Florida football head coach Jon Sumrall spoke with the media on Monday to bring everyone up to speed regarding the current state of the Gators' program after beating the Ole Miss Rebels in Week 4, while also looking ahead to next weekend's opponent, the Missouri Tigers.
Among the topics discussed were injury issues, the head coach's weekly themes, and how he is dealing with the team's recent success and the praise that comes along with winning, as well as their performance against Ole Miss — plus some questions of a personal nature.
Take a look below at an abridged transcript of what Sumrall had to say to the press during his routine Monday conference.
Sumrall updates on injury issues
VB3, nothing serious. Relative to what you could get, we got great news after the imaging and
everything; the MRI revealed nothing that is long-term. It's, right now, really going to be as much of a pain tolerance and confidence with him being ready to go. But, really, honestly, great news on what we got back. A little bit of a strain, but the lowest-grade strain you could get.
So positive news there. What does that mean timeline-wise? I don't know. A lot of that is just how he's feeling more than anything. But medically, there's nothing that's going to hold him other than his own readiness, and so we gotta see how he responds and how he feels ready to go. Bailey Stockton will be limited probably a good bit of the week, just because of, he like, basically a car crash on the field with two guys. Came back and fought through it. You know, back's a little bit sore, but it's nothing structurally wrong, and so, working through that.
DD's (Dijon Johnson) got like a mild ankle, not like a high-ankle, just a little something that happens but nothing serious. Those are really the practice-limiting things. Everybody else, we're -- played four game, nobody's 100 percent at this point. If you are, you haven't played. But yeah, none of those injuries are long-term, catastrophic; all of them, honestly, could be available this weekend. That'll just be through the week evaluations.
But I've had guys — on all the guys who have injuries — I've had guys have the same injuries and find ways to get there in a week, but you never know how a guy's body is going to respond and how they feel confidence-wise and certain things. So, but nothing major, which is good.
Is Florida's lack of injuries from the workout program or due to luck?
I think it's a little bit of both. We've put a lot of work in. You know, things that are strong are resilient and don't break easily. So there's a lot of work that's been put in by Rusty (Whitt) and Paul Silvestri and that group. Very grateful for our sports medicine team and strength staff, they all do a phenomenal job. There's a lot that goes into it, but you can do everything right and still have things go kind of wonky or sideways with injuries. Sometimes you get a stretch of bad luck.
We've had — knock on wood — relatively decent stuff. Nothing's been so substantial that a guy's going to be gone for an extended period of time. The other guy I didn't hit on injury-wise is, I think [Eric] Singleton's going to be full-go this week. He was ready to go pre-game, we didn't really use him early. Obviously had a big impact late. But I think he'll be back to — if not 100%, like I don't think you're ever 100% anymore these days, but he'll be close to full speed from what he can do, I think, on Saturday.
As of right now that's what it looks like.
On Sumrall's weekly themes: what it is this week, where they come from
I get lots of help in my life. We do one every week. We've got core values that are never changing. We've got team rules that are never changing. But week to week, you know, notes I've kept on things over the years, books I've read, people I've listened to that I respect, there's certain things that when we get into each week I kind of -- Saturday night after the games and then into Sunday, kind of think about, "Alright, where's our team's head at? What's the message need to be? What do they need to hear?"
So yeah, we have one every week. Sometimes they get recycled if I feel like they need to be. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're completely unique to that week. Sometimes they're ones I'd never used before. I'd never used 'work the cut' that we used a couple weeks ago. I've heard it my whole — I said I never used it, I never used it for game week. I've used it in a team meeting years ago.
The first time I heard that was from Dr. Kevin Elko, who used to work with Coach (Nick) Saban at Alabama. Elko talked to the team in Tulane in 2012 when I was an assistant coach there, and that was the first time I heard "work the cut." I remember hearing it and I wrote the whole thing down and I was like, "Alright, this is pretty cool."
