Jon Sumrall spoke with the media on Monday, as is typical for Florida football's head coach, addressing many of the pressing questions the Gator Nation is asking following a second straight loss in SEC play.
Among the items on the agenda for the first-year skipper were the struggles of his defensive unit and his direct involvement in addressing them, as well as handling adversity, dealing with external pressure and criticism, dealing with fatigue, whether there is a competition for the starting quarterback role, the Gators' top-five recruiting class, and a look ahead at the matchup against Texas next Saturday.
Take a look below at everything Sumrall said to the media on Monday.
Jon Sumrall's opening statement
Alright, new week. Before we go ahead, obviously, not good enough by
us on Saturday. We're a work in progress. Sometimes our progress is dysfunctional. And we have a long way to go to get to where we need to be as a football team. We're gonna keep showing up; our guys are — there's gonna be no woe is me, you know, downtrodden deal. We gotta pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, move on.
This is a challenging league week in, week out. We have to be more prepared, more ready for those challenges. It starts with me, leading the guys. The guys were great this morning in meetings with corrections and taking ownership. And we're trying to lay a foundation in how we want this to look moving forward. And we've got a lot of work to do. But guys have had the right demeanor, the right mindset as we started this new week. And probably had a little bit longer meetings today and a touch shorter practice today.
You know, full disclosure, I probably hit on a few more things each side of the ball directly, just to try to make sure that I'm being engaged with each side of the football the right way to help them see the vision that we have for how we want to play football here. And so, but the guys are — they're resilient, and we have to close ranks, have each other's back and move forward.
So, tremendous challenge in Texas, very talented team. You know, it's all over the tape when you watch it. They got great players in every facet and they're well-coached and go on the road's never easy, so we'll have to handle that well. But excited about getting back to work and moving forward. So with that we'll open up.
Has Jon Sumrall's involvement with the defense increased given the struggles?
Yeah, it increased today a little bit. I went in there and, you know, I talked to the defense about, we got good players, we got good coaches. We don't have perfect anybody — nobody's perfect; we're all humans. But I believe in who we have. We have to perform better.
I showed 15 plays roughly to the defense today from the game in a team setting, where I just showed him, "Hey, this one decision we made on the field, did we teach it like that in practice?" "No, coach, we do this." "Okay, well then, if we do that in a game, what happens right here?" "Well, it's probably a sack."
Like, on the flea flicker that they didn't convert, which they should have converted, we should have had somebody in coverage and ready to cover it, and somebody that didn't really run the blitz pattern properly, because as soon as I saw the quarterback spin out the way he did, I'm like, "It's a sack." And we didn't get there, get home. I'm like, "That should be a sack 100 times out of 100."
It's not taking a shot at any player. It's also on coaches, like, "Okay, well, if the guys aren't executing at a high enough level, then are we not teaching them well enough?" And so I'm not taking the defense over. I have to be involved in all facets of the game. I'm the head coach of the whole team. Offense, defense, kicking game, all of it. Every other aspect, too, operationally, I got my hands on everything.
Like, I'm not, I think, you know, being a head coach at this day and age, you have to be in the weeds of every part of the program. Every play call that goes in all three phases, I know what we're doing. I'm not like, "Hey, what does that mean?" Like, I know the offense, I know the defense, I know the kicking game. But I don't have the time to take the defense over.
I got a lot of confidence in our defensive staff. But what I wanted our guys to see is like, hey, there's been some really good too. I showed them a handful of plays from the game that were like, man, really positive when we executed and did things the right way. We have to become more detailed. We have to become more urgent.
I can think of one particular scenario that really frustrated me in the game. The 3rd-and-17: we jump offsides, and then the 3rd-and-12, we want to change the defensive call because 3rd-and-17 is different than 3rd-and-12, and I'm like, we got a couple of guys not getting their eyes back to the sideline to get the new call. They want to change the call because they're gonna do something different now maybe.
And it's just us understanding how urgently you have to get reset, next down, next down, next down. And so I've inserted myself today more than I did maybe some other Mondays with the defense. But I always — I'm evaluating every part of our program and constantly trying to make changes that need to be made. I also think sometimes when things aren't going good, outcome-driven-wise, everybody's like, well, change all this and change all that. And when you're winning, everybody's, "Oh it's good you're winning."
