Florida football's first-year head coach Jon Sumrall spoke with the media on Monday morning to discuss his team after the fall practice season ended on Saturday.
Among the topics of discussion were the starting quarterback situation and what he has seen from both his offensive and defensive corps, as well as an update on the injury situation – among other issues. With the start of the regular season around the corner, Sumrall appears to be generally happy with his team's progress, but also makes it clear that there is still plenty of headroom for growth.
Below is a look at everything the new Gators skipper had to say in his Monday press conference.
Jon Sumrall's opening statement
A good about an hour and 10-minute run-through this morning, helmets and spiders. Saturday night's
scrimmage was really good on one side of the football, not so good on the other. I thought the offense dominated the day and really flashed in the run game, in particular. Offensive line has started to show more cohesion. Guys have elevated in certain spots I'm excited about and we'll get into the details on that, I'm sure, here in a few minutes.
Injury report-wise, the only person that's really withheld from the scrimmage that was new Saturday was Dallas Wilson, but it was just because of a little bit of a head cold, fever-type thing. Nothing major. He was back to practice today. Jeramiah McCloud missed practice today with the same symptoms, so maybe a little bit of a return-to-school sinus infection going on. But we're fairly healthy right now as a football team.
I mean, (Evan) Chieca was back at practice today. He was no contact, but he was back. (Jason) Zandamela was back today. He's been kind of back and forth, but he's been around, but did not participate Saturday night. And then all of the soft tissue guys, pretty much all practiced today.
So, really, the only two guys that had significant limitations from practice were DK Kalu, still coming off a little bit of an ankle boo-boo. Nothing major; he's gonna be fine. And then Jeramiah McCloud. So we're fairly healthy for this point of training camp, or training camp ended as of Saturday. But we're a pretty healthy football team, all things considered, and the work's been good and physical. So that's where we are there.
One thing I do want to hit on as we turn our attention towards mock game week this week, we are paring down who gets work. So there's scout teams going on and certain guys are not getting our offensive or defensive reps as much. We do a period at the end of every Monday so that the guys who are on scout team still get work; we call it Monday Night Football, even though we're a morning-practice team. So the young guys will still get some reps with our team.
And then within that paring down, we are moving forward with the quarterback situation. Aaron Philo is gonna go with the ones more than anyone. Doesn't mean Tramell (Jones Jr.) won't get some with the ones. He's still going to get some. But as we prepare for game one, Aaron Philo, we are preparing for him to be the starter for week one. There will not be some crazy, big hoopla around in our building. It's just how we're moving forward.
I've met with both guys, met with them both yesterday afternoon at about 4:45. Both are awesome. Both fully understand and see where we are in the competition. And, you know, I'm excited about the room. The good news is both of them have elevated their play. Love both of them, fired up about both of them, and grateful for both of their approaches as we've gone through this. But Philo will get the lion's share of the reps with the ones as we kind of start to try to create cohesion within our football team to get ready for game one.
The good news is I've seen Tramell Jones improve so much from April the 11th to right now that it made a — it's been a real battle. Like it's not been some, you know, empty competition. It has been real, and that's where we are. So I'm sure y'all won't have any more questions to follow that quarterback thing up, right? That's it. So, but with that, we'll open up to questions.
On what Aaron Philo did to win the job
I would say operate at the line of scrimmage at just a touch higher level and be more efficient. You know, there's no surprise to that in spring because he had been in the system, and Tramell had not. Tramell has improved a ton, but I still think we're able to operate the full offense at a little bit higher level right now with Aaron, with the whole package. And so, that's probably the biggest separator.
Their arm talent is very similar. It's not like... what's unique is both of em's play style resembles each other more than it differentiates each other. They're kind of similar players. Arm talent-wise, running ability, they're similar-ish; like on the GPS numbers, they're about the same speed.
So I would say it's probably the biggest differentiating factor has just been being able to maybe get us into the right call, out of the wrong call, check things, alert things, kill things off of defensive pictures, and then maybe see the middle of the field a little bit more in the throw game. But both guys have done a lot of great things, but that's probably been the biggest difference. It's just operational.
On how the team will rally around Philo
I think the team is going to rally around both of them. Like yesterday, when I called them in to meet with them — and I met with them together, it wasn't like meet with one, meet with the other. They both came in, we sat down and had a talk like we do all the time. I've talked with both of them in my office numerous times. And so, I think the guys are gonna be there for both of them.