And so, yeah, just, you accumulate things over the years that I think can stick with you. And I try to message what I think our team needs based upon where we are within the year. And so, have one every week. I'm not going to make it public each week what I'm telling the team because some of it needs to be internal, but I'll let you find out next week what this week's was.
On if he saw the Mike Tyson fight against Buster Douglas
I watched every Mike Tyson fight. HBO, pay-per-view; they cost like $50 to get. Because Tyson's fight never lasted out of the second round ever. I told the team he was 37-0 going into that fight; 33 of them were by knockout, and most of those knockouts were in the first or second round. As a kid, I lived in Central Time, but say it came on at 9 o'clock. Well, you better be at the TV at 8:50 because the thing might be over by 9:03.
And so year, I grew up loving boxing. Boxing's not quite what it was back then; it's still fun to watch but the UFC's sort of taken over. I've used some of the stuff about Justin Gaethje, who talked to our team during training camp, we've used some parallels with what he talked about to our team and really his career, his progression, you know? So, but yeah. I watched that fight.
On last week's message: 'So what, now what?'
Yeah, I had to think about it. I move forward so quick; I'm like, "What was last week's message?" Yeah, "So what, now what," was who cared about the week before and really, who cares about what's coming further? So what, now what? I think oftentimes in life, whether things have gone good or bad most recently for you, when you live in the past or you think about what just happened, one of two things is gonna happen.
If things have gone good, you're gonna get complacent, or if things have gone bad, you're gonna have regret. And so whether they went good or bad, who cares? Move on. And then if you think about things that are maybe too far out in front, then maybe you can have anxiety or worry about what could be, or you maybe think about the hopes and dreams that have not even come to reality because you have to worry about taking care of the next step.
So to me, it's always, like that goes back to a little bit of what we talked about in Week 2, is be where your feet are. Like man, just be in the moment. You get one opportunity this week. Last week we had an opportunity; it's gone forever. Told our team this morning, "I don't want to hear anybody talk about that game the rest of the year." If we get to the end of the year and after our last game, we want to talk about what happened in that game, great. But I don't ever want to hear about it the rest of the year.
If anybody brings it up in our building about what happened last week, I'm gonna be livid because we have no control over that anymore. It's gone. If it hadn't gone our way, we'd have no control over it — it'd be gone. Move on. And so, really, all I'm worried about is how do we get ready to play the best we can play this week. So, that's sort of the focus.
On blocking out the praise
Well, I've helped block it out for them this morning by showing them all the bad stuff we put on tape, too. We showed our not-our-standard tape this morning. I said this, I think last week maybe, but nobody, you don't hang a banner or get celebrated for where you're ranked between game 4 and 5 in college football.
Like, the rankings mean absolutely nothing. And anybody that's feeling really good about us being ranked wherever we're ranked, it means nothing to me today. It really doesn't mean anything until after the last game is played and it's like, "All right, where were we? How did we do?" And so I realize in the public area, the fanbase, it's exciting.
There's a lot of great, you know, morale, whatever, but here's the deal — and I told the team this morning, you have to humble yourself or you will be humbled. Like, if we don't look in the mirror and hone where we're deficient still, somebody else will show it to us. And so we — I'm very happy that we won last week. I'm happy that we won each week so far. It beats the alternative.
But I'm not, like, celebrating anything. Nobody in our building should be celebrating anything. If we are, then we're totally off-base at how you find success over the long term. So, yeah, just, I think we have to keep a humble, hungry, gritty blue-collar mindset. You know, tough teams win, selfless teams win. Like, teams that have an edge about them and hunger about them, they win. Complacent, soft, entitled, lazy, selfish teams, they lose.
On when he knows they've properly turned the page
Tomorrow's practice, Tuesday's practice, I always have a little bit of a — you know, today's a run through, it's helmets, it's kind of like, you know, they do a little bit more of today's work inside, because I want to not just completely deplete hydration. There's a little bit of recovery element to this thing, too. Tomorrow we go outside the whole time, and it's bloody Tuesday.