Like, so I'm always making — after wins, I'm making changes. And so, I'm not gonna, I'm not taking the defense over. There are some things I see that we need to, I think, adjust. And I'm making sure we're adjusting them, and I'm trying to help our guys understand, you know, you're not going to be perfect ever.
I showed one clip today on the setting the standard tape of the defense that LJ McCray actually didn't play the technique properly, but the way he played, I liked it, and he was really physical on their tight end coming back across the formation. He was supposed to be in a 4i, which means you would play the B gap. He kind of hopped out and became at 5 and played the C gap, which is the wrong technique. But on the splitter, he played with real physicality, and I'm like, hey, wrong technique, right physicality.
And you know what? If you make a mistake, make it like that. And so, just helping our guys learn, like that, we're — and I'm not making an excuse for our football team — we don't have that many veteran, exhausting-eligibility-type players. And so every minute of the day is a teaching moment. Every play is a teaching moment, and that's how we have to improve and attack things, but I'm gonna be hands-on in every area.
I don't — I'm not gonna be, you know, more evolved necessarily with a defense and the offense. I probably — over my time as a head coach, my first year as a head coach, you might have thought I was a defensive coordinator at times or the special teams coordinator at times, and I didn't really know the offense half the time what was going on. I was just in my own little silo hoping those guys didn't screw it up. Now I've tried to do a good job of being the head coach of the entire team.
What more can be done for the cornerbacks? Will position battles occur?
There's competition every day. We have practice today and you don't do things the right way in practice, you're not gonna play as much. So we compete every day. Everybody's had an opportunity. The challenge in-season with the competition is it's not like you can just go, hey, we're gonna try everybody, because you have a limited amount of reps.
But, you know, I think you saw four guys play in the game. You saw Cormani (McClain), you saw Ben (Hanks III), you saw DD (Dijon Johnson), you saw J'Vari Flowers. So we played all four of those guys a little bit. Some of them played more than others; that's been based upon their practice. And so that's been that.
There might — we've got some other guys we're working. We're not much deeper than that really right now at that position. Jordy Lowery got a little bit today, you know; CJ Bronaugh has been out, the youngster that showed some flashes in training camp, but he's been out with injury. He was available to do some things in practice today, so we do kind of have who we have to some degree.
You know, it sounds great to be like, "Hey, the secondary's not playing good, bench everybody." Well, who do you want to play? You know, like, you gotta play somebody. And yeah, if a guy repeatedly's not doing what we need to do, we'll give other guys opportunities. But... so that's that.
On handling adversity, how you combat that, how you teach it
"You know what, that's a great question, Mark (Long). I addressed it with our team today. You know, we're 10-10, interception, have a third down which should have gotten off the field. (We) don't; they score a touchdown, 17-10. We get the ball back.
We kind of just, you know, going back to the question, I think, Edgar (Thompson), you might have asked after the game about, I can't remember who asked it. Yeah, two-minute drill, was it you? See, I got a decent memory. So, two-minute drill, our philosophy always.
You go watch NFL football and the philosophy is always: let's get a first down. After we get the first down, let's kick it in gear. I don't think we kicked it in gear quick enough there. I do think we could have kicked it in gear a little bit faster. But that's something we got to learn from and do a better job of. Still got an opportunity to get points. Missed the field goal. We're down 17-10.
I go into halftime; we're in a weather delay, and I walk in the locker room. I look around and I look at the guys, and man, you would have thought somebody's dog died. It's like, "Man, we lost." I'm like, "Boys, we're down seven points, and we get the ball to (start the) half. We got a pulse. We got a chance. Life's pretty good here. Let's go."
I think we're having to help our guys overcome. Hey, maybe we're not in the best position we'd like to be. If you tell me at half, "Do you want to be up 17 or down 17?" I would pick up, but it's a seven-point football game. I talked to our guys this morning. In this league, in the NFL, the higher levels you go in football, man, one-possession football games, that's where you live a lot of times.
I think where we have to grow as a football team, and I have to do a better job, is helping our guys understand it's always going to be nip and tuck and tight games, and you have to fight until the finish. And it doesn't matter if you're up or down. I reminded them at halftime: the bunch we were playing had been up 17-0 in one game and 16-0 in another and lost.