When I called them in yesterday, right before they came back to the building, because they'd come to check in the training room and watch the scrimmage on their own. They'd just got done eating with a bunch of the receivers together. So, I said, "Hey, here's the deal." Like, I expect that to not change.
Now, I want both of them to want to be the guy. But there's a lot of stories, and we talk through all of them with both of them, of guys that weren't the starter until certain points of their career that are great players. I mean, you can look at Tom Brady (who) was a pretty good pro quarterback and didn't start as a youngster, right? And so there's a lot of those situations. But I think the guys will rally around them, I really do.
We got good locker room chemistry and culture. We need to keep it there. I also talked to both those guys about — to Aaron, "Hey, this is not an anointing. Like, it's not some permanent, you're just a starter forever, because you gotta keep playing good." And for Tramell, it's not like you're being relegated or demoted and forgotten. Like, this is not fatal. I believe in Tramell Jones. Like I'm a believer, I'll go to battle with that dude.
So, I'm fired up about both of them. I just feel like right now, it's where we need to go with the decision, but the guys will rally around both."
Has Sumrall decided the starting offensive line as well?
We're really close there. I know the quarterback thing's been the biggest conversation, and not to shy away from that part of the conversation, but I would say for the last couple weeks I felt pretty comfortable with both quarterbacks. Both of them have given me belief they can both win.
I've had more concern up until this past week on the O-line. The O-line played their best scrimmage, their best football Saturday night since I've been here. I was freaking jacked. I was excited. Bryce Lovett, man, y'all asked about him a week ago. I've challenged him. Our staff's challenged him. He's responded. I think he has really elevated at tackle. He's played a lot of guard. He's played some tackle.
But the first play of the scrimmage the other night, I'm not going to give every detail, but the first drive, the best player on the first drive of the scrimmage the other night was either Jaddn Baugh or Bryce Lovett — one of the two. The first drive was like, OK, let's go. So he's elevated. I think you can probably expect to see him at left tackle as of right now. Knijeah at guard, Harrison Moore center, T.J. Shanahan at right guard, and then Omeka at right tackle.
But I do think, you know, you're seeing other guys. (TJ) Dice at tackle, Egan Boyer at tackle and Caden Jones at tackle are all still very much alive. I would probably predict in the first couple games you're still going to see us play a decent number of guys to work through it and see what gives us our best long-term group. But that's where we are today.
And in the interior, we've got several other guys. I think Rod Kearney's had a really good training camp. He's kind of elevated as a guard that I think we can play with and win. And so, just kind of working through it. But that's where we are right now.
On the O-line's success in run blocking during the scrimmage
We've worked most of the week with that first five together, so you're starting to create cohesion and then have confidence in each other and how they're working combination blocks. I feel like sometimes people don't understand how hard it is for that group to play as one, how challenging it is. Targeting things in the run game or the pass pro, having things up the right way is harder than people realize, especially when you're playing our defense and we're doing 9000 things up front — there's a lot of moving parts. But I think they're gaining confidence.
Phil's done a really great job coaching them, and they're starting to find their competitive edge and just how they have to play the game the right way. The O-line's got to play with a little bit of chip on their shoulder, a little bit of the swagger, and a little bit of bravado. You got to bring it. You started to feel that last week. So I'm like, okay, these guys, they're getting some pride in who they are — and so that's been a big part of it.
The run game wasn't perfect, but it was blocked cleaner. And we got good enough backs if you give them a ... man, I'm talking about our runners on Saturday night. Duke Clark and Evan Pryor and London Montgomery, Byron Louis — the depth of him. The first drive was, we had one chunk throw in it where the defense kind of busted a coverage that I was pissed off about. It was to Micah (Jones). They were in an empty formation, and we just had two secondary players not on the same page, and so we hit a big chunk play there.
Then the drive, like I said, it was Jadan Baugh's drive, and Bryce Lovett was the second best player on the field the whole drive. I'm like, he's bringing it.
How does Sumrall feel about the offense dominating the scrimmage?
I was pleased with the O-line. I think both quarterbacks did some really good things. I still thought at quarterback, you know, a week ago, I felt like Aaron put the ball in jeopardy a little bit more than Tramell. This past Saturday, Tramell put the ball in jeopardy more than Aaron. We probably could have gotten one or two more picked that we didn't, that one of them Cormani should have had that went through his hands.
