Kirby Smart with the HBC in friendlier times. (Freddie Wehbe Photo) The HBC isn’t beating anybody anymore — and yet he’s still beating everybody. There are grudges in the South that fade with time. Old scores settle. Old wounds heal. Somebody eventually says, “Well, that was a long time ago.” And then there’s Steve Spurrier. Apparently, according to a recent poll by The Athletic, the Head Ball Coach is still Public Enemy No. 1 across the SEC and ACC. Not Nick Saban. Not Dabo Swinney. Not even some new-age analytics wizard with a laminated play sheet and a sports psychologist. Nope. It’s the same visor-wearing, quip-slinging, scoreboard-watching gunslinger who hasn’t coached a meaningful down in years. Think about that for a minute. Spurrier isn’t beating anybody anymore — and yet he’s still beating everybody. That’s not just staying power. That’s permanent residence inside the collective heads of half the South. Georgia fans still twitch when they hear “half a hundred.” Somewhere between Athens and Jacksonville, there are grown men who break into a cold sweat at the number 52. Spurrier didn’t just beat the Bulldogs — he embarrassed them, and then he reminded them about it before the ink dried on the box score. And just when Georgia thought it had recovered, here comes that voice again, years later, floating through time like a well-thrown post route: a little jab, a little grin, and a reminder that, yes, he did it again at South Carolina just for good measure. Tennessee? Oh, Tennessee remembers. You don’t grow up in the Volunteer State, then spend a decade turning orange into a punchline, without leaving scars. Peyton Manning won just about everything in college football — except when Spurrier was on the other sideline. And that Citrus Bowl line? That wasn’t just trash talk. That was art. That was Shakespeare with shoulder pads. “You can’t spell Citrus without U-T.” Somewhere, a grammar teacher in Knoxville is still trying to diagram that sentence and explain the pain. Kentucky fans might be the only ones who laugh now — but it’s the kind of laugh that comes after a 31-year losing streak finally ends and you’re not sure whether to celebrate or check for emotional damage. Spurrier didn’t just beat Kentucky. He treated the series like a personal hobby. And when he left Florida, he kept the receipts, casually dropping one-liners years later like he’d just finished the game five minutes ago. Even Clemson had to go to therapy over Spurrier. Dabo Swinney built a national champion, changed the culture, and climbed to the mountaintop — but not before taking a five-year detour through what can only be described as the Spurrier Problem. And the cure? It took a freshman quarterback playing on a torn ACL just to break the spell. That’s not a rivalry. That’s an exorcism. Then there’s Florida State, where Bobby Bowden and Spurrier turned needling into an art form. “Free Shoes University” wasn’t just a jab — it was a cultural event. Spurrier didn’t just win games; he won the press conference, the booster meeting, and the offseason. And the natty matchup, 52-20. And here’s the thing that still bothers all of them: He enjoyed it. Not in a mean-spirited way. Not in a bitter way. These haters with comments came from some of the leading CFB media members. This is what Mark Schlabach said about Georgia: Georgia Bulldogs Steve Spurrier. Nobody loved beating the Bulldogs -- and then bragging about it -- more than Spurrier, the former Florida and South Carolina coach. From 1990 to 2001, Spurrier flipped the script at the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, leading the Gators to an 11-1 record against their rivals. In 1995, when the game was played in Athens, Georgia, because of construction at the stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, the Gators became the first team to hang "half a hundred" on the Bulldogs at Sanford Stadium in a 52-17 victory. The next season, Spurrier handed Georgia the most lopsided loss in the series with a 47-7 rout. Then, as South Carolina's coach from 2005 to 2015, Spurrier knocked off four ranked Georgia teams. He famously told reporters, "I sort of always liked playing them that second game because you could always count on them having two or three key players suspended." -- Mark Schlabach Spurrier enjoyed college football the way a kid enjoys recess — by winning, laughing and making sure everybody knew exactly what just happened. That’s why he’s still the most hated. Because deep down, they know it wasn’t just the losses. It was the grin. It was the shrug. It was that voice, somewhere between aw-shucks and I-told-you-so, reminding you that if you didn’t like it, well, you probably should have stopped him. They never really did. And so here we are, years later, with a retired coach who still leads the league in one very important category: Real estate. Steve Spurrier still owns beachfront property… …in everybody else’s head.

