Florida football head coach Jon Sumrall took the podium on Monday for his regularly scheduled press conference and had a lot to say about both the Week 5 loss to Missouri as well as the upcoming homecoming game against South Carolina.
He covered the absence of star receiver Vernell Brown III and other players who have missed game and practice time; takeaways from the loss to the Tigers on the road; how Heisman Trophy hopeful Jadan Baugh is dealing with his performance on Saturday; adjustments that need to be made on defense.
Below is an abridged transcript of what Sumrall said on Monday. Here is what he had to offer.
Jon Sumrall's opening statement
I appreciate y'all being here. Obviously disappointed and frustrated with our performance on Saturday. You know, talked to our team
this morning about how we have to move on, adversity which we have just faced, and we are facing right now, reveals more about who you are and your character than success. Anybody can have the right attitude when things are going good. How do you move forward and continue to churn ahead and try to get better in maybe some adverse times after a game like last Saturday says more about you than anything.
So we're challenging our guys to pick up, move on. We looked it squarely in the face, everybody in the mirror, like, take on what you gotta do, including myself. It starts with me, and, you know, you have to tell yourself the truth, tell each other the truth, and own it. And so a lot that we had to own that I don't like that happened on Saturday. To be quite with you honest, plenty of that had already showed in previous outings, but it didn't cost us wins and losses.
And when it costs you wins and losses, it becomes more heightened maybe, and more made aware. But I've seen plenty of our downfalls through the first four weeks before last week as well. And the biggest key here is we're trying to build long-term sustainable success within our program, because we have to get better. Really simple, we just gotta get better.
So, there's a lot of areas we have to improve. We have a challenging opponent this week. You look at South Carolina on film, they're as good talent-wise as anything we've seen this year by far. They're the best talent team that we have played today. And you look across their entire roster, offense, defense, and even the return game, man, they've got NFL guys everywhere. Like all over the tape. And so it's gonna be a really formidable test because these guys, they got dudes. And so we got to go back to work. We will.
I promise you, we're going to give it everything we got to get this thing right. And not make any excuses for what we did. We got to own it, and we're moving forward.
How impactful has Vernell Brown III's absence been on the passing game the last six quarters?
Yeah, it affects you for sure. I mean, he's a really good player. He does a lot of things ball-in-hand, on the move. Some of it is at the line of scrimmage, maybe the screen game, and it's down the field. He's a guy that I think can execute a lot of different things for us offensively that can stretch the defense out.
And when you take him off the field, maybe there's some things that we don't do as well without him out there. So, it's definitely a challenge when you lose one of your better players, you know, for that game and who knows about this week. He is cleared to participate. It's just a matter of – he'll run today. He did not participate fully in practice today. He was out there at practice. He will do a running session with the athletic training staff.
At this point with him, it's up to just his level of confidence in being able to do it, but he's trending positively. What does that mean for Saturday? I don't know yet. But he has the ability to run, but he's just got to see how confident he is in cutting it loose.
On Bailey Stockton, Eric Singleton Jr. — how missing practice affected the preparation
Oh, it affects it a ton. I mean, E played, Bailey played, didn't really do much practice-wise until the very end of the week. I mean, Thursday, Friday, in full disclosure, like they didn't do anything Tuesday or Wednesday really to get ready to play from a physical standpoint in our training room.
And so you know, we felt confident that they were all going to be able, that those two were going to be able to go because of the feedback they were giving us. But it's hard to play at a really high level when you don't get the practice reps. It's always a challenge.
Will Sumrall change anything in practice or is that an overreaction after one loss?
No, no, no, I consider everything all the time. Even when things are going good, I look at everything we're doing, you know? So it's not like – we've changed our Monday practice a little bit every Monday from Week One all the way to today by the length. So it's why y'all weren't ready when I walked in just now with the audio or something because I'm probably a few minutes early.
So as the year goes, we cut Monday down a touch because the wear and tear on the body, especially coming off of a road trip where you get back, you know, midnight-ish or whatever, and your bodies need to heal up. So, and then Tuesday practice, there will be forever, as long as I'm the head football coach here, a standard in physicality that we practice with on Tuesday that you have to do, I think.
But we're gonna be smart-tough not dumb-tough, too. And so there might be some adaptations in certain periods, but we will put the ball down at practice, like, tackle football tomorrow.
Do opponents now have a blueprint to beat them? Does Sumrall expect more of that?
You always have to figure out what's giving you problems. Yeah, I mean, you know, you have to know yourself better than you know anybody. And if something's going well, you lean into that, if something's not going well, you have to, how do we offset that?
And through five games, there's been some things that we've shown that we're good at certain spots, and there's been some things that we're not anywhere near where we need to be. Everybody in our program still needs to get better, but yeah, there are some glaring areas where we have to make significant growth and strides to be a well-rounded football team. And so you have to acknowledge and be aware of, like, where the shortcomings are.