Like, it's like you gotta pay the toll. And so, if guys are ready to go pay the toll tomorrow, and compete and be physical, and do it outside the whole time, and get dirty a little bit, get some dirt underneath their fingernails, and I feel like, alright, we got a shot. If guys want to wallow around and act like we can just roll out the helmet and feel like that's gonna win us the game, then I'll be a little bit concerned.
On only 14 negative yardage plays vs Ole Miss
Yeah, there's a lot of things that go into that. I think Buster calls it well and keeps them off bounds; inside and outside runs have helped. We haven't taken a whole bunch of sacks, which also helps there. I think we've targeted things and added things up the right way in the run game; we've identified what we're doing in pass-pro well. Doesn't mean we haven't gotten beat at all, but just we've been in the right spots a lot.
And so if you get things started, then you got a chance. And then I think, too, when you have the runners, the ball-carriers we got, those guys find a way to move forward a lot. I mean, 13, 20, all those guys, even guys behind those two, they go forward more times than they do anything. I do think we still have room to grow in maybe how we hit some of our runs in the run game. We're not finished there.
We can improve in some of that, but I think just doing your job and not blowing assignments helps, you know, and then I think there is also a mindset of like, we're gonna try to move the pile. We're gonna try to move forward each play. But I think Phil deserves a ton of credit in that too. I think it's a lot a lot of things go into that.
On if he felt there would be a special relationship between Faulkner and Trautwein
It does. You know, what's really unique and fun, makes all of it interesting and — Phil didn't know Buster, and Buster didn't know Phil. I knew Buster, I knew of Phil, but I didn't know Phil personally; we didn't have an interpersonal relationship, but I think when you put a staff together, you're trying to figure out how do you put the absolute best group together. That will work well together, too, because that matters.
And I think it's been really cohesive. And I would say, too, like, the depth of our offensive staff — I've said this before — nobody does anything on their own. That includes me, Buster, Phil, any of us, you know, you got Mike Polly helps fill in the O-line, does a great job, Emil's a great young offensive line coach in that room, the young kid, their CP who works with them, does a great job. A
And I think Buster would tell you the offensive staff, they all provide great ideas to help him maybe put together a really good big-picture game plan. So I think the depth of our offensive staff allows, you know, Phil to be his best and Buster to be his best and everybody to be their best."
On Missouri building their identity on the O-line last few years
I think it's — you're dead-on. It starts up front with them, you look at offensive line, I think this is the best offensive line we've played. Their left tackle is a big-time player. I remember the right guard out of high school. I was in Troy, and I don't know, I mentioned last week that Vegas was on drugs. I don't know what I was doing at the time. I thought I had a chance to get this kid at Troy, the Peagler kid, went to Missouri, he's from Demopolis, Alabama. He's a really good player.
Their O-line's really good. They've been, you know, even though they've had offensive coordinator change, certainly a few times since Drink has been there, they have kept an identity. You know, Drink quit calling the plays a few years ago, and I think because he felt the need, because you could pulled in so many different directions now as a head coach in college football, that you don't really, it's hard to do the play-calling and the big picture stuff, but you can still see Drink's influence in what their identity is. They're as good of an outside zone running team who's anybody in college football.
And then Chip Lindsey who I've known for a long time as well, Chip does a great job. He's always been really, really detailed and good in the past. So I think you marry up, you know, the identity that Drink's created over time there with how they play, and then they've had an identity of running the football, you know, and so they're committed to it.
And so that's one side, and then the other side and I think they got really good players too. Up front, they're active, they're physical, they're tough. They play with a demeanor that I respect. And they got really good defensive coaches, too. And so I just, I think they play the game the way it's meant to be played. A lot of respect for how they play the game. We got our work cut out for us to win upfront this week.