A few thoughts to jump start your Saturday: The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to die on the 5-for-5 rule hill that prohibits the fourth-year seniors who graduated high school in 2022 from a fifth year of eligibility while granting a fifth year to all years since. The ruling by a Federal District judge in Colorado imposed a nationwide inunction that reinstates the eligibility for high school class of 2022 athletes but the NCAA has promised an appeal, stating it seeks “to protect participation opportunities for countless student-athletes who chose where to attend school based on the understanding that the rules adopted by the NCAA’s member institutions would be applied as written.” The NCAA further hung its defense on the Protect College Sports Act, which isn’t going to see the light of day in the Senate until a brief session in September prior to another recess before the mid-term elections. What a load. You can bet the ranch that the NCAA is going to have the same success appealing this ruling as it had fighting NIL (9-0 Supreme Court decision against the NCAA) or as it is currently having fighting lawsuits all over the country by last year’s fourth-year athletes seeking a fifth year. Odds are the NCAA would have a better chance surviving a date with Old Sparky up in Raiford than it will winning in the courts. But, leave it to the NCAA to run up legal bills that have to be somewhere close to $100 million rather than compromise. The more the NCAA fights, the more powerful attorney Darren Heitner becomes as he strings together one win after another that restores eligibility. Yesterday, Texas offensive guard Cole Hutson rejoined the team. With 48 games and 23 starts under his belt, Hutson’s addition makes the Longhorns’ offensive line as formidable a unit as there is in the country. National champ Indiana has welcomed back defensive linemen Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt. Earlier in the week, power forward RJ Godfrey, once of Georgia but most recently of Clemson, got his eligibility back. He signed instantly with Arizona. Those four all won in court against the NCAA and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Leadership is about making the right decisions. The NCAA needs some serious leadership from President Charlie Baker, but instead of right decisions he vows to continue the fight. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy labels people like that “a special kind of stupid.” If they formed their own club, Charlie Baker would be a card-carrying member and would stand a good chance to be elected supreme leader. FOOTBALL BRIEFS FROM AROUND THE SEC Alabama: Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb says resurrecting Alabama’s running game is a priority. Looking like he will be the starter at running back is freshman EJ Crowell, a 5-star who dominated the Alabama high school ranks. Arkansas: Maurice Gleaton Jr., a sprinter on the Georgia track team who ran a 9.92 100 meters in high school, has transferred to Arkansas where he will play wide receiver on the football team while still running the sprints for the track team. Auburn: O-line transfer Jacob Strand completed the 46 hours for his degree at Oregon State so he’s eligible. The 6-5, 310-pounder is listed as the No. 1 right tackle although he could be switched to left tackle once full contact begins. Georgia: Lawson Luckie, who caught 15 passes last year, is an early standout at Georgia’s practices. He is expected to earn the starting job at tight end now that Oscar Delp has graduated and moved on to the NFL. Kentucky: Sophomore wide receiver Hardley Gilmore IV, who caught 28 passes for 313 yards last season, has been dismissed from the program according to the Lexington Herald-Journal. LSU: Transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt, who was injured and missed Arizona State’s final five games last year, had such a good Wednesday that Lane Kiffin said, “If you went out today I don’t think you’d think there was an injury. I think he’s all the way back from that. Now it’s just getting the timing of everything.” Mississippi State: Defensive end Will Whitson, who suffered a knee injury in game two last year, is wearing a knee brace and practicing, which is good news for the Bulldogs. In the two games he played last year he registered two sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss. Missouri: The United States Senate voted with unanimous consent Thursday to recognize Missouri’s 1960 team as the national champion. The Tigers officially finished 11-0 but actually lost to Kansas 23-7 during the regular season. Kansas played an ineligible player so the game was forfeited. Something called the Poling System gave Mizzou the national championship. The Associated Press gave the title to Minnesota while the Football Writers Association of America awarded it to Ole Miss. Oklahoma: Photos of quarterback John Mateer from day one of Oklahoma’s practice reveal the most physically imposing quarterback since the days of Tim Tebow at Florida. Mateer is coming back from a season marred by injuries. Prior to the injuries he was considered a Heisman Trophy frontrunner. Ole Miss: On day one of fall practice, the first team offensive line is RT Tommy Kinsler (6-6, 350), RG Patrick Kutas (6-6, 315), C Brycean Sanders (6-5, 315), LG Delano Townsend (6-4, 330) and LT Terez Davis (6-4, 300). South Carolina: Jayden Sellers, who caught 22 passes for 337 yards as a freshman last year, is expected to have a breakout season as the slot receiver. Sellers is the younger brother of quarterback LaNorris Sellers. Tennessee: HBC Josh Heupel called