But both quarterbacks played good in a lot of areas. The first scrimmage week, defense really, at the line of scrimmage, kind of choked the offense out in a lot of ways. The second one, the O-line, it was a battle. I wouldn't say the D-line wasn't good, but the O-line made it a fistfight, and it was a competitive period. Where the mismatch happened on Saturday night, honestly, was running backs finding holes and us not making great tackles in space.
And then in the secondary, I think it was really, really, really poor communication on the back end several times. Really frustrated by that. I spent most of my time on the defensive field today, just making sure those guys were talking, because in the back end of your defense, man, everybody's got to be a high-level communicator. And it was not demonstrative enough for me to feel comfortable that we're going to get everyone on the same page right now.
So, there were some plays that was good offense, but there were also some plays that was bad defense, because, like I said, the touchdown that Bailey Sockton had — you guys weren't there, but I know y'all got eyes everywhere, alright, I realized that several months ago — but the sail route that we hit to Bailey, that should have been a pick. And so it's like, what are you doing like as a defense there? It really wasn't great offense. It was bad defense.
And not taking anything away from the play or the throw or whatever, it was that we should have picked that ball off. So as a head coach, you want to see both sides play good. Our defense did not play good Saturday night. And tackling, what's interesting, the first drive in the red zone, we got a 3rd down situation, and we should have had a stop on 3rd-and-long, and we get a facemask on the defense, and that gives them the first down and they score a touchdown. We should have been making them kick a field goal, and a defensive miscue extended the drive, and then that's what becomes the touchdown.
Well, you can't shoot yourself in the foot. Florida can't beat Florida. We're not good enough to have that many miscues and overcome it right now. And so, the Gators can't beat the Gators, and on defense Saturday, some, we beat ourselves."
On Cormani McClain's week, what Sumrall wants to see out of him
Here's what I would say about Cormani. His best is unbelievably good. His consistency has to elevate. So, you look at, you know, he's had a couple of picks in our scrimmages. He's had a couple of missed picks, too. The first scrimmage I was disappointed with his tackling. In full disclosure, the first scrimmage — I mean, you guys were at that one — I didn't like the way he tackled on a couple of perimeter plays. And I've seen him do it. I saw him do it well at other times.
So, it's not can he? It's just do it all the time. He's got all the ability in the world. He's improved a ton, I think, just how he's carried himself around the building and away from the building. I still think he's got to strain to be consistent all the time. And when he does, look out. Like, kind of like I talked about Bryce Lovett last week.
I said, Bryce Lovett can be as good as he wants to be, and good as he chooses to be. Cormani McClain: how good does he choose to be? That's how good he'll be. It's up to him. That's a decision between him and him. I want it for him really, really bad. I want to see him be a great player. He's got to want it all the time for himself.
On turnover-worthy plays for Philo, how much of a concern is it for him
It's a concern with all of them. Every time the ball — we call it ball in jeopardy. Anytime you put the ball in jeopardy, like, it's a concern with all of them, all the time. You know, like I said, the first scrimmage, Philo, probably put the ball in – not probably, he did put the ball in jeopardy once or twice more than Tramell – Saturday night, it was the other way. Tramell put it on the ground once, actually twice, on exchanges, threw the one pick and had the other that should have been picked for sure.
And so I don't care which quarterback's in — Philo, Tramell, Will Griffin, Aidan Warner, Aaron Williams, whoever's taking the football for us, we need to protect the football. Now, the challenging part there is the worst thing you can do is make them so concerned constantly about they can't take a shot. Because you got to play the position, right? You got to put it out there. You got to play a little bit of confidence in, "Hey, I'm going to have to put the ball in some tight spots sometimes."
So if you don't let it rip occasionally, you're gonna get sacked and drilled and take negative plays there, and that's gonna create other issues. So we don't have the ability right now at the stage of where our program is to just give the ball away and think we can win games. So we've got to do a better job holistically with all of them. Aaron, Tramell, whoever's in the game or in the practice situation.
If Sumrall weighs how much is thrown at them when evaluating scrimmage execution
Some of it's that, you know, when I walked off the field, because of the amount of success the offense had in the run game, I thought, man, our front didn't play very good. Then I watched it on tape, and I was like, "You know what happened?"