On playing from behind, if that requires resiliency, how Sumrall views that
"Yeah that's a good question. You know, the way we're built, to be quite honest with you right now, we do not need to be living in a drop-back pass game the entire game. Like, we need to play complementary football. That's how we're built offensively, personnel, structurally, like, and every year you have a different team, and we may at some point have a team where we feel like, hey, we can just go drop back and pass a lot and wing it.
But right now, we need to be able to stay on schedule. We had way too many 2nd-and-longs last week, and then even after, you know, the penalty, first-and-long. And so when you put yourself behind the chains on 2nd down, then it makes it harder to convert.
And so, yeah, stay on schedule is a big deal for us. And so, we didn't maybe put ourselves in situations offensively at times to have success within drives. And then within the flow of the game, you know, the frustrating part is we're sitting there mid-to-early 2nd quarter and it's 3-3. And like, our defense has actually played, to that point, we played pretty good on defense.
Really played run game defensively solid until the 3rd quarter when we let the big one break. But then we give up on the snap; it was a little bit early, we give up a vertical ball to a guy that we just busted on. We just didn't play something right, and they make a play, and then we have a chance to get him down, we don't get him down.
Next thing you know, it's 10-3. We come back and score, it was 10-10. But then they hit another go-ball to No. 2 that we knew was going to be a go-ball that play, like we're calling it out on the coach-to-player, like, "Hey, it's a go with 2." And we gave up a touchdown there.
The critical part was right before the half, you know, our two-minute situation, we couldn't create. Give the ball back to them with a minute, 20-something left on the clock. They're able to get it advanced just across midfield, kick a long field goal, make it, and that's 20-10. And in the first drive of the 3rd quarter, we had chances to get off the field, don't, they score a touchdown, now you're 27-10.
You blink — it was 10-10, and you feel like in-game action, not that much time has really gone by, and you look up and you're like, "We went from a tie game to down 17; what just happened?" And so we can't sustain that type of roller coaster play. We've got to be more steady and allow us to maybe play within who we are better."
On the most glaring 'warts' in the loss
Well just, the four explosive plays on defense that we gave up. The two passes that — we had four plays in the game that they gained 235 yards. Four plays. You can't live in this world but if you take those four out, you're looking at it going, "Alright, we played pretty good defense."
But we got four freaking plays, two of them runs that were 157, I think, or something. And then a couple passes that went for touchdowns; we can't give those up. We have to make people earn it. And then I thought, still on the defensive side, just covering people down, playing cleaner in the secondary in some spots.
We got to continue to find ways to help the guys play better and coach them better and put them in the best spot to be successful. I thought their defensive front got after us a little bit. Like, I thought that was the most exposed we looked at times when we had all year. I thought our offensive line was responding to the challenge most of the year.
That was the first time that I felt like, man, we just didn't really elevate our style of play. And then I think we just missed some things offensively, basic things that we have to take advantage of to win games.
On if losing a game is part of the process
I can promise you I've started a helluva lot worse than 4-1 as a head coach. Plenty. My first two years as a head coach, we started 1-2 both times. You know, I don't like losing. I actually hate losing more than I like winning. There's a lot to learn from every scenario you go through. And when you lose a game, I think it forces everybody to take more direct accountability to what we're doing.
And, you know, I think when you win a game, as a coach, I see all the flaws still, but everybody externally, you know, 'It's a party, we're 4-0, woo-hoo.' And then I'm being the bad guy in the building every day. These guys are like, "Coach, we won!" And I'm like, "Yeah, I know, but..."
Then, I think from a coaching perspective, right now, our guys, they're hurt. Like they're crushed. Hell, I mean, everybody in there, everybody that works here is hurting, doesn't feel good. Don't like it. One of the greatest things about being at the University of Florida is, man, we got an awesome fan base that's ultra-passionate. Like, that's why I came here, because this place, man, people care about it.
Well, then, the flip side of that is when things aren't going good, you gotta have broad shoulders and shoulder the critique, and that's great. Internally, I have to help our guys just understand, "Hey, how do we get on the other side of this?" And it's not for the faint of heart.
It's not, you know, "Hey, it's okay to lose." It's not. It's not okay to lose, ever. But it's also helping understand, "Hey, where do we have to grow? Let's keep growing. Let's put our head down and go back to work. Pick yourself up. Nobody's gonna feel sorry for you."
In this league, week-in, week-out in this league, we're gonna be challenged. And so we have to recalibrate, readjust, and get going and move forward. And so, I think adversity tells you more about who you are than success. And so when things are not going the way you want, what you do next is more about you than when things are going really well."