There's never anything that you can't overcome. Just getting our guys to create a belief of like, "Man, keep fighting." I told them this morning in our team meeting, "Do you know the third quarter against Ole Miss, even though the score ended up fairly lopsided, the whole third quarter was a three-point game for the most part." We got up 10, then it was three, then 10, then three and then we kind of blew it open.
But we've been in these situations, and we were up in that game, Ole Miss. We were up in the previous SEC game at Auburn. The couple where we've been in those type of situations, where we've been down, we have not responded well. And there is something to that.
There is a belief, a confidence, an intestinal fortitude of like, "I'm going to fight till the finish. Don't even care about what the scoreboard says." And then we'll look up at the end of the game and see what the scoreboard says. That is a concern of mine. It is something I saw and felt the last two games that we've got to get corrected because, man, that's how this game is structured and it's how we have to figure out how to win.
We'll get there, but it's been problematic, and it's been something I've recognized. It's not been a part of my past because the teams I've had in my past, man, it don't matter where we play, when we play, we're going to play parking lot football. We're going to scrap to the end, and that's an area we have to grow.
On fans booing the team on Saturday before halftime
I'm going to be honest with you: When we're in the middle of the game, I'm not going, "Are they cheering or are they booing?" I'm just trying to figure out how do we execute. They have the right to boo. The thing I love is having freaking passionate, awesome fans. Why you come to the University of Florida is because people care. They have the right to boo. I'm good.
I'd like for them to not boo, but I'm not going to sit there and take my headset off and go, "Are they booing or are they cheering?" We're going to do everything we can to try to win the game. But I love that our fans care enough to boo. Good. I'd rather the stands be full and them be passionate and pissed off if something's not going good.
I don't want to applaud when we're not playing well. We do need their support. We need them to be behind the guys. Going back to the confidence question, I don't want to say we're fragile. But I think we're trying to find ourselves from a confidence standpoint maybe when things are in question. It'd be helpful if everybody's like, "Man, let's go. We got this." The guys feed off the crowd. They do.
But I love that our fans care enough to boo as well. There's a balance there. I'm not going to take a shot at our fanbase. We got a freaking awesome fanbase, man.
On external criticism of WR Vernell Brown III missing Saturday's game
I'll rewind and go back to last week. Early in the week, he ran on the zero gravity ultra G treadmill, 70-some-percent on Tuesday, 85% on Wednesday. Thursday is a walkthrough day for us. But he ran some to see if he could test it. Was he running? Yes. Was he running his top in speed? No. Not anywhere near it.
After Thursday's practice, he's in the mindset of, "I want to give it a go on Friday in the run-through and see how I can do this." He looked OK in the warmup part of practice. He took the first few team reps, and he did take several team reps. He was not quite himself. He was not right, if you will.
I got to address this postgame. We're not going to put a player in harm's way if he's not able to play the game the right way and protect himself. He's doing everything he can to try to play. When you're a speed player, if you can't play with your speed, it's really hard to go play, and you have to be able to protect yourself.
I think he's very frustrated because he wants to get back. Hell, I want him to come back. I mean, we're a better football team with him available. There's no questioning on my end if he's trying to come back. He's doing what he needs to do. It's no different than Eric Singleton and Emmanuel (Oyebadejo). They both had high ankles in Game 1.
Well, Eman played two weeks later, and E didn't play until Ole Miss. Well, they're different players. One guy plays hand down defensive line. One guy plays receiver. And then body types. You never know how guys are going to, how your body responds. Some guys have ACLs and they come back in eight months. Some guys, it takes them a year.
Some of it is position-dependent; some of it is just your body's response to maybe how it's healing. VB's trying to play. He's not like, "I'm going to take the week off" or "I'm going to take next week." No, he's trying like hell to play. But at the same time, we have to be smart-tough, not dumb-tough.
I could watch him on Friday run-through, and the first couple plays, I looked at Paul Silvestri, our trainer, because I stayed with the offense that part — I usually do on Friday anyways — to see the opening script a little bit to see how we're working, and he's in and he has a screen and I'm like, "That didn't look very good." And I'll say this: VB's 85% might be better than a lot of people's 100%, but it wasn't where he could go out and play the game the right way with confidence and protect himself and go cut it loose.