Our front played OK on the defense, our O-line just actually played decent, which made it more competitive. We, on a couple of pressures, did not take blocks on with the right leverage, or they were supposed to spill the ball or leverage the ball outside, and we didn't do that right. A couple times it created chunk runs. And then, like I said, I already hit on the back end of the defense, linebacker, secondary: We did not communicate and get on the same page and play with great detail, in coverage or leveraging the football and run game.
So a lot of the run explosive plays had zero to do with the front. It was like, "Well, a linebacker didn't spill the ball, or the linebacker didn't leverage the ball and box it in that call, or a secondary player didn't hold their leverage on the perimeter or whatever it was."
So when I went back and watched it, I thought the front played okay. I thought Kofi Asare played really good. Thought Myles graham played really good. There were some guys that played really good. Kofi has played great the last 10 days. He's probably kind of been the unsung surprise of training camp so far, special teams-wise and on defense the last week and a half.
But it was — as much as any — it was make the other team beat, don't give them things, you know, and everybody's gonna be good enough to, even when you do things the right way, make the play, because they got, you know, you used to they have guys on scholarship, now they got guys on payroll.
On the improvement on procedural issues
Way better. It's funny, we've got a full SEC crew. Offensively, no delays, much better. Like, the false starts were cleaned up, and we had a full SEC crew. The crew commented to me about halfway through, they're like, "This y'all playing a really clean football." I'm like, "Well, you weren't here last week."
So, it was fun to watch because every time you go out for the first time in that environment, that's why you see so many game ones are sloppy in college football or even pro football for that matter. But I thought we operated a lot cleaner, in particular offensively. Defensively, we still were a little bit sloppy on some things. We had the face mask in the first drive, but I thought the offense operated well.
On if the rain impacted the scrimmage, if it limited the time of the scrimmage
No, I wish it would have rained the whole time. It gave us really good work with the wet football. You know, I was hoping it would rain the entire time. The way I treat the preseason scrimmages is scrimmage one is always the longer one. Scrimmage two is a little shorter in nature, at least with the top two groups.
And then I've got a pitch count I want each group to kind of hit. We have more situations on this second one. We have two four-minute drills and two two-minute drills. Four-minute means we have the ball, and we want to run the clock out on offense. We have a lead. And then two two-minute situations where we had about a minute left on both of them. No timeouts. We were down by three and got the ball midfield.
So, we did two of those, the ones and the twos each. We did a red zone period. We had a normal open field period. Did a lot of situational work, and then once we got to the last break in the scrimmage, sent basically almost the two-deep down at most spots. A couple spots we didn't sit anybody down. In the secondary, we played average enough. I was like, "I don't want to see anybody go down. They need to keep playing."
The length was as planned, but the rain was desired. I was great with the rain in a practice setting. I don't like lightning because we have to go inside, but we need to get the wet football work.
On if training camp is over
So, training camp is officially over as of Saturday night's scrimmage. Yesterday, we entered into what I call mock game week. So this is something I've done as a head coach that I really have value in that I think helps our players understand what next week looks like when it's real.
And so, what we do is go through the entire week like we're in a game, and the practices look identical the whole week, and then Saturday we'll go do a mock game. That mock game on Saturday is not like a scrimmage. It's like helmets, spider pads, and it's all the crazy situations that can come up in a football game.
You know, now in our game we had a kick after a fair catch in our game that the NFL's had forever. Their fair catch, free kick deal.
On training camp being a run-through
It's a run-through, and it'll be carded. But it's, hey, the center's helmet comes off. Well, now you have to bring another center in. And how do we do that? Who do we move over in? How do we work all those things? How to take a safety if you need to in a certain game, and how to do kickoff after a safety, kickoff return after a safety, and how the ball's at the 20-yard line, not the 35.
So all those things that come up that we have to work to be able to the first time it happens in a game, some of them may not never happen on a year, but you just want to have those boxes checked.
On the physical and mental toughness after camp
It's improved. We haven't arrived. It's a lot better. We'll find out. We're going to have some hardship here at some point this season. We'll find out what our toughness really looks like then. I can only create so many adverse situations out of the practice field, but we try to create as many as we can.
The mental toughness precedes physical toughness. It's way more important, and the mind tells the body what to do. And so, mentally tough people have to overcome adversity, and they've overcome a lot of things we've done on them. But I think we're better. We're still probably not quite where I'm fully comfortable.
TJ Abrams said 4-8 is no longer acceptable — does Sumrall sense that urgency from returning players?