On how Jadan Baugh is handling performance, injury speculation
I don't know about the warming up, halftime — we all warm up out of the half as a team. He may have done a little extra on the side, I'm not aware. But he's, health-wise, good. I mean, there's nothing major. Normal wear and tear when you put the number of carries he's shouldered this year. You know, I think sometimes in the running back position, he's created a lot of runs at times on his own.
Sometimes the O-line's done great, sometimes the perimeter blocking has been great, sometimes he's made plays that weren't even there. We didn't do enough to help him as a team on Saturday, in my opinion, across the board. And I don't think it was his best, either.
He texted me yesterday. He was like, "Coach, I'm sorry, I won't let that ever happen again. I didn't play my best." But I love Jadan because he owned it and he's ready to move forward. And there's no health issue there. I thought they did a really nice job with swarming into the football and populating hats to the football, and making it to where it was hard for him.
Credit to them for that, but he'll bounce back.
You mentioned South Carolina's dudes — Nyck Harbour might be the toughest one. How do you slow him down?
He's big and he can run. He's a tight-end body playing wide receiver that runs like an ultra-fast wide receiver. So he's a real challenge. And the quarterback is a good player, too. The running back doesn't get enough credit. I think he's really good.
But yeah, Harbor's a big-time challenge from a matchup standpoint because of his size and his speed and his ability to win the ball down the field. He's a really good football player that I think's got a bright future, long career ahead of him. We have to find some ways to manage his opportunities."
On what can the staff do to get better play out of the cornerbacks this season
Alright, you asked a lot of different layers of questions about one room, which I'm good with. All right. So, how do you get better during the year? Well, you coach the guys that are here. There's not a waiver wire in college football.
So we've got our roster set, and we have to help the guys that are here maximize what they can become — and that's each guy individually. So how do you step and help them step up in their own role, elevate how they're playing? They all have maybe different things they need. You know what I mean? Certain guys have different areas of growth that are needed compared to another guy.
And so, as you're working through what we need their growth to look like, we tell them and then we work on it and we show them the issue and how we improve it. Well so that's where it starts from an individual skill-development standpoint. Then the schematics are, you can't protect everybody. You can't bracket every wide receiver because you don't get to play with 15, 16 players. Get to play with 11.
And so you know the challenge in a week like this week is the more you want to protect the perimeter with the receivers, that quarterback and running back are going to run the ball down your throat. Because this outfit right now is one of the best rushing offenses in college football, and so how do you stop the run while eliminating explosive plays? How do you shift the pressure around from a call standpoint?
And then, two, with who we are right now, I think while we want to lean into maybe offsetting the pressure on certain spots with maybe a call, it's also how many calls can we execute well? Because there's a lot of great defenses that we can maybe shift some pressure around, but it doesn't matter if it's a formation adjusted too much for our guys to handle. What if it's two-by-two, three-by-one, fly motion, return motion, orbit motion, stacks, bunches — all the tools you have to play out in a call.
And so, the easiest thing to do if you're really good is just play man-to-man and blitz and do that. That's great. That's like that's the defensive coach's dream because they go lock them down, go blitz them, apply a lot of pressure. But then you have to build a down-in, down-out win out there on your own.
So I think one of the things that we're continuing to have to lean into - and I've told our staff this - is the most important part of the game is understanding at that position to be two things. One, you have to assume you're always the challenge player — the ball's coming your way every play, And then two, what are the offensive tells giving me? Like last week, No. 2 receiver, we knew he's a go-ball runner. So when he's in the game, anticipate a go-ball and react to the other routes.
So every player has certain things that they're good at, and you have to not just understand, hey, where am I needing to grow as a player, but what am I getting from the other side? And the offense is going to give you indicators, maybe split spacing, maybe stacks, bunches, maybe divider rules, hash divider rules, maybe, you know, down-and-distance situations. You have to understand what are they trying to get done, and then who's the guy across from you? Like who is the player?
And so there's so many layers to playing that position at a high level that we're just trying to train our guys to get better and encourage them. I'm grateful that they're continuing to show up and keep fighting and like I said earlier it's not for the faint of heart. That position you're gonna get when it's not going good, it's easier to recognize.
People don't realize when the nose doesn't do a great job a lot of the time. Corner doesn't do something right, everybody, "My mom calls me goes, why isn't the corner covering the guy?' It's an exposed position where you have to shoulder it and take it home.
On how difficult Dijon Johnson's year has been for that group, and him dealing with the multiple injuries
The setbacks: had the injury last year, then had kind of had the recurrence in the spring. He's rounding back into form hopefully, but I think sometimes rebuilding your confidence is as much of the challenge there from your readiness than it is even ... he's a guy that's played enough football. But it's just having the confidence and like playing the type of style you want to play.
So it's affected the room because you have a guy that's an older guy with more time on task, maybe that has not been as available to play as consistently as you may like.