out the NCAA for suspending linebacker Arion Carter two games for accepting a $427 flight from an agent while he was trying to decide whether to go pro or come back to Tennessee for one more year. “The ruling that came out from the NCAA, the 2-game suspension, I believe it’s bullshit,” Heupel said. “You look at the landscape of college football, the rules, NIL and everything, I think the ruling is completely outdated.” Texas: Arch Manning throws a great deep ball as evidenced by throws of 50 or more yards to Auburn transfer Cam Coleman and last year’s leading receiver Ryan Wingo, but he still misfires on the short to medium routes. Texas A&M: Rueben Owens III says he would have run for more than 1,000 yards “last year if I didn’t fall so many times.” Owens, who led the Aggies with 639 rushing yards, has been working to improve balance after contact in the offseason. Vanderbilt: Whit Muschamp, son of former Florida head coach and now Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, is in the battle for the backup quarterback job. True freshman Jared Curtis is the odds-on favorite to be the starter. NINE SEC TEAMS IN TOP 25 OF COACHES PRESEASON POLL The AFCA Coaches preseason top 25 is out with Ohio State taking the No. 1 spot. Georgia, at No. 3, is the highest ranked of nine SEC teams in the top 25. The top 25 (SEC teams bold face): 1. Ohio State; 2. Oregon; 3. Georgia; 4. Texas; 5. Notre Dame; 6. Indiana; 7. Miami; 8. Texas A&M; 9. Oklahoma; 10. Ole Miss; 11. Alabama; 12. Texas Tech; 13. LSU; 14. Southern Cal; 15. BYU; 16. Michigan; 17. Penn State; 18. Tennessee; 19. Washington; 20. SMU; 21. Utah; 22. Iowa; 23. Clemson; 24. Houston; 25. Missouri ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Enes Kanter Freedom, who has been exiled from the NBA for the last few years in all likelihood due to his outspoken views on the NBA and its alliance with China, has declared himself eligible for the next WNBA Draft. He is 6-10, 250 pounds with NBA career averages of 11.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. He is not transgender but is basing his eligibility on the loosely worded and very uncertain definition of a woman. Within hours of Enes Kanter Freedom declaring for the WNBA Draft, Royce White, who played at 6-7 and 260 pounds during his collegiate, mostly (what is now) G-League and Canadian professional league career, declared for the draft. Explaining his decision, Enes Kanter Freedom said, “If simply declaring who you are is all that’s required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA. My team and I have carefully examined the WNBA eligibility criteria and governing framework surrounding self-identification and inclusion.” White said, “I’m transgender. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of playing professional basketball.” All this came about after reports that Julie Tetart, a transgender playing women’s professional basketball in France, is considering a bid to play in the WNBA next year. Tetart, who once played pro basketball in a men’s league in France, is a ripped 6-3, 225-pound center for Monaco in France’s Ligue 2. Last season Tetart averaged 21.2 points and 20 rebounds per game while winning player of the year and defensive player of the year awards. As if this isn’t enough of a publicity dilemma for the WNBA, which is dealing with reverse racism against Caitlyn Clark and Sophie Cunningham supporting a ban on former males now transgender women in locker rooms, Clay Travis issued a $10 million challenge to the league. The founder/editor of Outkick and a syndicated national radio host, Travis has proposed a game that pits a highly-ranked high school boys team against the best of the WNBA with the winner taking home $10 million and the pay-per-view profits donated to charity. It’s easy to write off Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White’s declarations as nothing more than political publicity stunts, but it does raise an interesting question. Since the WNBA has struggled with the definition of exactly what a woman is while supporting transgender women in sports, how could the league ban the two from playing? Their DNA says they are biological males, but transgender women are also biological males. Julie Tetart may have breast implants, long hair and expensive nails but cannot change chromosomes. And, if allowed to play in the WNBA Tetart’s strength advantages will likely dominate. The Travis challenge is actually the most difficult for the WNBA. The best WNBA team getting smoked by a bunch of high school boys might be a 13-inch stiletto to the solar plexus of the league. A high school team such as the one Kevin Boyle assembled at Montverde Academy in 2024 (four 2025 first round NBA Draft choices including Cooper Flagg) would beat the best and brightest from the WNBA by 50 or more points. The 2026 Miami Columbus team won a fifth straight Class 7A state championship in Florida back in March, led by the Gaskin brothers (6-8 and 6-9) and Felipe Quinones (6-5). The other two starters were 6-4 and 6-6. Columbus had a 7-1 sophomore on the bench. Match them against a WNBA team and it would be brutal. The WNBA gets record crowds and TV ratings any game that Caitlyn Clark plays. Its lack of support for Clark is indefensible, particularly since her arrival in the league salaries have elevated by 50 percent or more. Take her out of the league and it almost falls off the radar. The recent incident involving Cunningham and co-owner of the Seattle WNBA team has drawn overwhelming negative attention. Refusal to take a stance on biological males playing in the league could wind up being a death sentence.

