Florida football head coach Jon Sumrall answered questions from the press about the Gators' upcoming homecoming game against the South Carolina Gamecocks at the weekly SEC teleconference on Wednesday.
Among the topics covered were the atmosphere at the team's practices, the struggles in the secondary, the injury status of star wide receiver Vernell Brown III, the challenge of facing Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer and his playbook, and other issues facing the team heading into Week 6.
Below is a look at what Sumrall had to say on the coaches' call as the Orange and Blue prepare for its homecoming game in the Swamp on Saturday.
Jon Sumrall's opening statement
Yeah, didn't play very good last week. Need to play better this week. Got a good South Carolina football team, real talented
team coming in here. So, we gotta get ready to go.
What are Sumrall's practices like after a difficult loss?
Yeah, that's a good question, Mike. It doesn't really change. I think just your rhythm you practice with in regards to what each day looks like, it's the same every week, in regards to Monday is your run-through day, Tuesday's the most physical day of the week, Wednesday's another fairly physical day, not as long as Tuesday usually. But the practice schedule doesn't change a whole lot; my approach doesn't change a whole lot.
The one thing I'd say is a lot of the time when things are going good, I'm probably in the building and everybody thinks I'm grumpy because I'm trying to keep everybody's head level and focused. And when things don't go good like last Saturday, you kind of make very direct corrections but try to build confidence back up and help guys understand, "Hey, just because it didn't go good last week doesn't mean we can't respond and do something good the next week. And we've done some good things this year, we gotta bounce back."
On Florida's secondary struggles, asking defensive backs what they feel comfortable playing
We do that — we involve our players in a lot of the conversations around what they have high-level confidence in executing, and that maybe things if they're not clear on, we end up cutting them out of game plans at certain times. If we can't get it to where they're really executing at an efficient, high level.
It's funny you bring it up, I met with those guys last night, in particular the corner room, just to help them build confidence and, "Hey man, cut it loose and have fun. Don't worry about — at corner, you're gonna get beat. It's gonna happen."
Now, what we need to have happen all the time is when we get beat, it's just the other team makes a play. We can't cut a guy loose or get beat without being in a challenging position on the play. And just teaching a response that we're going to compete on every snap.
So, no hiding from the fact that we haven't played as good as we want to back there, but we gotta continue to work and improve, and we are. I want those guys to go out and attack what's right in front of them and have confidence in what they're doing.
On if he sees any difference in urgency, accountability in practice this week
Well, I think any time you get humbled like we did, it forces everybody to respond, you know? It's funny you bring that up, I reflected a lot early in this week on, was there something I missed? And then I thought you know what, we're sitting there, it's 3-3 with 10 minutes left in the second quarter — I don't think our guys didn't emotionally have the right mindset to go play well.
I just think there was about four or five critical plays on defense and four or five critical plays on offense that swing a game like that, and we didn't make very good execution or decisions in those moments, and they cost ya, and the other team made us pay for it. And so this week, the guys I think have bounced back. The energy in the building has been good.
I told the guys on Monday, "Nobody is gonna feel sorry for you, so we might as well not feel sorry for ourselves. What you do in these moments is you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, you recalibrate, you better re-engage with what you're doing and go attack what's next." And so, our guys have done a good job of handling that this week and we need to go play well on Saturday.
On wide receiver Vernell Brown III's status
You know what, I just saw him. He looks a lot better. He did not fully participate in practice today. He did run a little bit more yesterday, so we're cycling. He ran yesterday, today is more of a recovery day and the back end of this week, we'll give him a little bit of a run Thursday and Friday.
Just saw him, though, probably 30 minutes ago before I hopped on this call. He seems really optimistic. Like I've told you guys, a lot of it is just his confidence and if he's able to go play. He seemed a lot more confident today than I've seen him in the last week and a half. So, that's encouraging.
And then Eric Singleton today ran 22-plus mph. So both of those guys are trending upward right now from maybe where they've been.
On being aware of Beamer Ball
It's on the radar fully. I mean, you look going back to Shane's dad, Frank. They were at Virginia Tech for years. You understand that they pay great attention to detail to the kicking game and have always had confidence in executing fake punts or field goals or different things. Or trying to come block a punt.
We've maybe even had our antennas on higher alert than normal because we know that's part of the Beamer background, if you will. Johnathan Galante played at Virginia Tech under a lot of that tutelage of kind of how we do special teams. They're really well coached. They do a great job of it.
It's always something you know is important to Shane. Having been a former special teams coordinator myself, he does a nice job of making sure they do things at a high level in that area.
On visiting locker rooms at SEC schools
You know what, you just kind of deal with whatever your environment you're in. I've never put too much thought into it. These locker rooms in the SEC, even the worst ones are better than they are at some of the places I coached a long time ago. So, as long as there's a toilet in each one of them, we got a chance.
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida's Jon Sumrall talks South Carolina during weekly teleconference