On your optimism level on getting Bryce Thornton back this week
Optimism on getting back:, the good news is on the imaging, ultrasound, all the stuff they did in the athlete training room, nothing substantial. So it's just more of how does he feel right now. I feel good about where it's at. It's not like something where I have news, like, "He's out." He's got a really good shot at being available, just depends on how he feels as he goes in the week.
He's a high-level communicator. He's also more of a physical presence even though he's not the biggest stature guy. He throws his body around, and you feel him. But the thing I thought the most with him not being out there was just at safety the communication piece, he does that probably the best. He's got the most experience back there and has a lot of confidence.
And so I think you felt him not being out there with maybe how we were directing traffic, if you will, to get us set on the backend."
On when you watch the film in the run game, how much do you feel like was execution based
You're talking about our offensive run game?
Yes.
I thought they had a good plan. I thought they maybe built a wall on the front side of the outside zone at times and forced us to take the ball where we didn't really want to take it. We might have missed one or two runs as well, but I think they did as good job as anybody I've seen in how they attacked us.
And I thought they reset the line of scrimmage well. I thought their front guys played really active and violent and played with some knockback, and we didn't handle it great. You look at them across the board, something they've done well there and the way they built their defenses, I thought they tackled well at all three levels. You even watch their secondary guys tackle, and I'm just impressed with how they tackled the football."
You've made a priority to reach out to former players and bring them back on my sidelines for homecoming. Why do you think that's important with the program?
This is a proud, storied, traditional program. It's got unbelievable former players. I talked to a couple of them yesterday that I've become friends with since coming here and that just reached out and said, "Hey, look, keep going. We understand what you're going through. We got your back. We support y'all."
This is a player-driven game. It's a player-driven program. This game's got very little to do with me as a coach or any coach. It's about our players, and so this is a place that, man, our players take great pride in what this program is all about and we want to build upon that. Being at the University of Florida, the pressure of that is a privilege, and it's something that I embrace.
And the guys that have come before us have set the standard really high when you go back and look at maybe the teams and the players that have come through here. We want to get to that standard. We're not there. I know people, after the first four weeks, wanted to act like we were really good. We have a long way to go to maybe establish where we want this program to get back to.
On Eric Singleton's status
You know the answer to the 100% question. Nobody's 100%.
But in terms of getting back in the flow?
He was at practice today, very limited, just to give him a little bit extra recovery. He'll be able to practice this week, will be available for the game more than likely. Don't see any reason why he wouldn't be. A little bit of soreness on Sunday after the game. Some of that's playing and then a plane ride back affects your body, too. And then today looked a lot better, just mobility and all that kind of stuff. He's a tough dude, man.
There's a lot of guys that would not have played two weeks ago or last week with what he's coming off of at his position, and he's got a mindset where he's like, "I'm going to do whatever I got to do to help the team." Really, he's kind of mad at us two weeks ago for not letting him play earlier, and then we put him in a little bit in second half. And then this past week, really, he fought through maybe not being anywhere near 100%. But we need to get him back healthy. But, right now, he's playing maybe a little bit a little bit beat up.
On penalties wiping out big plays?
The long pass, the 30-something-yard pass in the third quarter, was we had a tackle that they said wasn't on the line, which I actually think they're probably right. So got to make sure we're taking the line. Then the kickoff return, the two penalties, one was a hold on the back end wedge. The guy was letting the jersey get away from him and maybe not understanding that when the guy is outside the framework, everybody has to let go.
Down the field, the one on Chica, you just kind of go scrape paint is the technique we talk about, which is just kind of box the guy out, almost like a basketball term, instead of going and cleaning him up behind the ball. We had hands in the face that I didn't like against us that was a good call. I didn't like how we did it defensively.
And then Chiles had one I didn't like either that he's got to learn from and grow. That's where we have to mature as a team. I think you've seen our guys try to at least at times this season play with an edge and a desire to compete. Even last week when we weren't playing good, it wasn't like the guys weren't playing hard.
But I think the thing we have to do a better job of just playing cleaner and executing and knowing how to play so that we don't hurt the football team with making selfish decisions.
How many players have texted you after the game to apologize for their performance?
Yeah, I've had a good number. I've always had good relationships with the guys I coach, and I've had a lot of guys when heading on the right way for them or for the team to reach out.
What does that say about a guy when he takes ownership like that?
You have a great appreciation for guys that want to step up and go, "Hey, we're going to get this fixed. I want to take ownership in my part of this." It speaks to their character, and I think usually it has a lot to do with maybe what their background is because you don't do that without somebody in your life usually helping mold you to become someone that's not afraid of accountability.
On Baugh being a guy who never uses his phone
Not a guy that does a whole lot of texting or calling. For a little while in December, I could never get a hold of him. So for him to reach out unsolicited on a Sunday after the loss was encouraging.
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida's Jon Sumrall talks Missouri loss, homecoming game on Monday
