Florida football's spring practice is nearing a close, with the Orange and Blue Game coming up on Saturday. The annual intrasquad exhibition is the final salvo of an offseason schedule that includes 15 total workouts.
On Tuesday, following the Gators' 13th practice of the season, nascent head coach Jon Sumrall held a press conference to discuss the program's status as well as other items of interest. Among the topics were observations from recent practices, the philosophy of penalties, the status of the O- and D-lines, the new blind transfer rule, offensive line coach Phil Trautwein, and several more.
Sumrall spoke for the full 30 minutes of the conference. Take a look below at an abridged transcription of what he said on Tuesday.
Jon Sumrall's opening statement
"All right, practice 13 today. Went indoors — wasn't like we couldn't go outside, but they didn't want to be slipping and falling on the grass. There would be a time and a place to work, plenty of wetball — you know, weather-type practices — but with only getting 15 in the spring, I really wanted to take the time to make sure we were intentional about the work we got and not waste a whole lot of reps slipping and sliding.
"We're still very much at a foundational stage of installing, just base things, kind of recalibrating and kind of getting back to the ground level of some things this week as we close so that we can really have an idea of what we can build around and who we're going to be to some degree, it's really early.
"But all in all, some good work today, a lot of different situational stuff at the end, that y'all weren't out there for, but a red zone period, two minute situational period where you're going to be thrust into action for his fast field goal or Toro field goal up, and when can we clock it and all this sort of things."
"But guys have been working hard. I like the intent. It's been good so far. Scrimmage Saturday was good. Back and forth a little bit. Thought you saw some offensive skill players make big plays. You know, I think the depth of our D line is showing at times. I think the first, you know, if you call it grouping a half of the O line, is kind of where we're trying to figure out who's in the right seats and who's where what's the right mixture of players to put our best foot forward.
"I wasn't pleased on Saturday with a couple of offensive procedural issues that we had come out of the huddle when we were in huddle situations once or twice, didn't really like. Thought the quarterbacks did some good things. I thought.
"On Saturday, one thing that you felt the quarterbacks both do okay was run. I don't think anybody's going to confuse any of them with Michael Vick, but they have enough ability to create and extend plays.
"And so we saw that a couple times on Saturday, I was pleased with, but I thought we had production it in the secondary on Saturday. Corners made a couple plays. One of them was a gimme. Like one of them was a tip ball, I could have made an interception on. But I did feel more productivity out of the secondary, uh, from making competitive contested plays.
"But, but like where we're at, long way to go, uh, guys have been giving great effort. We have a lot to improve upon.
How would you describe your overall philosophy approach to penalties?
"The operational procedural ones drive me freaking nuts. Like, if we don't have enough guys online scrimmage, that's common ass sense. It's not real hard. Are you on the ball or off the ball? Like, that makes me lose my mind You know, there are DPIs that are bang, bang, and if it's a close play, I don't really get real frustrated.
"There are some personal files that will drive me crazy because they're stupid. If a guy is playing through the echo, the whistle when it happens it's a little different, you know? So I think no two are alike.
"But yeah, there's some, you know, we talk a lot about the Gators don't beat the Gators around here. Like, we got to not beat ourselves. You can't beat anybody until you don't beat yourself. And so there's a lot of work to do in that.
"Within the scrimmage environment, sometimes I'm enforced the pen. Sometimes I won't because I want a situation situationally see some things you know, like in the game, when we play on Saturday, I'm not for the offense or for the defense and for both. I'm for the team. And so I may feel like we need to extend a situation, create a situation, manipulate a situation.
"But, yeah, the procedural ones are the ones that drive me crazy where it's like, we don't know how to get on the ball. Like that that ain't real hard."
First chance for fans to put eyes on the team; what kind of impression do you want to leave them with?
"The spring game? I want guys who play fast and physical. We're not going to be perfect. There'll be some mistakes made. I might make one on Saturday. We may put a bad play call in, but I want them to feel that our guys enjoy playing the game and that they're going to play with an edge and a chip on their shoulder.
"Now, when we play against each other, Orange and Blue game, we're on the same team. So we all play for Florida. And so we have to do some things that are a little bit different.
"We won't make the quarterbacks just completely live. They'll be tag off or two below. It won't be stay away from them either. It won't be like a three-yard halo around them. So I will make them a little bit more contacted, but not with a whole lot of physicality.