So anybody that's created any narrative on that, they're just trying to take a shot at somebody. They don't really understand the reality of the situation. He's trying like hell to play — I can promise you that. I think the one thing I've been proud of with this football team, that we have grown in, that I don't think was here when we got here was you've seen very few guys miss games. If they're missing a game, it's because there's something that's real. I'm not taking a shot.
When I got here, the first time I saw the injury report, I'm like, "How many guys are on this list?" There's a difference between being like out hurt and like hurt; I got to man up and go. VB's trying like heck to give everything he has to go play. He's not capable. He was not capable last week. He practiced some today. Was he 100%? No.
I don't know what he hit on his GPS yet. I haven't looked because I just came straight from the field in here. I'll look at his GPS numbers, and we'll watch the tape and see how he moved. He did look a little bit better today than he did on Friday. But that's something we'll evaluate as we go through the week. I would imagine on Wednesday's injury report he's going to be questionable, just like he's been, because you don't know how a guy's going to go through the week and how he's going to respond coming off injury."
When you're in a slide, can you still lean on outside noise for motivation or do you block it out?
I don't look at social media for how I need to coach your team. Number one. Now I respect our fan base. But, so, half the people on Twitter aren't our fan base probably anyways. But, I have said this openly, publicly: When things are going good and everybody's patting them on the back, I'm probably an asshole in our building to everybody.
Like, the people in our building are probably going, "We just won, why are you pissed?" Because I'm trying to make sure everybody's head still fits in the door. And then when things aren't going good, like we have had two weeks where the outcome's not been favorable — I'm probably a little bit more calm, direct, reaffirming. It's my time to try to figure out how to help the team rebuild their confidence right now, because they are a little bit shaken.
You know, to Mark's question: there is some recent past of, like, man, one becomes two, and then somebody gets down on themselves, and I think when you go look on the external — there's always somebody that's never been the man of the arena that wants to take a shot at the man in the arena, and that's what you sign up for.
But helping our guys understand a life lesson, like, when you put yourself in the fray, you're gonna take some shrapnel. You're gonna take some heat. Man, that's what comes to the territory. And you can't rely on external — either praise or critique — to help you be your best.
I told our guys, I'm more excited about being at practice today than I've ever been because I want to see us respond. Like there's a lot of opportunity for growth here. And like I said earlier, I have a great appreciation for our fan base and their passion for us wanting to win. But I'm not gonna, like, go search what's going on and something about a topic to get what I should do next for our football team. And I'm still very fiery.
In our meeting this morning, I was pretty fired up. But I also have to be encouraging-fired up right now, because I think we need to rebuild our guys a little bit and help them understand, "Hey, we have a shot to keep going here and do something to have some success."
On assessing the team's fatigue the last few weeks
That's a really good question. Y'all got good questions today. I was coming here a couple times and y'all asked a bunch of clunkers.
So the GPS data, I put a lot of stock into. I'm very involved in the sports science stuff. Our strength staff and our training staff, I get a lot of information from them. So the GPS, or how close on Tuesday or Wednesday do you hit your top-end speed? On Tuesday or Wednesday, I want to see every player on our football team hit 90% of their top-end speed.
So if you're a 20-mile-an-hour guy, 90%. If I'm wrong, y'all help me, I think it's like 18 miles an hour. Is that right or wrong? I don't know. Y'all tell me. But whatever it is, there's a percentage on the sheet, and I want to see a guy hit 90% of his top-end speed. So that's a component we look at. We also have their devices on during the games.
Offensively, our speeds were slower last week than we needed to be for us to have success. We also — on the devices — look at the yardage and the player load. Player load is a kind of different measurement with the yardage. How many yards did you cover in the practice? And usually receivers and EBs cover the most.
And then I will go over to certain players that I trust who are going to give me real feedback, not like, "Oh coach, that practice is just way too hard." Because they don't like practicing hard. I'll go to guys that love practice, Myles Graham, and go, "Hey 1 to 10, how hard's today?" And if it's a 10 every day, then you're probably not doing it right.
But Tuesdays have to be real practices every week. Our practice model over the years has been really tweaked for two things: how do we keep our team healthy and available because your best ability is availability, and then how do we show up fast and fresh on Saturday, so that we could play the game the right way.
