{"id":804189,"date":"2026-03-10T09:25:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T09:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/804189\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T09:25:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T09:25:05","slug":"hyped-jon-sumrall-brings-energy-urgency-to-florida-football-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/804189\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hyped’ Jon Sumrall brings energy, urgency to Florida football practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the first week of Florida football<\/a> spring practices, new head coach Jon Sumrall often bounced from position group to position group, teaching, clapping.<\/p>\n

Sometimes Sumrall offered encouraging words. Other times, stronger, sterner addresses.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old Sumrall has brought energy and a hands-on approach to the practice field for the Florida Gators<\/a>, which is already rubbing off on players.<\/p>\n

“He’s always hyped,” Florida<\/a> wide receiver Vernell Brown III. “That’s what thing I can say about Coach Sumrall. Every day, you might not have the most energy, you might not be the guy that’s picking everybody up, but you see Coach come around and he’s having the energy. So, why can’t I?”<\/p>\n

Sumrall said his goal is interact with every player on his roster, every day. On a team with 112 scholarship players and walk-ons, that requires plenty of steps on the Fitbit.<\/p>\n

“Maybe not all, but almost,” Sumrall said. “And I’m definitely going to watch a little bit of every group in (individual drills) when we have as much individual time as we did today. We had 25 minutes, almost at (individual drills). If I can’t go watch every position group in 25 minutes, I got a problem. I’m the head coach of the whole team, and so I need to know the roster top to bottom.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

For Sumrall, who earned a degree in finance at Kentucky, there’s nothing more fulfilling than a day on the practice field. Sumrall recalled feeling like “the richest guy in the world” making $12,000 a year in his first coaching job because he broke into a profession he loved.<\/p>\n

“If I wanted to sit behind a desk and just whisper to people, I\u2019d go work at a bank,” Sumrall said. “I like coaching. I love coaching.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of things about my job that I love. There’s some of them that I tolerate. The coaching part, I love. I love being on the grass. I love talking to the guys. I love really little details that may have something to do with footwork or hand placement or eyes or leverage or whatever. It\u2019s every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Jon Sumrall is creating sense of urgency at Florida<\/a> football practice<\/p>\n

Florida strength and conditioning coach Rusty Whitt has worked under Sumrall the last four years \u2014 first at Troy and then at Tulane before joining Sumrall at UF.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

“Coach Sumrall does a tremendous job of making every coach aware that, hey, it’s important every period,” Whitt said. “Every rep is important.”<\/p>\n

Whitt then offered an example, saying that Sumrall chewed him out during UF’s first day of spring practice for failing to get a player off the field in time during a conditioning punishment.<\/p>\n

“He’s trying to be urgent, and he’s digging in me and he’s digging in everybody,” Whitt said. “So yeah, he keeps you on your toes.”‘<\/p>\n

One of Sumrall’s goals this offseason is to bring toughness and an edge to UF’s program though tough love and holding players accountable when warranted.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been really pleased with their eagerness, their willingness, they\u2019ve been very receptive to so many things we\u2019re asked to do that are ridiculously different than anything they\u2019ve ever done,\u201d Sumrall said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a shot at anything here before. It\u2019s just we\u2019re going to do things the way I want to do them. I\u2019ve been really pleased with their response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun\u2019s Florida<\/a> beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1. Read his coverage of the Gators<\/a>\u2019 national championship basketball season in \u201cCHOMP-IONS!\u201d \u2014 a hardcover coffee-table collector\u2019s book from The Sun. Details at Florida<\/a>.ChampsBook.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Jon Sumrall’s energy impacting Florida football spring practice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the first week of Florida football spring practices, new head coach Jon Sumrall often bounced from position…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[9751,1301,7,60423,8467],"class_list":["post-804189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-florida-football","tag-florida-gators","tag-football","tag-jon-sumrall","tag-position-group"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116204163940082361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}