"But I want them to feel our guy's intent, and that there's some urgency, and that we have some physicality about us. You know, when you go in that stadium, it's sacred. We don't go over there very often. We go there once a week right now on Saturdays and there has to be a different vibe when you go into the stadium."
What do you make of the competition in the defensive back room right now? What are you looking for?
"Consistency. There's enough talent in the room. There is. I don't know if we're mature enough yet in that room. All right? So, Ben's done some really good things. Cormani's done some really good things.
You know, Deei did some nice things on Saturday. Like, they're all like I've seen a lot of guys step up at certain spots spots and flash but you can't be a one hit wonder.
"You know, at corner, you have to have a short memory, you have to be ultra competitive, you have to have a swagger or account confidence about you. But I don't know yet is the talent good enough in that room, yes, is the maturity and the competitive character in that room where it needs to be not consistent enough for my liking for us to be a championship time. football to me.
"We ain't there yet. But there's been some Flash, but Flash doesn't win long term. Flash might make a play and then makes a play for the other team too. So we've got to be a lot more just down in, down out reliable.
What are you looking to get out of the scrimmage? Are you looking for 40 minutes of competitive action or what?
"We're gonna celebrate playing tackle American football. Okay? Like, we're gonna tackle the gal with the football.. And it will not be two split teams that are drafted, like, hey, there's an offensive defense on the sideline, offensive defense on that side.
"It's going to be offensive versus defense. So the offense will be in blue. The defense will be in white. The defense will be called the orange team, because we're not going to wear actually wear orange and blue, because that would be be ridiculously confusing for two teams to be in a color jersey.
"The quarterbacks will be in orange still. We will keep score. The offense will get six points for a touchdown. They'll get three points for a field goal. They're going to get one point for an extra point. Okay? That's.. It's an extremely unique football scoring in the offense. Now, for the defense, there is some radical scoring.
"Now, I did omit one part. The offense can go for two from the 3 R line. Okay? They can also go. No, but there is one part that's unique here. I think I put in the rules for bustering them. I think they can go for maybe three from the five and four from the ten So if they're down late because the defense has some unique scoring it still too.
"So the defense gets I believe it's three points for a three-and-out, if I'm not mistaken, one point for any punt that's forced that's not a 3 and out. They get six points for a turnover. So there's a defensive scoring method. It'll be released later this week. It's what I've done the last four years. So the defense has a way to earn points.
The offense earns in the conventional manner other than the four pointoint play that's kind of unique that I put in there a couple years ago, just so if the offense is down by four at the end, we can go for four. But the defense gets rewarded for stops, turnovers. A fourth down stop, we treat as a turnover.
"So statistically in the box short, I look at a fourth down stop as a takeaway, because it's takeaway on downs, and so the defense will have scoring. you'll see different rotations in there. So I wouldn't put a whole lot.
"When you look into the who are the ones, we ain't there yet. Like, yeah, there will be a depth chart. There will be guys that start game one, but right now, who's a starter or nobody? Who's a backup everybody."
What was your reaction to the rule that came out on the NCAA regarding blind transfers?
"Yeah, I get the intent of the rule, I do. ... Probably wouldn't be here if I didn't do that...
"But no, I understand the intent. I do. The guy's withdrawing from school outside of a portal window to enroll at a different school is a walk on, and then later be put on scholarship or rep sharing and IL money like it's like, all right, is there really a portal window that is it ever closed?
"I'm in the minority here, too, though. Like I do think we should have more binding contracts with legitimate buyouts on players but I also, as a first yearade coach, I would right now, I would love to have a second portal window, because I've gone through the spring now, and I'm like, okay, here's my team.
"Now, here's where I'd like to add, maybe a player or two, which I don't have the luxury to do (now)."
Do you anticipate having potential attrition, or can you guys still add somebody this offseason?
"Yeah, we've scoured the ranks. We've looked at a lot of high school kids that are out there, JUCO kids. It's funny. I feel that a call from somebody about a player that I've had before that's in the portal still right now, you know, like, so there, there's still maybe some vehicles to add a player or two.
"You know, there's still some, we still have some room for non-designated student athletes to be added as walk-ons, potentially two, if we don't find the right scholarship type worthy players... to maybe add six or seven, but I wouldn't count on us having like some big additional six or seven signees, and there might be one or something, but I don't know."
Would you have to be a grad transfer, or would somebody have to leave at this point?
"Technically, they're not even allowed to do that right now to. So, yeah. But yeah, the rules have really, it's like, as soon as you think you know the rules, they change right now. It's like it's just an ever-evolving movement.