We didn't look as fast or fresh to me this past week and or the previous week. Buster and I were talking about this. We went back and watched the Ole Miss game, and we felt a little faster, really, in all facets on offense. Right now, we look a little bit worn down. We've trimmed some practice length, but the day of the week of practice, I don't change the intensity, we just might change the length.
So Tuesday's still going to be really hard. We might trim a couple plays out of a practice. But we have to always kind of keep our eye on that. And the other component is, too — and I was bringing this up to our staff yesterday — we haven't hit our bye week yet. We're about to be in game seven in a row, and we've played some physical games.
So maybe recognizing that... I got one or two adaptations we're going to make this week on the back end of the week, sleep-wise, to try to help maybe get our guys' bodies back a little back. Being a morning practice team, one concern I always have is, are the guys staying up too late and then we're still waking them up early because we're early?
So this week we're gonna at the back of the week probably have a little bit of a housing check and then a later start to try to make sure guys are getting the rest they need Thursday."
On Florida's recent offensive line play
I think you have to give credit to the two teams that have played better than us up front. But I also think we haven't handled our business as well. To me, it's two components. You think you look at the tackles, and I think you have to look at, in particular, South Carolina. Their edge rushers — they're not good, they're great, like 40, 6. Wow! Like, that guy's a phenomenal player, and so the matchups were more challenging, maybe in some regard off the edge rushers.
And then I think maybe how they played us was a little bit different than we had seen. And then I do think going back to the question about speeds, we looked quicker and stronger, and we looked maybe a little bit more fatigued and worn down, and we weren't finishing blocks as well.
And so, I think there's some things in there that we're trying to figure out, how do we help our guys be their best on game day? But we have not looked anywhere near where we need to look to play to our standard.
On playing Ole Miss after its huge win, Missouri after its gut-kick loss, South Carolina three-game skid
I do think that the human psyche part of what you are dealing with, what's the other side dealing with? It's a real part of the game. Anytime you're coming off of a defeat, you have a bad taste in your mouth, and that's all of us that are competitors.
So you're really trying to figure out, how do I get this fixed or how do I get it right? And the only way you know to get it right is by getting a win. So yeah, I think there's a huge component to that. As coaches, we always try to fight against the human element of like, "Oh, we're winning, everybody's high-fiving us."
Like I said earlier, I go opposite of that. But I do think you have to recognize maybe what the psyche of your football team is, and then also what the other side got going on? They lost a tough one the way they did.
On the challenges of facing Texas on the road
Well, it's an SEC road game, so it will be a hostile environment. You can start there. They got great players. I just complimented South Carolina's edges. You look at this edge, this Colin Simmons kid that these guys got. Like, holy cow. He's wow good. I really started to watch the tape last night, and I'm like, "Alright, I'm just gonna turn this off. I don't even want to watch this guy anymore right now." He's a really good player.
Their front is physical; they're sound on defense, they're multiple, they do a lot of things. Will (Muschamp) does a really good job with how they put it together. They got really good players and execute at a high level. I think that's probably the thing I like watching their defense right now, just you can tell that they're wired to execute at a high level, which is a challenge.
Offensively, the quarterback, obviously, everybody talks about him. He's a really good player. I've gotten to know that family well when I was at Tulane as the head coach. Arch, when he would be back in New Orleans, Arch (Archie Manning), he would text me and go, "Hey, is it alright if little Arch comes over and throws on our campus?" I said, "Yeah, as long as he's ready to enter the transfer portal."
And so, I'd go out and watch him throw, and I'm like, "God, I'd like to coach this guy." I think the thing that's unique about Arch, he's a Manning, which means he's a quarterback that throws the football and understands the game at a high level, but I think the thing that people forget — they gotta remember his dad is Cooper, not Peyton, and he's an unbelievable runner. And Cooper was a receiver, not a quarterback.
So he's athletically a little bit different maybe than his uncles in regards to — not taking a shot at Peyton or Eli — but he's a different runner than maybe when you think Manning, you think pocket passer. He's dangerous with the football in his hands running, and you have to remember that. And so he's a talented guy.
