From the Troy Trojans to the Florida Gators, an evolution in style

(Photo by Chris Spears)

“Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people … or find a different room.” – Michael Dell

The head coach who is so comfortable in his own skin as he preps for his maiden voyage as the latest chosen one charged with restoring Florida football back to life among the elites of the college game, admits he wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue and leadership skills back in 2022 when he was days away from leading Troy to its season opener against Ole Miss in Oxford. The totally hands on, thumb on everything that moved or breathed guy paints a self-portrait of himself that is like a reprint of Ron Zook, Florida’s head coach in 2022. Zooker was exhausting to watch on the practice field, his hands on style punctuated by sprints from one unit to the next.

“My first year as head coach at Troy I thought I had to have my hand in everything all the time,” Sumrall said at his Monday press conference. “I was probably a miserable guy to work for.”

Obviously, the miserable guy to work for did a few things right that season. Those same Troy Trojans, winners of five games in each of the three previous seasons, went 12-2, blew the doors off Coastal Carolina in the Sun Belt Conference championship game then eked out an 18-12 win over Texas-San Antonio in the Cure Bowl.

In the three years since, the winning has continued despite Sumrall ditching that frenetic pace. Four seasons as a head coach – two at Troy, two at Tulane – have produced a 44-12 record that includes two Sun Belt and one American Conference championship, four conference championship game appearances and the America Conference’s historic first berth in the College Football Playoff last season at Tulane. Sumrall goes into Florida’s first game with Florida Atlantic Saturday (7:45 p.m., SEC Network) every bit as intense as he was in the Troy days, but maturity and trust have replaced that insatiable need to be in complete control of every single detail.

“I'm more comfortable than year one,” Sumrall said. “In year one … probably, there were some things coming that I wasn't fully prepared for mentally. But like now, I think I see what's coming a lot further out.”

Much of the growth has its origins in learning to trust his assistant coaches to do what they’ve been hired to do. As the head coach he is the CEO of Florida football, the guy responsible for final decisions, but he gives his coordinators and assistant coaches the latitude to coach without the head man’s involvement in every single practice rep. He’s learned how to listen and isn’t the least bit offended by a differing opinion.

There is this old adage that without dissent there is no progress, that if there is 100 percent group think 100 percent of the time that flaws and weaknesses are overlooked. In other words, you can be the smartest guy in the room without thinking you’re the only one whose opinion counts.

Billy Donovan, who led the Gators to two NCAA basketball championships in a Hall of Fame career, recently spoke to the head coaches of all 21 varsity sports at the University of Florida, offering a message that hit home with Sumrall.

“I had a chance to hear from Billy Donovan and it was a really cool experience for me because I'm like, I idolize the guy,” Sumrall said. “I think he's an unbelievable coach and he said something that really resonated with me in that meeting a couple weeks ago. He said, you know, as a head coach, you have to make the final decision always, but you're never smarter than the room. So, like, take the feedback from the room and then make a really good, educated decision to move forward.

“And so for me, if I'm If I'm smarter than the entire room, then we've got a really bad staff. Okay? And so I want to have great people in the room that challenge me and help me think outside the box a little bit.”

At Florida, Sumrall relies heavily on coordinators Buster Faulkner (offense) and Brad White (defense). Faulkner came to Florida from Georgia Tech where his efficient offenses were balanced and explosive. Faulkner has taken over a Florida offense that ranked dead last or close to it in way too many vital SEC categories, such as scoring, third down conversions and yards per game. As the defensive coordinator at Kentucky, White’s undermanned units had a reputation for toughness and making opponents grind out every score. Kentucky consistently ranked among the best in both the SEC and nation in giving up the fewest number of explosive plays.

“Well, you want people you trust and I trust both of those guys, because they've got great experience, they're both really qualified and in the way they carry themselves,” Sumrall said. “They're good men, and they're good at what they do. And, then I think … they're not ego guys or prideful either in regards to they want to trust the people in their rooms. And so they're going to take the feedback. We've got a solid staff, top to bottom, where if you're a Buster, you can look around the room, there's a lot of quality people to lean on and to know and trust that those guys that are coordinating will listen to the feedback that their groups give.”

When it comes to coaching, the key element in trust is the ability to not only listen but acknowledge a better idea. It isn’t simply the coordinators who are involved in the decision-making process, but analysts as well. Not every idea is a good idea, but every suggestion is bounced around, considered and those ideas that survive the process are presented to the head coach who makes the final decision.

Sumrall has a fall on the sword nature. He’s not the type to blame others for an idea that goes sideways. As the head coach, he is willing to take the responsibility when an idea fails and he’s quick to give praise to a suggestion that comes from someone else.

“Whether it's Buster or Brad or an analyst, I don't care who it is,” Sumrall said. “They can give me ideas and then we … yeah, I have to make the decision exactly how we're going to do something moving forward. But I feel very, you know, as such, really spot on advice [from Donovan] in that timing because it was a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, what a great reminder as we get ready to enter the season, like take the feedback of the room and then yeah, you got to make the final decision, but listen to the room.”

Listening to the room. Letting his coaches do what they’ve been hired to do. Taking personal responsibility for things that go wrong while giving credit where credit is due.

It is all part of Jon Sumrall’s personal evolution from a first-year coach at Troy who didn’t necessarily trust the people with whom he had surrounded himself into the head coach at Florida four years later where he has no problems delegating authority.

In “On the Origin of the Species,” Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works cooperatively against common threats.”

Football had yet to be invented when Darwin wrote that 147 years ago but applied to football it is a clear definition of how a coach has to evolve if he’s going to have real lasting success. It explains a lot about Jon Sumrall.