"But I do think there should be a caveat for grad transfers, having kind of a get out of jail free card, like a monopoly like him, hey, I graduate. I want to do something different, maybe. Cause they still believe they're not going to school most of them."
The defensive scoring method you said you'd done the last four years? Where'd you come up with it?
Yeah, I don't really know. It came out of my brain. I didn't want to take the time to split up teams because the reason I came with it, my first year at Troy, we had like nine offensive linemen available. But we couldn't go two teams with 9 O-linemen. To have two teams, you need 10.
"And so I just said, 'Well, let's just go offense first defense. Let's let the offense get points by how the offense gets points. Let's get the defense opportunity to get points,' and I did it that way, and then it just kind of made sense. I'm like, yeah, sort of like this.
"So we're stuck with it. But as long as we're ever healthy enough, like we have the, we're not very, we need to develop our competitive depth on this roster.
"Like, I don't feel really good in full disclosure. I am very uncomfortable with the depth of how competitive we are. And in this league, you better be. We're not there yet at all. Like, it's kind of it's a little uneasy for me. So we need to challenge some guys to go play football.
"You know, and here's the other deal. Like, if I said, who are the proven players, like, who are the household names on our defense?
"You'd say, 'Well, Jayden Woods, I think one year of college football. Right? There's some other guys, Miles Graham, Aaron Childs, Bryce (Thortnon). There's some others.
"But like Jayden would be one of the first ones and he's a (second)-year player. And so there's still a lot of youth to who we are. And this is a developmental game. I don't know any way you get better at football other than playing football or practing. You have to go play it.
"You don't get better by, you know, doing a three-point contest. ... I don't know if we've box scored that in the past, but Scott and them they'll figure something, I think."
What are your thoughts on the president's executive order?
"Well, if the president says an executive order, I guess there's a chance it's going to hold up. If I said it, probably not as going to have a chance.
"I'm for the five-for-five concept. I am. You know, right now, like the coaches, he proposed at the AFCA deal a four plus nine model, which I'm great with, too. It's just then you have to start really getting technically into the math of like how this works. Five-for-five is cleaner.
"So I'm for it. I do think it would make it a little bit more black and white on — like all these appeals for a sixth year, ninth year, eighth, seventh year, COVID year. 'I went to the G League year, D League,' whatever you call them, in basketball.
"Like all these, those guys — God bless the basketball coach — I tell Todd, I'm like, so who's an eligible in basketball? Who's eligible? Like I don't get it. So I don't know. But yeah, five-for-five would be clean. D2 has already approved it... it's been approved already and going into effect."
"It's been an FBS Division 1 issue that has not been approved, but Division 2 has already approved it."
Do you see spring games continue now that there's no spring portal and the blind transfer restriction?
"Yeah. I didn't care that there was a second portal window the last few years. I still had a spring game to some extent. Because if a guy's going to leave and there's another portal window, they're going to leave either way. I got I don't, you know, I just don't I don't do things out of fear of like, well, what could happen?
"Like, we're going to scrimmage Saturday and somebody could get a bruise or bump. You can't live in fear. And so, to me, we are still getting better at the game of football, and we are so young and underdeveloped with a depth of our roster.
"I'm not saying we don't have some veteran players. Don't take that the wrong way. Jaden Baugh is a veteran improving player in college football. But his backups, not here, they're not.
"You know, the O line, we've supposedly got a starter or two back, but like, we got to compete. And so there's just, to me, I don't I think everybody is different in how they want to approach it. I'm not knocking or judging if somebody doesn't want to do a springing. That's their call. It's your team, you run your team however you want.
"The mindset I want our team to have is like, we are always ready to go play, and we will never back down to playing. And we have to create a little bit different edge here than what we've had. And so we're going to go play."
You hear good things about the defensive line — is it that good?
"The offensive line, you have to operate five is one. Like, you know, and the offensive line is the only position group that needs nobody else to play well for them to do their job, but everybody else in the offense needs them to play well.
"You follow what I'm saying? It makes the quarterback's job, he needs the O-line to play good. The O-line doesn't need the quarterback to play good to play good. So it's the most unique unit in football because it's five guys operating as one, and that's working combination blocks. That's working targeting in pass pro.
"Now, there are some one-on-one situations. You're a tackle and it's an obvious known passing situation. You're matched up against a designated pass rusher, a DPR, and it's like, whoa, that's real speed. You better be ready to set on that. And so and we're mixing and matching the O-line groupings.