I think the offensive line has improved. I think the left tackle is an elite player. The right tackle they brought in from Wake Forest — we tried to get him here, didn't get him. He's a good player. Their center has played a lot. They use tight ends by job description. They're really good.
And then the running backs they brought in are talented. The receivers, once again, like I talked about the Simmons kid — wow good. The receivers, wow. I'm gonna call the SEC and see if we can play with 16 players and double the receivers all week, because they're that good. So they present a lot of challenges.
Then they're really good on special teams. Banks, Jeff Banks, their special teams coordinator, I think is really one of the more aggressive, unique, kind of challenging special teams guys to prepare for because they do a lot. The unique deal there, (Johnathan) Galante worked for Banks at Alabama. Greg McMahon and Banks go back a long way together. So there's a lot of crossover there in the special teams phase, but they do a nice job.
Did anything bother Sumrall more than the missed tackle? Did he address it in practice?
Were you at practice today? What we did do was we did, every position group did a fundamental tackle deal that is more directed at their type of tackles they make. I was displeased with the missed tackles. I was probably equally displeased with third downs because we handled first and second down fairly well. We played the pass early in the game well. We handled the run well.
That was the one thing that — they were the best SEC rushing offense coming in and the seventh best in the country. We won the rushing battle by six yards. We ran for 120; they ran for 114. So we stopped the run good, but what we didn't do good was, I think, maybe finish on the ball carrier.
What we also didn't do good was get off on third down. Some of those missed tackles were on third down, where we have a guy, call it third and 11, and we have a tackle opportunity at eight yards and make them have to make a decision to kick a field goal or not, and they get 15 because we miss a tackle, and it's like, well, that's really, really costly.
So I think our tackling and our third down situations we have to address.
On the game defensive coordinator Brad White called
We pressed more. I made our defensive staff give the corners a signal of exactly three different mechanics to play press, press and play off at a certain depth, and then off-off, based upon down and distance. So we gave them a direct signal every play, so it wasn't like we were teaching them in the meeting room and hoping they would go out and get it right. They got a different signal every play about the depth to play at. That's probably something we're gonna continue to do.
In a perfect world, you can get your players to a point where they understand the call and down and distance, and they can see it and operate. But right now we're having to help them a little bit, which is good. I mean, we need to make sure we give them the answers to the test. We're on the same team.
I did ask Brad, I thought, looking at it, I thought we needed to mix up some of our pressures. The one struggle I had was on some of the pressures that we didn't get home; I felt like we were maybe too much down the middle of the rush. We brought six a couple times, and if you're gonna bring six and either play zero coverage as man, or two under three deep, or different coverage structures, the six guys going have to go, like, with hair on fire. Because if you don't, you might as well just stand there and turn around, flick the guys off and say good luck.
I told the defense this morning, when I showed them one of the clips of it, because there was one six-man pressure where there were like four guys that are oozing off the ball, and I'm like, 'If you're gonna ooze off the ball on a six-man pressure, instead of doing that, stand there, flick the guy off behind you and say good luck, buddy.' Because now they're in a bad spot.
So when you bring six, you are putting the guys behind you on a little bit more of an island. So you have to pick and choose your spots. We can't bring six every snap, but we have to, I think, maybe keep people off balance. I think we did a little bit better job of that in the game with how we called it.
I thought Brad (White) did a nice job of trying to mix some of that. It's always a balance of, like, man, we can't just blitz every play. That sounds great, but that's like eating dessert at every meal and thinking you're gonna be skinny. It doesn't work. So you have to be calculated.
On Kanye Clark playing corner, is there anyone that can step up
So Kanye didn't really play corner. He still played STAR, but maybe in some of the man calls, they put his cover outside. It may have looked like he was playing corner. We're not deep right now to rob Peter to pay Paul and put somebody from the inside outside.
If we do, then we're just gonna have to take the outside guy and put him inside because we don't have the depth there yet. That's something we have to address in recruiting as we're working our tail off to build for the future. While I want to win every Saturday right now, I'm also, going back to the question on how involved am I in the offense, defense, whatever, I'm involved in also protecting how do we win in '27, and '28, and '29.
We have to build secondary depth to allow our guys to, A, maybe elevate the competition in the room, and also, B, move some pieces around more. We're currently a little bit tighter-numbered than I'd like to be with guys that can play multiple spots. It's tighter than what I had at Tulane, to be quite honest with you.