On calling Drinkwitz when he got to Troy
"I knew Drink, yeah, I've known Drink for — our first interaction, he actually texted me and said not to talk about our first interaction. But our first interaction, I was coaching at Tulane as an assistant coach and he was at Arkansas State, and we were both recruiting Mobile. And yeah, he's done a really good job. He's been, you know, somebody that, I've, you know, he was a head coach at App State before I went to Troy. He left to go to Missouri, and I, a year or two later, I go to Troy. He's a guy that's always had a good relationship with him."
Has Sumrall's trust in Aaron Philo has grown?
Yeah, when you don't have a whole lot of evidence or proof, maybe from a large body of work, it was one of those things where I had to take Buster's word to some degree on that. But, at the same time, if you're going to hire a guy to be your coordinator, you need to be able to take their word on some things and trust them. So I trusted Buster with that.
I knew who Aaron was, but I didn't know Aaron. And then really, ever since Aaron's arrival, he's proved nothing but consistent, tough, dependable, reliable, great teammate, the intangible things that are outside of playing the quarterback position that are just as important to playing the quarterback position. You can have the biggest arm and run and do all those things well, but if you don't have the intangibles at quarterback it's really hard to be a great player.
I think that's where he's so impressive. I mean, he's got a good enough arm. He runs good enough to create and extend some plays. But it's all the other things. It's how he carries himself and how he invests and how he competes and how much he celebrates his teammates' success and all those sort of things that really excites you about Philo.
How critical are those for the poise on the road he showed at Auburn?
Every time you go on the road you're going to get challenged. Every time you play in this league you're going to get challenged. The margins for error are so small in this conference. If anything, at this point, he's built up a rapport with our locker room and our coaching staff that we can ask him to help us win the game a lot of different ways, and he's going to do what's best for our football team.
What stands out about QB Austin Simmons?
"I don't know him well. But I've always heard he's really highly intelligent. He graduated high school young and college super fast. Intelligent guy, No. 1. Big arm, can make all the throws. Good athlete. He was starter a year ago at the last place for a reason until he got hurt, and then Drink wouldn't have brought him in if he didn't … he had seen enough of him to know he could be an SEC winning quarterback. The guy's got all the physical tools, too. I got a lot of respect for what the kid can be. He's talented.
Mizzou has 11 new defensive starters; what do you see about that unit?
Corey Batun's their defensive coordinator. Corey was at South Alabama prior to going to Missouri. I've known Corey for a long time, known of him. They do a really good job schematically, and he always has these guys playing hard. They play with the type of demeanor you respect. Come out and watch their video, it's not hard to understand why he's been so successful, but that's what they always put on tape. They play with a with an edge and a desire to play the game the right way, and you can feel it.
On Florida's secondary
Each guy's had individual highs and lows. And the room's had highs and lows. I would say, starting from where you ended, I think the double move with Cormani, the angle he drove the hip was a little bit off. I don't mind him driving it and then if you drive it and you do get hit, then just collision the guy, like just take a blow. Anytime you come out of your plant, you want to take two steps to the man first and then react to the ball. You don't want to take a break angle to go pick the ball off.
So you always plant two steps to the man, and then you figure out, OK, do I keep playing to the man or my position or do I go play the ball. We just didn't take two steps to the man there. Other than that, Cormani did some really good things. Obviously had the interception last week against Auburn, and that was a huge play in that game. Cormani's highs are as good as anybody out there. It's just about being consistent and detailed.
I talked to him this morning. I said, "Hey, man, I believe in you. You just got to continue to be focused on every little thing you can to maximize the type of player you are." He's got great physical traits. I thought Ben Hanks took a step forward. I thought he was in phase a couple times and made plays. There's good receivers in this league, so you can do everything right at corner, and a good throw and a good receiver are going to beat you at times. That's going to happen.
When they make a good play, I don't lose my mind. When we give them a play, that's what I'm like, "What are we doing?" J'Vari's got the ability to be sticky in coverage. He gave maybe some hope a couple weeks ago in the Campbell game and then didn't have his best week last week in practice. But I believe in him, and he competes.