Tramell Jones Jr. cuts loose with a pass in practice (Photo by Chris Spears) New head coach. New offensive coordinator bringing his protégé of the last two years with him. Stacked deck is what it looked like. Transfer? That would have been the easy way out and an ample number of suitors would have been happy as clams to woo Tramell Jones Jr., the strong-armed redshirt freshman quarterback at Florida. Instead of packing up and heading to a new locale, Jones elected to give Jon Sumrall a chance to right a Florida ship that has been listing for the last five years. After a season in Billy Napier’s erratic, predictable offense, a Buster Faulkner offense was a revelation even if it meant a head-to-head battle with Aaron Philo, who wasn’t coming to Gainesville to be a backup. A funny thing happened on the way to an uphill climb for the starting quarterback job. Tramell Jones Jr. showed off some serious skills at the Orange and Blue game back in April, enough to prove there isn’t a canyonesque gap between him and Philo. In the ensuing months, rather than divisive, the competition seems to be bringing out the best in both of them, so much so that Sumrall believes the Gators can win with either one of them taking the snaps. “I think both of us want to win fair and square with everyone being 100 percent ready to go,” Jones said Friday morning. “But with Coach Sumrall saying that he feels like he can win with both of us, it's very reassuring. And he has confidence in both of us, so we're just competing and pushing each other.” There is a side effect of bonding as friends. At the football facility, teammates see them competing on the field, in the quarterback room where they spend hours studying film and absorbing every concept Faulkner teaches, and in the weight room. Philo has lost fat, gained lean muscle and is in the best shape of his life. Jones was never slow but according to strength and conditioning coordinator Rusty Whitt, he reaches a top speed of 22 miles per hour on the treadmill. That’s flying. Off the field, teammates see Philo, who’s been playing golf since he was a young kid, taking Jones to the course where he offers pointers to a novice. They see the two of them taking the entire offensive line out for steaks and lobster. “The other guys see it, and they drive around us, and they love to see how we compete, and we still have a healthy relationship,” Jones said. “I think the whole team sees it, and then that's what we want to take on with everyone because everyone's competing. Everyone's competing for a starting spot, and nothing's given. It's where our coaching staff has put emphasis on, so when they see things like that, they take it with their position group or whoever they're competing with, and they're doing it.” Competing on a day-to-day basis has given Jones a healthy respect for everything Philo brings to the table. He arrived at Florida with a reputation as a playmaker with real arm skills, instinctive running habits and the ability to make quick, accurate decisions. Jones sees all those attributes and more. “He knows where everyone is,” Jones said. “He knows the process. He's a quick processor. He's smart. Those are things that stand out because he knows where to go with the football. Quick delivery, can make any throw, has a great arm, and he's very decisive.” Here are some other Tramell Jones observations as the Gators move past the short and shells portion of fall practice into full pads, full contact. On the growing friendship with Philo: “You get to know him on a personal level, everything that he's been through in his life. You know when he gets on that field, you know how hard he's pushing to get to the next level. And so when you see him out on the field, you see how hard he's pushing, you kind of look deeper than that because you know how he is off the field and what he's going to bring to the table for us.” On his well publicized arm talent: “Just because you can make every throw on the field doesn't mean that, I mean, we have a lot of guys out there in the country that can make every throw on the field, but it's about process, knowing the protection, knowing defenses, and then making plays. Like, I can make any throw, but am I making it on time? Am I doing those things correctly?” On understanding the offense and knowing where to go with the ball: “Process, knowing where to go with the football, going quickly through my reads, knowing where everyone's at, motions. Just process with the offense, getting everybody down fast, knowing where everyone's at. I mean, that's great, especially when you have athletes. You can get those guys the ball fast and let them do what they need to do and touchdown.” On what has changed since the spring: “Process of the offense, for sure, because, I mean, just learning that in the