I’m going to follow the rules of what our commissioner said and also we can’t get a guy in classes right now.”
You said you’re going to hyped on Saturday. Nerves, butterflies at all?
“I’ll just be excited. I don’t get like. … I don’t get nervous. That’s not like really … If I see a rattlesnake, I might get nervous. But I don’t get nervous. But I do get … I’m fired up to let our guys go cut it loose and play. And I think so, I still get amped,. But I’m not like biting my fingernails or anything.
Do you at all concern that of meeting expectations in Game 1?
“My expectation is to try to go 1-0 this week, and that’s my thought process every week. So it’s how do you win that week? And at the end of the week, I hope Saturday night, Sunday morning, hope for 1-0. And then whatever happens this week, we’ll review it, we’ll flush it, and we’ll do the same thing the next week. And so I think it’s great for fans, maybe media. I don’t know to go. Well, this would be a good year. I don’t have time to … you know what’s a good year for me? Win every game you play, win them all. It’s a good year. Win a championship. That’s a great year. But like I’m not … I think you can limit what you can accomplish when you start to go, this would be good enough. I think you start to put maybe some undue pressure on yourself when you’re like, ‘Well, this is what the benchmark needs to be.’ I think when you have really high standards, the word I use a lot, standards. When you have really high standards, then things work out usually for you. But the expectation at Florida is championships in every sport, not just football. That’s part of what drew me here. We’ve got a lot of work to do to be a championship-caliber program day in, day out. We’re working hard at it. But I just want to do whatever we can this week to go 1-0. And I know there’s certain scoreboard outcomes that people would love to go, well, ‘That’s what success is.’ Success to me is 1-0 every week, and we go 1-0 every week I think everybody’d be really damn happy.”
Ben Hanks earned a starting job. What did he do in particular, and what is the challenge for the secondary this week?
“Ben’s done a great job going back to the whole time I’ve been here. He’s worked really hard. He’s got good length. He can run. He plays the ball in the air well. He’s got good ball skills. He’s a guy that works incredibly hard. I’m in the weight room this morning, 6 a.m. with Rusty, and he’s in there doing mobility when meetings aren’t till seven. He’s on his own. He’s investing into his craft. So excited to see him play more of a prominent role. Ben played a little bit last year, obviously played in the four games, but will play a bigger role. In that entire secondary, the vertical shots, the tempo, the getting lined up, the communicating, the eye discipline. They’ll throw the ball over the place and throw it down the field a lot. They’re going to take shots. You got to stay on top of coverage, and when you get an opportunity to make a play on the ball, you got to make a play, and then when they catch the ball, you got to get the guy on the ground and let’s move to the next play. But try to limit the explosive plays because that’s one thing they do at a really high level is create explosives in the pass game.”
What’s Buster Faulkner done that you hoped he would, and what’s something he’s done that’s pleasantly surprised you?
“What he’s done that I’d hoped he would do is I think he constantly is an evolver. He’s looking at what fits our people and how to maybe tailor the system to the player. So that’s what I already knew. I think Buster has done a really good job of going back to like the question earlier about the difference between me Year One, Year Fou, five now, I guess, is Buster’s brought some good big-picture ideas to me, program-wise that we’ve been able to implement certain things – a lot of them were in the summer program or spring about certain walkthrough patterns that they had done or that he liked doing that I think fit how he wants to do it. And then I think the thing he’s done that I’m really grateful for is he’s upfront, honest and speaks what he thinks is going to help us. He’s not a yes man. He’s a guy that’s going … me and him will go back and forth, and I like that. I don’t like for somebody when I say something just to go yes sir and move on. I want him to go, ‘Well, have you thought about it like this?’ And I go, ‘Oh, you know what? I hadn’t. That’s a good idea. Let’s talk about that.’ So, I’ve appreciated the dialogue that he and I have had about how to do everything we can to put our team in a position to be successful.”