I've really loved how he's played on special teams. I thought he did a tremendous job on the first kickoff return when they cross-kicked us. The first run of the game, being ready for that to happen. He's growing as a player. He can do it. And then DD just a couple times last week, just awareness wasn't quite where it needed to be.
But he's a veteran player who cares. He probably has as much care as anybody on our football team for wanting to see Florida be successful. And the other guys in that room we got to keep elevating them, Jordy Lowery and all those other guys that are in there.
On Sumrall's intensity, his strength
I'm not that strong anymore. Whitt and I lifted this morning. I was disappointed with what I benched. When you're the head coach, you set the pace. I want our guys to play with excitement, passion, and if I'm a bump on a log, then they're going to be bumps on logs. I want them to have fun playing the game. Now the fun is in the winning, so it's important that we win.
But I think it bleeds through your team if they know, man, I'm excited about what we're doing, and I'm excited. I don't feel like I go to work a day in my life. I like where we're at with the team energy. But we got to continue, and I got to make sure I bring it every day. But I don't know about I don't know about Gruden's injury report.
On taking piano lessons
I took piano lessons for a year or two. I got tired of them and my mom used to drop me off at the lady's house I took them at. After the second year, my mom would pull out of the driveway and the ballpark was about a half mile away, I'd leave and then I'd go in. Then my mom figured out after about a month that I wasn't going.
I'll never forget: she pulled in, dropped me off, I acted like I was knocking at the door, my mom would start to pull out of the driveway, I'd see her go off, and I'm like, alright, I'm going. There was Fernbell Park about half a mile away. I'd go to the park for an hour and come back and go, "Piano was great."
How old were you?
Probably nine or 10.
How did she catch you?
Well, I think the lady called her and was like, "Hey, you hadn't been coming to lessons, is everything alright?"
On the interior offensive line
They are tough, and they're consistent, and they love playing. All three of those guys, I don't have to question whether they like what they're doing. They love what they're doing. They are good teammates, they work incredibly hard. Knijeah has a ton of experience here at Florida and I think he's one of those guys that wants to see the program get back to where we all want it to be. So he's very committed to the team.
The other two guys, Harrison and TJ, I've said this before but in the summertime I'd be in my office, I might take a phone call and walk out on the balcony for a minute, I'd look out, and it might be 4:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday or a Thursday, and they'd be out there working on snaps and zone footwork, or whatever.
So they just always do extra; they are always doing more; they are always trying to pour into their craft, and usually that means you're going to be a good player.
On the group's effort from the offseason until now
They've made tremendous growth. They took a lot of ownership of when they've been called out. They are a group that is accountable, and I do think it's unique that Harrison, TJ, who we've talked about now being newer players. Through the spring, it's hard when you are a transfer to walk into a locker room and lead. You have to show that you belong and you're a part of the team first.
So those guys were able to, I think, once they established who they were and what they were about through spring practice in the Gauntlet, then I think in the summer you see them start to call people out and help other people elevate. That's been a huge component to that O-line growth. That group has taken a big jump. They have to continue to do so. We are going to be challenged as we play all these league games.
I think there's a lot of components that go into maybe not giving up a bunch of sacks. Running the football helps. I think if you are just a dropback pass team over and over and over again, it makes playing O-line way harder. Whereas when you can run the football effectively and keep people off balance, and stay on schedule, and not get way behind the chains, now it makes your decisions to throw the football and your shot plays where you need protection, can come off of run actions at times, it makes the O-line's job just a little bit easier. Not necessarily makes it easy, but it just may protect them some.
On how many times your teams have run for 300 yards
I don't know that stat. We've out-rushed our opponents a lot but I don't know about the exact number of 300 yards. I can't imagine a bunch. That's hard to do.
Did you see the 52-point stat?
No. I don't look at the stat every week — I see if we win. Then I look at the other things. I look at three stats really closely. Run game, turnovers, explosives, and then the kicking game kind of two and one. Those are the four things I track the closest. What was the 52-point stat? I don't know; educate me.
On the statistic of 52 points Saturday and in the national championship game 30 years:
That's one of those stats that I don't even know what it means.