spring, sometimes I'm a hitch late or I'm a step late. Now with those summer reps and those fall camps, reps starting now, it's like I've been completely way better. And then being more vocal as a leader, I feel like being a leader. We have a, whole new team. Half the team is brand new in the spring you're kind of like just setting yourself up because they want to see what you can do because they got to get respect for you because they can know what you can do on the field.” On one of Sumrall’s summer demands: “He wanted to see me become a vocal leader, hold guys more accountable, so in the summer I pretty much did that.” On the quarterback’s job in the Faulkner offense: “Just take what the defense gives you. Spread the ball to your athletes. That's pretty much been the word. Give the ball to your athletes and I think that's what being a point guard is not trying to do too much … there's a time to be a game manager and then the game changer. So I learned that. And then, I mean, just doing the extra things outside of facility and inside the facility to learn the offense, because I knew, I mean, I want to play quarterback here. So this is something serious. I got to be able to take all my time into this and, learning a new playbook, learning all the motions. I knew I had to be somewhat ready for spring and then taking extra time in the summer and setting those goals for myself, it's really helped me.” More about the Faulkner offense: “It has answers to everything. I mean, if you have blitzes, you have hot reads, you can change the protection, you can change the whole play. Once you get to learn, once it is second nature, once you get to learn most of the offense, Coach Faulkner is going to be able to give you the keys, be able to switch and audible things. So it's very quarterback-friendly, especially once you know it.” On center Harrison Moore, who transferred to UF from Georgia Tech: “It gives me Jake Slaughter vibes a little bit just because of the way he carries himself, his leadership. I mean, you see him. We work out in the morning during the summer, and you see him up here at 3 o'clock getting perfect snaps, making sure he's perfect. And that's something, like, everyone sees, and that's something that we want to follow. And then just him up front, how physical he is, how smart he is, that's the one. That's Jake Slaughter vibes.” The difference between being good and being great: “Being able to sustain a lot of information at one time and not playing robotic because they're not about playing robotic. You want to be an athlete. You want to be able to put the ball in situations where athletes can do great things in space. And that's what they're really all about. Really taking notes. I like to write a lot of things down and look back over them at night and in the morning. I like to walk through mentally at home and then just keep going over and over again. Once I do that, I do it into my brain.”

The Summer of Sumrall Believe it or not, it has now been nearly 20 years since Florida last won the SEC. Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Brandon Spikes and Urban Meyer beat Nick Saban’s Alabama in 2008, and the Gators have not hoisted the league trophy since. Florida has made four SEC Championship Game appearances since then, but only the 13-1 Gators in 2009 and Mullen’s 2020 team were competitive in Atlanta. In fact, Florida has never appeared in the College Football Playoff. Its closest pre-playoff-era miss came in 2012, when Muschamp’s Gators finished 11-1 and third in the final BCS standings, narrowly missing the national championship game. Is this about to change? The narrative has been flipped on its head. Florida legend and SEC Network analyst Chris Doering was among the loudest voices reframing Florida’s failure to land Lane Kiffin, proclaiming the Gators had “dodged a bullet” by missing on Kiffin, now LSU’s head coach. The Sumrall vibe shift is either evidence of an unprecedented spin cycle, hopium, or a little of both. The good news? We are about to find out who is right. Here’s the reality: Florida is in the midst of its worst decade of football since integration. The Gators have endured four losing seasons in five years. Its only winning season in that span ended with a trip to the Gasparilla Bowl — not exactly the stuff of Southern football dreams. This decade may be the nadir, but Florida’s mediocrity has been mainstreamed since health concerns drove Urban Meyer from Gainesville after 2010. Dating to Meyer’s departure, the Gators have had more losing seasons in SEC play than winning ones. It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Florida has hired every kind of personality to lead the program, from fiery, meat-headed Will Muschamp to meditatively calm, but ineffectual Billy Napier. Sumrall is Florida’s