In '24 at Tulane, three or four of those guys that are NFL DBs right now, Caleb Ransaw, plays with the Jags, I could make him go play safety, corner, or nickel. We cross-trained guys and moved them all around. We're a little bit more restricted in how much we can do with guys because of the numbers we have of personnel back there, just the number of players.
So we got to fix that a little bit as we move to the future.
On another social media theory...
You guys are talking a lot about social media. What are you guys doing on there?
What are your thoughts on everyone picking apart your words and looking at you on the sidelines? Can you confirm no one is trying to silence you?
Are you sh*tting me? Have I been reigned in by who?
The powers that be — we all have bosses
Once again, by who? They can f—.
Look. I took this job — because when I took the job, the administration I felt really strongly wanted me to be me. Whether that be Duke (Werner) or Scott Stricklin; Stuart Bell wasn't here yet, but he's been around me enough. I think he's pretty comfortable with how direct and how vulgar I can be, maybe. Good luck reining me in.
I think if there's anything there, it's probably to go back to when things are going good for our guys: I'm probably more of a maniac on everybody. When things aren't going good, I have to figure out how to calm down because we are still young, maybe at times immature, emotional bunch.
And who asked the question about somebody booing at the game? You did Zach (Abolverdi)? When the fans were booing, the worst thing I can go do is "MF" our guys. Our guys at that point need me to go, "Hey, boys, it's alright. They may be booing you, but I believe in you. Let's go." Like, so, man, I don't know.
You ever watch Ted Lasso? It's not social media; that's social something, right? So, Ted Lasso, you know, sometimes when things are going good, you have to play the game a little bit. So no, if there's anything there, it's because when things aren't going good, me just absolutely coming down on our guys would be a complete maniac; that's not helping them when they're going bad. When things are going good, I am maybe borderline nut-job on them.
And so, nobody's asked me how to — if anybody wants me to act differently, I wouldn't have come here. So good luck trying to reel me in, or tell me how to do it or whatever. My wife's tried, hasn't worked for her. I'm not very good at being reeled in.
Is there daily competition at QB?
Yeah, you know, I would say this. Philo had the pick and the fumble, those were two not-good football plays. Outside of that, you know, like the one that he — people might have booed on this one where he threw the ball to our sideline. Well he made the right throw and the guy ran the wrong route. I'm not even going to take a shot at who ran the route, but we have to run the right route.
Now he didn't throw the cleanest ball on that throw, but like, the route wasn't the right route. I actually thought when you looked at his decision-making outside the two turnover-worthy plays that do matter — the fumble wasn't the decision; it was just not finishing with the ball. The interception wasn't a bad decision; they had a good call on for our route concept.
They played cloud coverage — corner fell off on the sail route. It was the best call for that route. And on that route, we have our running back chip in protection, supposed to chip the edge rusher. But because we got penetration inside, we didn't get to chip the edge rusher; we had to chip the interior rusher. Now, the edge rusher gets pressure on the quarterback, the quarterback's like, "I gotta get the ball out," and forces it to speed up this process.
I thought Philo, honestly, with his decision-making, was decent, was good. I think there's some things — I go back to the throw to Bailey (Stockton) on the empty option route, was a little bit hot. Could have maybe had a little bit more touch and waited for him to get open. But his performance wasn't such that, like, "You played so bad that you cost us by yourself."
There's a lot of things around him that need to go better. Having said that, Tramell (Jones Jr.) got reps today in practice. He's going to continue to get reps. When we put him at the end, in those situations, I want to make sure we continue growing because I believe in Tramell. I've said this publicly: I think Tramell can be our starting quarterback here, and we can win football games.
A couple weeks ago, Steve Sark...
I'm not done. But I think Tramell can win football games, too. And I believe in Tramell. And so I like our quarterback room. Aaron did some things that he needs to clean up. I'm not saying he played perfect. He didn't.
But it's really easy to critique the quarterback position when we don't block the edge rusher very good. You're getting ready to get smacked, and you have to speed up your process, and you don't get the opportunity to take a good picture of the coverage.