On the special teams' growth
The return game in particular, I had a first-hand look at London Montgomery last year, he was at East Carolina, I was at Tulane. And so I watched him on tape enough to know that when he decided to go in the portal, I was like, "Yeah, I'd like to have that guy."
He's a tough runner, so proud of what he did, especially after, you know, the first kickoff of the game last week went to J-Rock, they crossed-kicked us, we executed the conversion on that well. The second return we had was not good. We missed a critical block and they pinned us inside the 20. I came this close to going to the headset and telling Galante we're not bringing him out, to keep him in the endzone, let's get the ball, touchback.
And then I was like, you know, I want to see London hit one. It wasn't his fault the first time we just didn't block it right on his first opportunity. And then he hit the 40-something-yarder and the 74-yarder, which was a big one. The punt return game has been really good. Even with VB out last week we had an opportunity with the one to get down their sideline.
Unfortunately, we had a holding call, which was unfortunate. Like I said, should have known when the journey was over. We were blocking a shield player, it wasn't even like we were blocking a normal coverage player. Been clean so far on kicking. We didn't kick the ball off great last week, I was a little disappointed with our kickoffs. That can't be the same way.
Our punt team hasn't been used a lot but when they have they've been effective. I thought Alec Clark hit the 70 yarder right before half was pretty clutch. So that was a big play in the game. I think if you look at how we personnel special teams, I mean we're strategic, we play good players on it, and then we also find roles for younger players that need growth but are ready to grow in those roles.
Those guys get coached. Johnathan Galante does a great job with our special teams units. Greg McMahon, Gunner Hudspeth, young Sam back there that works with them. That whole room does a great job. And really the one thing I love about how our staff operates, if you're not OC, DC, quarterback coach, O-line coach, D-line coach, we go to special teams period, everyone is coaching the special team period. There's not anybody standing around just watching. Like everybody. That I think bleeds through to your team.
When they see everybody coaching, like I probably coach more at special teams part of practice than I do anything. Or I coach details of offense and defense or maybe finger points. But special teams stuff, I think your players can tell what's important by how many people are involved, and when the whole staff is involved, I think they feel that. Johnathan's done a great job, Galante, of I think being very detailed and having good plans each week and then personneling in the right way and our guys, they believe in it, they've bought into it, and they are giving great effort.
On looking at being a team's homecoming opponent as motivation
I have zero concerns about anybody's homecoming, our homecoming. It's a football game. I do know this, the last four trips we've gone to Missouri we've lost three of them. So if we think it's gonna be a freaking cakewalk, I don't care if it's homecoming or whatever, we're in for a rude awakening. We've got to get ready to play a really good football team on the road in a place that's not gone well for us a lot, recently, the most recent history.
So I'm really worried about that. I don't care who their homecoming king, or queen, or any of that is.
On how much better they've gotten at blocking the noise out
I have no idea. I hope they've gotten better at it. I think that's something that you have to go through a long stretch of time to figure out. I think there's been a lot of maturity and a lot of growth within our football team. We're still a really young team, we have 14 exhausting eligibility players on this roster. And some of that may be by the nature of the world we live in now.
We're still a really young group. I look around, some of our better players, VB3 is one of our better players, he's a second-year player, Jayden Woods is a second-year player. There's a lot of guys, when I talked about the history of us playing up at Missouri today to the team, most of the guys in the room, they didn't even know we played up there ever, because they weren't here, or even if some of them that had been here, they'd only been here for two years so they haven't gone up there.
I think we're a very young group that's still figuring out how to be mature. But they are getting there. I do think that it's really hard as a young person to ignore the pats on the back, or the critique that's out in the public. And so I try to help them understand, like, guys, when things are going good everyone is going to tell you you're great. The same people are going to tell you if they don't go good that you stink.
So just do your best. Prepare to be your best and worry about being ready to go.
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Jon Sumrall updates Florida's injuries, preparation for Missouri game