fifth non-interim head coach since Meyer, and only one of the prior four can be objectively described as successful by Florida’s standards. That coach was Dan Mullen. Mullen took Florida to three consecutive New Year’s Six bowls, including an 11-2 Orange Bowl-winning season in 2019 and an SEC Championship Game appearance in 2020. He finished 34-15 at Florida, though his SEC record was a more mixed 21-14. A combination of lagging facilities, poor staff decisions and Mullen’s refusal to treat recruiting as a year-round responsibility eventually cost him his job. His lone truly poor season in Gainesville — 2021 — ended in dismissal. Even Mullen, though, had only one impressive Florida team: The 2019 Gators. They won 11 games, captured the Orange Bowl and were essentially one dreadful Todd Grantham defensive plan against Georgia away from a legitimate College Football Playoff push. Yes, Mullen’s 2020 offense was generational. Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney made Florida appointment television. But the Gators paired that offense with a bad defense, lost a classic to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game and finished 8-4 after the Cotton Bowl loss to Oklahoma. The 2019 and 2020 seasons remain the high-water marks of Florida football over the past decade. Neither produced playoff berth, let alone an SEC or national championship. Sumrall inherits a program that has been stuck in the swampy muck of mediocrity for a long time. We have watched moribund programs rise from the ashes before. Under the right coach, it can happen quickly. There is no need for another lengthy think piece about patience and meticulous program building. The previous Florida coaches all had explanations — some reasonable — that combined with their own flaws to create failure. • Muschamp was a first-time head coach who never solved his coordinator problem, squandering blue-chip rosters left behind after Meyer damaged the culture but did not empty the cupboard. • Jim McElwain operated without the administrative commitment enjoyed by Georgia, LSU and Alabama, but his offense was vanilla and his strength program was deficient enough that quarterback talent sought supplementation outside the program. • Mullen was an offensive genius and knew it, but his ego rarely allowed room for the possibility that he was wrong about anything else. Florida’s facility gap became a convenient excuse for not recruiting harder. Plus there was the Darth Vader mask. • Napier was too loyal to assistants who were not SEC-ready. Armed with unprecedented support, resources and facilities, he could not surrender the play-calling duties he believed had earned him the job. Sumrall, at least on paper, has none of those problems. He did not simply hire his friends. He loves recruiting. He has immense resources, a growing NIL war chest and world-class facilities. Everything is in place. Florida fans know what getting the hire right looks like. The triumphs of Spurrier are everywhere on campus. The bulk of the fan base remembers Meyer. Just 500 yards from the football building, Todd Golden leads a basketball culture that is among the sport’s most innovative and successful. Sumrall will win, or he won’t. You do not coach at Florida to eventually get fired, which is the unspoken baseline at some places. You coach at Florida to embrace the pressure cooker — and, if you win, to become immortal. Steve Spurrier’s name is on the field. Urban Meyer is set for the Ring of Honor this fall. The pressure is a privilege, punctuated by a date with posterity. Sumrall seems to understand that. At SEC Media Days, he emphasized gratitude for the opportunity and the privileges of leading Florida, rather than treating the job’s demands as a burden. That is refreshing. But this is still the afterglow of talking season, when plenty of things coaches say sound refreshing. It is easy to say the right things. It is another thing entirely to figure it out after losing a game you were supposed to win. Talk to me if Alex Golesh gets the better of a green Florida offensive line and a new quarterback in September. Talk to me if a Florida defense that has not ranked among the nation’s elite this decade cannot get a stop in a deafening Swamp against Ole Miss. Talk to me if Sumrall is fighting to hold together a recruiting class after the Gators navigate an October and early-November gauntlet featuring road games at Missouri and Texas, the annual game vs. Georgia this year moved to Atlanta, and a massive home clash with Oklahoma. The summer of Sumrall was fun. But the pressure cooker is coming. Did Florida hire a generational mind — or at least a coach capable of repairing a program with one of college football’s proudest fan bases? We do not know. But when talking season ends, we will find out.