"I'm not at peace with where we are there, but we'll figure that out, and we'll play the game around who our people are the best. The difference on the D-line is a guy can go make a flash play by himself independent and people go, man, the D-line's playing really good.
"Well, the other three guys sucked on that play. But Jeremiah McCLeod made a play. All right? Or Jayden Woods made a play. Brendan Bett made a player a couple weeks ago, Kalu, D.K. Kalu made a couple plays.
"So the D line, one guy makes a play, flashes, creates a TFL, everybody's, oh, D-line's playing so good and play, well, that actually didn't gray out as good as you think. But, you know, it's like a D lineman can make one play out of every six or seven or eight snaps — pretty good player.
"The O-line, if you do a good job, one out of seven or eight snaps, you're fired. So it's just a different standard. And I think operationally, the O-line, it's harder to get the unit to play as one, where the D line, one-off guys can go make a play and make everybody feel good about how the group's playing, even though there's still a long way to go within the group."
What led you to bring Phil Trautwein onto the coaching staff?
"You know, when you put a staff together, you go into it with an open mind. I've walked into every time I've taken a job, and I've not been like, I'm not one of these guys that's had a list where it's like, I'm just going to call these ten guys, and they're ready to go, and we're going.
"It's like, when I took the job at Troy, I took two weeks to make my first new hire, and my AD there is now the deputy AD at Georgia Tech. He thought I was like, maybe just hanging out and not going to hire people. I'm like, no, I want to get this right. To me, it's ready, aim, shoot, not ready to shoot aim, like measure twice cut once.
"Phil had been brought to my attention a little bit ahead of me even taking this job. And then, as I was walking into this job and I'm going, okay, I start with coordinator. Who are going to hire a coordinator? And so I land where we're going to land there.
"And then you start to build around the coordinator. And I always include the coordinators and hires. I don't ever just go out and hire whoever I want and say, you're stuck with these people. I don't let them hire just whoever they want, either. It's a collaboration.
"So as we walk through putting the staff together, Buster and I had conversations about Phil, I had a few phone calls with Phil. You know, we're working through what that would look like. We flew Phil in for a face-to-face meeting, an interview, felt really good about it.
"Reached out to a lot of people that maybe had worked with him, been around him, all the way to Coach Meyer and Steve Addazio, talked to both those guys about Phil before making the hire. And so a lot of homework done to make that decision.
"And then, you know, he's really good at his job in and of itself, coaching, recruiting just what it takes to do the job well. And then you add in, he's a former Gator who was a captain here in a two-time national champion. It's like, that's the cherry on top.
"I didn't hire him because of those things hiring him because the coach and the man and the recruiter it all checkeds, but then you take that package with the other and it's like, home run. You know what I mean?
"And so he's been great. He's great with our guys. He's got great, great attention to detail. He's really disciplined in how he does things. Phenomenal recruiter, great relation guy, really, really fired up. He's here, and it's cool to be able to bring a guy back that means so much too.
"You know, the first scrimmage Saturday, he looked at me and he's like, 'This freaking awesome.' Like, he's it means something to him, which is really cool, but he's doing a great job."
How's it been collaborating with coaches from different areas as far as discipline, trading ideas and things that nature?
"Yeah, you know, there's some things that we've done practice schedule-wise and maybe more specifically non-practice day-wise that Buster's, Brad's brought to the table, you know, myself and Coach (Joe) Craddock and Coach (Greg) Gas(parato), who were with me as my coordinators.
"Most of what we're doing is what I've done, but then there's been some additional things that, you know, I think going back to the question last week about, you know, can you learn something from a guy like Ron Zook is what I got ask him, you can learn from Ron Zook or anybody I can learn from Buster Falkner and Brad White.
"And so we put things together as a staff. There are certain things that Buster offensively needs that maybe I hadn't done in the past, practice schedule-wise, and we're going to embrace what he needs to help put that side of the ball in a position to be successful.
"But yeah, we call out the good at and the bad. You know, I think, you know, I've said this before, but the culture, the standards of your program, all it is, the combination of what you promote, encourage, add it up with what you tolerate and allow.
"If you tolerate loaf and allow loafes, you're going to be a lazy football team. If you promote or encourage great effort and call that out too, then you got a chance to reinforce We want this team to p a great effort to strain. And so we show a tape in front of a team meeting every day, our non-practice days of, heyey, that set the standard.