On the FBS oversight committee changing the calendar, his reaction:
“You know, we’ve become an all-year training model deal. You used to, in the summers, if you bust out a football, that was an NCAA violation. Now we get two hours a week of football time, so that’s different. And so, I think we – our player movement hasn’t just looked more like the NFL, but we’ve gone past the NFL where it’s year to year for every player. NFL, you have these contracts that are 4 or 5 years, right? Ours, it’s like everything’s a one-year deal. So the model has evolved. COVID created some of that, because we were all in the middle of spring practice 2020, COVID shut everything down that March. So then when we got back in the summer, when all the guys came back to campus, they allowed us to do more football with the guys ahead of training camp. Well, now we get to training camp and by the time we do install one, I’m like I feel like it’s the ninth time we’ve done install one. And so I think it makes sense. I’m for – you know, the best ability any of us have in life is availability. And the old school training camp model that I participated in, you know, 20 something years ago where you practice three times a day, well, it may have made you tough. I don’t know that it made you healthy for game one. I remember my first collegiate start, I think was 2002 or 2003 against Louisville. And I remember thinking, ‘Golly I’m tired today’ because I had just been chewed up during training game. And so I think now we’re maybe making decisions about our practice models, the flow of the year, the calendar, that are about player health, welfare, safety. This is still a tough, physical game. You have to do things a certain manner to be prepared to play it the right way. But you need to be smart- tough, not dumb-tough. And so the 21 practice opportunities, I’ve already kind of thought through. I’ve had enough foresight that this was coming that for the last year I’ve already kind of put some things to paper on, like, what I think this looks like for us, and then with everything becoming, with Week 0 in the future becoming Week One really and everybody having 2 byes throughout the year, training camp will now be one week shorter. So there’s a lot of things I’ve kind of already, I mean, even though I am focused on this week, I also do think about the next year, the next year, the next year of some, because I think if you wait until it’s right in front of you, you’re behind. And so I spent some time thinking about what that looks like.”
On if the mock game week is influenced by his desire for players to be healthier, less tired by game week:
“Yeah, I do think our training camp schedule is helpful for them. The work’s the work. Like, you’re gonna go practice and you’re gonna wear full gear certain days, and you gotta bang. But then you gotta know how to kind of go up and down a little from maybe how you’re pushing them. And then the mock game week is a little bit about getting them back, but it’s also a little bit about just them being ready for this week so there’s comfortability with the format. And so they have an expectation of what it looks like.”
On if he has a go-to song or artist on game-day:
“Yeah, I mean, I got a few artists. Yeah, I like AC/DC, and then I love – this is probably not most people’s pump up – but I love Chris Stapleton. So I listen to Chris Stapleton probably every day of my life. Even on game-day”
On leadership from Myles Graham, Brendan Bett, etc.:
“Yeah, Myles Graham I think has been really, really steady as a leader. You brought up Brendan Bett I think I’m probably as proud of him as anybody because, you know, he had a choice a year ago after the South Florida game. It could have gone a couple different ways, right? And he’s really elevated, responded to maybe a mistake with, I think, a mature approach, and he’s kind of been a positive, elder statesman leader in that room. Jayden Woods is a tremendous leader, Aaron Chiles, a good leader. You know, Bryce Thornton, DJ Coleman, the whole receiving corps, like, I was telling somebody this the other day, for us to have Dallas Wilson, VB3, Eric Singleton, Micah Mays in that room, and have, like, and Bailey Stockton. I mean, there’s more, TJ Abrams, and to have a receiver room like that where there’s nobody that’s a jerk. It’s like unheard of. Like usually you get a receiver room like that and somebody’s gonna be a jerk to deal with. I like coaching all those guys every day. They’re like fun to be around. They always have a smile on their face. They’re ultimate team guys. Harrison Moore stepped up as a leader, TJ Shanahan. A lot of guys, I think Lacota Dippre. I think Philo and Tramell. I think you guys could be able to kind of see that. They’re both really comfortable in their own skin. And I think they’ve shown a lot of leadership by how they have handled the process of, you know, quarterback competition, whenever that was, that gets named and competition is just hey guys who are competing all the time for playing time, right? They handled that process really well. Like, they led by how they carried out that process. And so, a lot of guys on our team. I mean, it’s a long list of guys I think have elevated their leadership.”
On Kahleil Jackson earning a spot on the depth chart:
“Yeah, you know, obviously this place means a lot to Kahleil. He’s a legacy player here, family has great history in this program, and, you know, really hard-working guy. I think coming off the lower-body extremity injuries he had most recently, I think one thing that’s helped him a ton is he committed to getting his body as lean as possible. You know, I think when you’re getting heavier, your knees and ankles and all your joints below your waist, you’re gonna take more of a toll. He’s gotten, he’s leaned up, so he’s gotten lighter to where he’s made himself be more available. He hasn’t missed practice all training camp. And I do think he’s gonna have a role for how we’re gonna play the game, and excited to see him have an opportunity to go put all his hard work out there, and he’s been a really positive impact, just in regards to just how he carries himself day-in and day-out.”
On how healthy Florida is:
“We’re pretty healthy. I didn’t – I’ve been opening up with the training report, or the injury report, just so you guys would know I’m being transparent with you. Chieca is questionable. He’s practicing, he’s running around, but it’s a matter of how far we want to push him or extend him. Kelvin Jimenez I hit on is out for the year. Kendall Guervil is back practicing. The injury report is, I think, pretty positive in regards (to) we got pretty much everybody ready to go.”