Lucky To Have #13 (UAA Photo) The master’s chess piece: How will they get the ball to Jadan more? There are press conferences, and then there are what I like to call truth leaks. Buster Faulkner stepped to the podium this week with the usual coach-speak — competition, toughness, development — but if you listened closely, really listened, there was something else coming through the walls of that room in Gainesville. Not loud. Not flashy. But unmistakable. This offense is about to tilt. Not going completely away from the run — this is still SEC football, after all, where you’d better be able to knock somebody off the ball — but make no mistake: Florida is getting ready to put it in the air more than it has in recent years. And not just because it wants to. Because it believes it can. Faulkner all but told you. “We’ll throw the ball more in camp than we probably have here in the past.” Coaches don’t just toss that line out for decoration. That’s philosophy slipping through the cracks. And when you pair that with another quiet admission — “maybe a little bit more of the ball in the air than there was a year ago” — you begin to see the outline of what this offense wants to become. Not Air Raid. Not ground-and-pound. Something in between, with a little Spurrier seasoning and a dash of Meyer muscle. Call it Calculated Aggression. What stood out even more wasn’t just the commitment to throwing — it was where those throws are going. Everybody hears “wide receiver room” and starts thinking about deep shots, speed on the outside, highlight plays. And yes, Florida has that. Faulkner practically lit up talking about Dallas Wilson, describing a player who “plays as fast as he can on every snap.” But the real tell came when the conversation shifted to Jadan Baugh. Listen closely: “We want to make sure we utilize him in a bunch of different ways, probably more so than he has over the last couple years.” That’s not just a compliment. That’s a warning label for defensive coordinators. Baugh isn’t just going to be a ball carrier. He’s going to be a matchup problem. In case you didn’t remember, the talented Baugh caught 33 balls last season. In Faulkner’s world, “a bunch of different ways” usually means one thing — get the ball to your playmakers in space and let them do damage. Very Urbanesque. That includes swing passes, angle routes, screens, maybe even lining him out wide to force a linebacker into a bad decision. If you’re looking for a breakout stat line this fall, don’t just track Baugh’s rushing yards. Watch his catches. They’re coming. And probably more than you think. I could see him doubling that 33 in 2026 and still rushing for a thousand yards. Another nugget buried in the transcript: Perimeter blocking. Most fans gloss over that. They shouldn’t. Faulkner emphasized that receivers’ blocks can be “more important than the offensive line’s” on certain plays. That only matters if you’re planning to live on the edges — quick game, bubbles, flares and all the ways modern offenses stretch a defense horizontally before attacking it vertically. Translation: Florida isn’t just going to throw more. The Gators are going to distribute more. “One football… a bunch of different guys… a bunch of different ways.” That’s not randomness. That’s design. And then there’s the quarterbacks. Faulkner didn’t name a starter. He didn’t need to. What he did instead was outline the job description: Survive the SEC mentally, win on third down, execute in two-minute, protect the football. Then he added the most telling piece of all — they’re going to stress these quarterbacks in camp by throwing more than usual. Why? Because you don’t test something you don’t plan to use. If Florida were going to lean heavily on the run game and play it safe, the emphasis would be different. It’s not. They’re building this thing around decision-making under pressure, which is another way of saying the quarterback is going to have the ball in his hands when it matters most. Finally, there was the history lesson. Spurrier. Meyer. Not just name-drops — templates. Faulkner talked about blending them: The fun and flair of the ‘90s with the violence and physicality of the 2000s. That sounds great on a bumper sticker, but here’s the important part: Both of those eras, in their own way, stressed out defenses through the air. And remember, Buster is a child of the Air Raid system. Different styles. Same pressure. And pressure is exactly what Faulkner seems intent on applying. So yes, the Gators look bigger. Stronger. More physical. You can’t miss it. But the real story isn’t the 14,000 pounds of body mass transitioned from the practice field. It’s what’s coming out of Faulkner’s play sheet. More throws. More space. More touches for guys like Jadan Baugh. And a quarterback who will be asked to do more than just manage the game. Between the lines, that’s the offense Florida is building. And if Faulkner is right, it might just be the one fans have been waiting to see again.