"That was not our standard. And it gets called out. I don't care who y'all It gets called out. So we do it offensively and defensively segmented as well, but there's times in front of the team, we call things out that aren't right, because there has to be an extreme level of accountability for growth."
How have you seen player leadership grow since the beginning of camp?
"You know, I define leadership — you know, it's an action, not a role. So, like, you're not a leader just because you've been here a certain amount of time or because you have a title of head coach. You actually have to like, take on the actions of leading.
"And the first level of leadership is lead yourself well. Like, show up on time to breakfast check, where the right gear to practice. Like, lead yourself. Everybody needs to do that, where I think we have to do a better job is continuing to develop some emerging leaders who are maybe not quite vocal yet, but have some capacity to take on more. and then empower the ones that are already known and established leaders to getting guys to come with them.
"You know, when you get to be at the stage of a Miles Graham, you need to start developing other people around you to lead with you. It's not okay to just say, I'm doing my job. Now now you have to get others to do it like you're doing it at the level you're doing it. And so the guys are taking some ownership.
"We still have work to do. It's never-ending — I mean, it doesn't. You've never like, you don't just wake up when they go, "A, we've arrived. Everybody's leading. We're good. We can take the week off. You have to fight for it every freaking day. And so.
"But there's been some good guys, you know, emerging and stepping up."
Are there any spots that you're starting to feel a little more comfortable with?
"Yeah, I'd say the D line is one that I didn't know if I felt like we were good enough to play winning football in the league. I think we can. How's that look? We still have to figure out the rotations and the patterns and the subpackages and those groupings. But that's one that I feel better about.
"The receiving group, I think, one through five, I probably feel pretty good. We need to elevate past the top four or five So those are two that I think I knew the receiving group, but yeah, the deal line would probably be the one that I've developed the most confidence in for the last month."
What about stand-outs?
"I've seen a lot of different guys step up and be active and make plays. I think there's a lot of different types of play styles in there, you know, and different body types, but there's good length, there's good athletic movement. There's also good size.
"And like I said, there's a lot of different types of players, you know, and so you can maybe like Emmanuel's play into the field, but we can kick him in on some subpackaged stuff. You know, Jaylen Woods is playing to the boundary, but if a team wants to get big and try to match this, we can put him to the field.
"And so just moving the whole front around in different spots is probably what gives me some hope with what we can do defensively."
There's something unique about the way Coach Trautwein goes about it. Is there something unique about the way you guys about it?
"You know, his voice will elevate when needed. He's not just constantly a yeller. He's a really intentional teacher and communicator. He's very direct in communication I think his level of thoroughness matches up with the best line coachaches I've been around.
"Usually, the line coach are the ones that give out the tests that look like the Bible. You know, you get a test to take for like an install and you pick it up and it's like, all right, how many pages are this is this thing? Like, his test, tips, reminders for his players is really, really lengthy and very thorough.
"And so I think that's probably what sticks out. And I just think his consistency. You know, I think, in going back to the discipline comment I made about him, like, all you got to do is a look at him. You see what he was as a player and then look at what he looks like now as just an adult after football. You don't lose that weight that he's lost and carry himself the way he does without being really, really disciplined. And so he's disciplined with what he eats.
"He came to my house. We had like 30-something players in the house for Easter and a lot of the coaches came as well for lunch. And we're eating, you know, honey baked ham and turkey and mac and cheese and all this stuff, all this, you know, really healthy food. And Phil is like there, and he brings his own food or something, doesn't even eat. Like, he's just really regimented.
"And I think that usually filters over to your players, but I think that's a great characteristic and trait to have with an O line coach, because you just got to be very consistent. There's going to be a bad snap. Stay the course, keep going."
Have any offensive transfers stepped into that leadership role and helped the rest of the team really adjust to the new scheme?
"Yeah. I would say, you know, I think it starts probably with Aaron there. I think he's been good for the quarterback room because being a quarterback that's transferring with a coordinator, there could be this preconceived, like, hey, it's just his job the rest of the room didn't have a shot. I've seen AP really pour into the other guys in the room and try to help them with maybe some nuances that are within the structure of the offense.
"So he's been very helpful in that regard to Tramell and Will and Aidan and all the guys in there at the top to bottom, you know... And then Bailey, I think, his flash, Harrison's flash, all those guys, Harp, is, you know, I think settling into his own a little bit, but those guys' familiarity does help him for sure."
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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida football's Jon Sumrall talks Gators spring football
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