I think they understand that. I mean, 4-8 is not ever acceptable. It's not just it's no longer. It's never acceptable. Anybody that's comfortably in 4-8, I would absolutely run them the hell out of this building. I mean, if I was comfortable with that, I'd want y'all to run me the hell out of here.
So, 4-8's not — I don't worry about our record though right now. I worry about getting better. Like, I'm so worried about just us getting better every day. And then when we get to next week, we'll focus on trying to be 1-0 next week.
What are the most competitive spots moving forward?
The defensive line is ridiculously competitive. You know, the running back room, the depth of that room is really competitive. Offensive line, there's still some competitive things happening with the depth of the room as well. I think you're constantly competing every day. We evaluate every practice, every rep, everything all the time, and so I think everything's still competitive.
But you have to start to pare down who gets how many reps with each group and start to create some cohesion. But I would say d-line is really, really competitive. Like all those guys are going to play snaps. It's just who's going to play in certain packages and certain roles.
Where Sumrall stands on players coming back from the NFL
We've tracked all of it. We're following all of it. I'm for the five-for-five; we're getting moving forward. My understanding when all of that was being done was that was for moving forward after this year, really, right? What I really struggle with is the rules are changing so daily based upon a court ruling, or what happens in a court in Colorado, or a court here, a court in Louisiana, and it's like, we need to have some continuity and some consistency across the board.
We have our football team here. And I'm always open to adding if we can add, but the timing of who you add, how you add them, add a guy from the NFL training camp but he's waiting to figure out does he get cut or does he not get cut. We're looking at all of it, we're following all of it, we've had conversations with some people, but there's been nothing that's felt like it could fit or make sense for us.
Look, I added Jake Retzlaff last year on July 27th, so I'm not holier than thou, acting like I'm not going to add a player. If it's best for Florida football for us to add a player, we'll add a player. But at the same time, I think you have to, we're already at our roster number right now — so if I add a player today, you know what I have to do, I have to go out there and cut one. Well, that player I add, he better be pretty damn if I'm gonna cut a guy who's already out here. And it better make a lot of sense for the whole roster.
Would we do it? I don't know yet, but we're not doing it as we speak right now.
On Aaron Philo cutting down on turnovers Saturday
It was good. I thought he protected the football and made good decisions on Saturday. Obviously the previous Saturday he had the one on the third down, but he really had a good week last week. That's the thing, you go back to the quarterback situation or any situation, nobody wins or loses or elevates or gets a spot on the roster based upon one rep or one practice; it's a full body of work.
So going back to the quarterback thing, it's a full body of work. What he did last week showed that he understood the mistake he made on the previous Saturday. I tell both quarterbacks when they make mistakes, "I can live with that one," based upon the situation or scenario within a game. Which ones can we not live with? He's learned. He's learning. They're constantly learning. Both those guys, the whole room is constantly learning because they're all still relatively young as football players."
On Aaron Philo as a runner
He kind of had two, because I called one of them down and made us keep running it again. He probably would have scored, but I was like, "No let's pull it back," then he scored his next play on a run, so he kind of had back-to-back. He runs good.
I've said this before: him, Tramell, all those guys are athletic and have good mobility; none of them are going to be confused with Tim Tebow by any Florida fans, but neither are slugs. They both have functional athletic movement, they both move well in the pocket. They both have a little bit different running style. Aaron's is probably a little bit heavier into the contact, Tramell's is a little more elusive laterally at times, but their straight-line speeds off of what we can measure on the GPS are about the same. Aaron's got good mobility.
On what Sumrall would like to see from the safety unit
I'd like to see them communicate at a really high level and set the table around them. Understand everything that goes on with formation, tendency from an offense, and just be consistent. When they're at their best we're good, but we gotta be more consistent. Dave Caldwell and I kind of kid around: at safety you want guys that are safe, not risky. That's why it's called safety. The position isn't called risky.
So I want guys that play the game with some idea of how to keep us safe in certain calls. Where are the issues? You have to be the eraser. The offense gets a 10-yard play, well, it can't be a touchdown. How do we get the ball down, how do we keep it leveraged or in front of us in certain calls.
So just across the board, but the biggest thing, I've said it probably 50 times: communicate, open your mouth loud. The stadium is going to have people in it. We had the band there the other night; it's not just gonna be the band there, it's going to be loud. So we gotta be great communicators."
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Jon Sumrall discusses Florida football's fall camp results
