The Florida Gators (2-0) are set to take on Auburn (2-0) at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. for the SEC opener.
Week 3’s matchup marks the 85th all-time meeting between the Gators and Tigers, including the 36th in Auburn. The Gators and Tigers have not played in Auburn since Oct. 15, 2011, when Florida lost 17-6. Florida’s last win in Auburn came on Oct. 16, 1999.
Throughout the week, head coach Jon Sumrall, offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner and defensive coordinator Brad White met with the media to preview the matchup and discuss Auburn’s play style, strengths and key players.
Here’s everything they had to say.
Head Coach Jon Sumrall
On how Alex Golesh’s system stretches the defense:
“Yeah, the spacing is unique. It has some similarities to what FAU presented and sometimes even Campbell, for that matter. Tempo like FAU. I think last year, FAU was the fastest offense in college football, I think South Florida was the third-fastest, so there’s some similarities there. You know, I think the personnel makes it a little bit more different, unique. But they stretch you. They got good players and they try to put some guys in space and you have to win one-on-one matchups. You can’t hide guys. Like, guys got to make plays and guys got to step up. But it’s stuff that you see in college football that’s relatively – I don’t want to say common, but at this point, we’ve all seen all this stuff for a while now. So it’s not unfamiliar for anybody. But the challenge is they got good players. And they do good stuff schematically, but they’re doing it with good people too, which we have to win our one-on-one battles.”
On how different Byrum Brown is since facing him in 2024 with Tulane:
“I think he’s more polished as a quarterback. I think he sees the field a little bit better and cleaner; that comes with the experience. That’s any quarterback as you’re maturing. I think he’s a good player. He’s got arm talent to make throws all over the field. He’s a big guy in stature. He’s a physical guy, and I think he’s just playing with confidence because he’s got a lot of time in this system. He’s been in this offensive structure for a while now, and he’s played a lot of football. I mean, the guy’s played a ton of snaps. There’s no substitute for the experience he has and he’s a poised player who — not a lot that he hasn’t seen.”
How key will the matchup be between y’all’s run game and their run defense?
“Yeah, they’re really good on run defense. They’re really good on defense. DJ does a great job. He’s one of the best coordinators in college football, and they got good personnel. Their D line is solid, and they knock people back, and they play with a physicality and reset the line scrimmage a lot. And their linebackers are as good as anybody. 17 (Xavier Atkins), this guy’s an unbelievable player. As a linebacker guy, I love watching him play. I mean, not really excited about watching them play against us. But I like watching him play. And then 9’s (Elijah Melendez) also a really good player. Both those guys, they flash, and then 16 (Bryce Deas), who’s a backup for them, at linebacker, is a really good player, and their safeties fit the run well. Their 0 (Sylvester Smith-Reed), the guy plays nickel or star for them he sets edges well. So they’re challenging running football against.”
Offensive Coordinator Buster Faulkner
On what makes DJ Durkin’s defense tough to scheme against, they’re good against the run:
“Yeah DJ’s done a great job everywhere he’s ever been. I like to, when you watch his tape, he’s one of the guys that tries to stay a step ahead of you. He’s always presenting a bunch of different looks, you know, which makes it tough on an offense. He’s committed to stopping the run, always has been, he’s always done a great job doing that and nothing’s changed. You can see his defense’s, everywhere he’s been, they play with their hair on fire, they play fast, they play confident, so we got a great deal of respect for them. It’s going to be a challenge for us on the road.”
On Auburn’s LB group, what do you see evaluating them on film:
“Yeah one thing you see is you see fast, quick, explosive, twitchy, play with great pad level, run through you, and they’re confident in what they do on defense. I think, again, it goes back to DJ. He knows what he’s doing, he knows what he wants those guys to do. You can see it, there’s an identity with what he wants them to do, but they’re really, really good players. They’re confident in what they do, they have elite speed to make up for anything that, they can chase you down. So we’ve got to do a good job of going where they’re at, they’re really good in their blitz packages and running through the middle and doing some different things like that. So yeah they’ll be a big part of our gameplan.”
Defensive Coordinator Brad White
On Auburn’s offense and Byron Brown:
“Yeah, I mean it’s going to be an offense that understands the system, right? A lot of these guys have played in this system with Coach Golesh for a couple of years now, so they understand how the process works, how the operation functions. So you add that system, that pace, that tempo with a talented group of skill players and a nasty group of O linemen. They play gritty up front with the chip on their shoulder. Those are the O-lines that you really got to pay attention to because it may not always look the prettiest, but you get to the end of the game and you’re like those are the O-lines that you felt. And so, our guys have to do a great job of being ready to play sort of at their level consistently all night. And it’s going to be a fist fight, a rock fight in there, and we gotta be ready for that kind of battle.”
On not overrunning against an athletic QB:
“It’s what makes great players great players. You can try to simulate it in practice, and you can give the guys the looks, but there’s a reason that he’s been successful for a couple of years now. When he’s got the ball in his hand, he’s a threat, obviously. He throws a really nice deep ball, and they can create explosives that way. But you always gotta be mindful of him as a runner. And he does a great job of making you feel … he can change pace. I think a lot of people don’t understand that it’s not just about pure speed. It’s about how you change your pace. And he’s a long strider, and so as he’s long striding, a lot of times defenders feel like they need to long stride to keep up, and he can put his foot in the ground because he knows when he wants to break and cut and redirect. And so, we don’t get into a short stride and then we get stuck in a crossover, and that’s when guys get the fly by, and he makes a lot of guys fly by because of that cut. And so, we have to do a great job of trying to stay in our short stride, pin his hip, and then he’s a big, thick lower body, like strong. You see guys try to arm tackle, and he runs right through those. I mean, we’re going to have to bring our feet, and we’re going to have to bring multiple hats to the party.”
On RB Jeremiah Cobb:
“I’ve always thought in playing against him last year, studying him, I always thought he had a great vision, contact balance, and again, another guy that’s got a really good, strong lower half. If you don’t make solid contact into his legs, if you arm tackle, he can run through them. He has the ability to jump cut in a hole with that vision. And so again, you pair the two together, and they’re a really good, difficult matchup. It presents a lot of a challenge in the run game. I know, again, I think so many people think about the pass game when they think tempo offenses, and again, they can get explosive in the pass game. They’ve got good wide receivers that understand the system. He knows where to put the ball, but the run game drives a lot of this offense, and so we’ve got to do a good job inside. And again, you pair sort of a nasty, gritty O-line that’s going to continue to drive their feet. And if you think you can just tear off and they’re going to quit, and you can go just tackle a ball carrier, you’re wrong. They’re going to keep pushing and driving on you. We gotta do a great job on the edges. We lost maybe the longest run of the day on Saturday. An unblocked player on the edge, and the ball gets inside, so he starts to get peaky inside and fold, and it just bounces to the edge, and they get an eight-yard run. And we can’t have that happen. Those balls will spit and go for 20, 30, 40 if we don’t do a good job. So we’ve gotta be smart in terms of our leverage points, and then when we rush the passer, we have to do a good job of containing because obviously he can make a lot of off schedule plays, broken plays. We gotta do a great job in plastering down the field. The receivers understand that he can extend plays, and they do a good job coming back to the football. They had one rep in the Baylor game, and the guy ran a 40-yard go ball and he came all the way back for a 15-yard (completion). It looked like it was a comeback, but it wasn’t. He just kept coming back, coming back, coming back, and he bought time, time, time. So we gotta do a good job and be willing to play a long down.”