But yeah, there's plenty of things he's got to work on, cleanup, correct. There's about five plays I'd like for him to handle differently. The other one was the naked. He came out; he threw it to, I think, (Luke) Harpring was in at tight end on the crossing route. Another guy didn't run his route the right way around Harpring, so it brought another guy in the coverage picture that shouldn't have been there, so he put the ball a little bit more in jeopardy than I like.
After that one, I came up to him and said, "Hey, it's okay if you tuck it and get five yards there. Like, I'm good, 2nd and 5 is great." And so there's still a lot to work on and improve upon, but they're both working hard every day, and Tramell is gonna be ready when his number is called, and he's gonna continue to have opportunities as we move forward. I love the way he's handled himself. Tramell's been great. Philo's been great.
At practice today, one of my favorite moments at practice: We're doing some routes-on-air stuff, and Philo's standing right next to Tramell and Tramell makes a throw and Philo's like, "9, what a great ball. Let's go." They're there for each other.
On Florida's top-five recruiting class, that momentum
I'm a great coach if I've got great players. And so this is a player-driven game. We're gonna recruit every day, all year long, all the time. I mean, I will recruit today. So every Wednesday, I watch about an hour and a half of the film with our front office guys, Dave Caldwell and them, to make decisions on how we're doing things.
I'm so blessed to have that group here, 'cause it helps kind of — I don't have to go look at a huge menu. They kind of give me the pared-down menu and we watch what we need to watch. But I have a strong feeling that we can build a monster here. I've said that. That doesn't always happen just as fast as you want it to, but we're getting there.
And I think you're seeing belief by certain players, who are talented players, that are gonna come do this with us for the long haul. You know, we're not there yet, but we're already trying to figure out what our portal needs are for the '27 roster. Because even though we have some really good high school players, there's gonna be some spots where we don't just need a high school player; we need an older player too, depending on how our roster shakes out moving forward.
But our guys are recruiting; we recruit as a staff. We have, I think -- probably one of my favorite things is we have an offense recruiting staff text chain and a defensive recruiting staff text message chain. You are required to put your notes from all your phone calls into that text message, and I like getting those, because it lets me know what's going on with guys.
And we constantly recruit, man. We had some big-time guys here on Saturday. I go back to the Ole Miss game; we had an unbelievable list of players here for the Ole Miss game, and I go back to Friday Night Lights camp we had in June. I've never been in a camp in my life that had that many real bona fide players at it. I'm like, "Golly, some of these guys can play right now." A couple of the guys that were here on Saturday, I'm like, "I'm gonna call your high school principal and see if we can go ahead and get you immediately eligible from graduating and you come play today."
And so, we've got to continue to put our roster together that elevates who we are day in, day out. Excited about the direction we're going there. One of the great things after the setbacks the last two weeks, some of the text messages from some of our committed guys I've got that are like — you know, I can't say their names — but some of the guys have been really encouraging.
Like, "Coach, we believe. This is gonna get right. Keep going." Like, it's been fun for me to get those because I'm like, "You're the right kind of guy because you're wired for what we have to do to get this thing where we want it to be." But I'm excited about the direction recruiting's going. We got a lot of great things to recruit to here. And I have — my belief in what we can build here has not wavered at all.
On Steve Sarkisian saying he thought Florida was good last year and that carried over this year
I didn't see the statement. I got a lot of respect for Sark. I think what he's probably speaking about is just the depth of this conference; any given Saturday, anybody can beat anybody. You have to be really prepared, week-in, week-out. I think he's done a great job.
But yeah, I think that's probably what he was commenting — I didn't see the comment. But, you know, Sark and I have a great relationship. I like him a lot. I respect how they've built what they built. Not trying to, like, do anything other than acknowledge how good they've been: you know, his first year, they were 5-7. People forget, like, they had plenty of bumps in year one.
To see how they built their roster and where they are now, I guess it's five years later, maybe. He got there in '21, if I'm not mistaken; it was year one for him. I have to go look back and look, but I think season one for Sark was 2021. What they've built roster-wise, you look at and you're like, "That's what a national championship contender looks like." Like, they're really solid at a lot of spots.
But I think he probably just was referencing the strength of this league, top-to-bottom. Man, you feel like each week you walk out and you're looking at it, at least yourself, or maybe a JV NFL team.
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida's Jon Sumrall talks team's difficulties, upcoming Texas game