(Photo by Eddie Gilley) “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor 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.” – Charles Darwin, from “On the Origin of Species” When he arrived at the University of Florida back in January after landing the offensive coordinator gig for Jon Sumrall, Buster Faulkner envisioned a scheme centered around the multiple talents of running back Jadan Baugh, who turned down fabulous amounts of NIL money to remain a Gator. Seven months later as the Gators open fall practice, Baugh is still the focal point but the supporting cast has expanded. Faulkner expected to adapt when he got the job, but that was to compensate for shortcomings. Little did he know at the time that he would be adapting to accommodate abundance at the running back and wide receiver positions. Nor did he know that he would have real competition at quarterback. This is a far better first year situation than the one Faulkner could have forecast when he took the job. As fall practice begins, the running back and wide receiver positions are potentially among the best to be found in both the Southeastern Conference and the entire nation. At Georgia Tech, Faulkner ran a balanced offense that involved multiple backs and receivers which kept fresh legs in the game and kept opposing defensive coordinators burning the midnight oil to prep for plays and schemes designed to fit so many different skillsets. When he was coaching quarterbacks at Georgia, Faulkner helped turn former walk-on Stetson Bennett IV into a two-time national championship starter. His history with Bennett lends confidence that the Gators will be more than adequate even though Aaron Philo and Tramell Jones have exactly one career start between them. There is an offensive line that remains a work in progress but the pieces of that puzzle seem to be coming together nicely thanks to the timely hire of former Gator offensive tackle and former Penn State O-line coach Phil Trautwein. What Faulkner showed at Georgia Tech is that he can deliver a high-powered offense even without a bunch of former 5-star recruits with a ton of starting experience. With Trautwein in charge of the O-line, the Gators should improve mightily on last year’s pathetic offensive production – 21.6 points, 341.3 yards per game, 136.75 yards per game on the ground. While there are questions for the Gators as there are for every single Division I team regrouping this week to begin preparation for the grind that lies ahead, there are already more than enough answers to create an air of optimism that the predictable, inconsistent offensive days are going to be a thing of the past. Faulkner will still have to tweak things over the next four weeks, but adaptation is a particularly good thing to have on your side when you are blessed with talent, depth and speed, which the Gators have in abundance. Start with quarterback. Within days of taking the Florida job, Faulkner protégé Aaron Philo transferred to Florida from Georgia Tech. With incumbent Florida quarterback DJ Lagway in the portal and off to Baylor, Philo seemed a quick and easy fix at QB except for one teensy unforeseen problem named Tramell Jones Jr., a redshirt freshman who elected to stay at Florida rather than transfer out. Jones, it turns out, is every bit as talented as Philo. The only thing separating Jones from Philo at this point is the two years Philo spent with Faulkner at Georgia Tech. Both are dual threats with Philo perhaps the edge as a runner and Jones as a passer. So they compete for a job that requires each of them to be “the toughest guy in the building mentally and physically.” Jones may have an advantage as a pure passer while Philo is a more instinctive runner, but they have the next four weeks to prove themselves capable. Faulkner said Tuesday, “We’re going to find the best quarterback for the University of Florida and that guy is going to go out there and it's going to give us the best chance to win. We'll see when we make that decision. The one good thing is I can sit here and tell you I like them both. I think both have come a long way. I think you can win with both.” During the next four weeks as the Gators prep for the season opener with Florida Atlantic, Faulkner will attempt to put both Philo and Jones through as many difficult, game-like situations as possible. His quarterbacks have to be playmakers, but they also have to be responsible stewards with the ball and cerebral enough to handle adversity. “That's one thing I believe in is put them through as many difficult situations as we can, whether it's third-down pressures, two-minute drills, all those different things to kind of see where they're at when those opportunities come in games,” Faulkner said. “You judge a quarterback really on how well does he perform on third down and two-minute drills … They’ve got to protect the football. We want to see how they protect the ball. We're going to put them in a lot of tough situations. We'll throw the ball more in camp than we probably have here in the past, just to kind of see where we're at and see where those guys are." Back in January, Baugh was the only known quantity in the running backs room but things changed for the better rather quickly. Baugh will no doubt be the lead back, but there is no shortage of talented guys who Faulkner will have to scheme into each week’s game plan. Duke Clark has recovered from last year’s injuries that curtailed a potentially decent season as the No. 2 back last year. Byron Louis, who played five snaps against Kentucky to earn a redshirt as a true freshman a year ago, has go-the-distance speed. From the portal, the Gators added Evan Pryor and London Montgomery, both of whom were top ten-ranked backs during their high school careers. Pryor signed with Ohio State then transferred to Cincinnati where he had two productive years as a multi-purpose back. Montgomery took a redshirt as a freshman at Penn State, then put together two productive seasons at East Carolina before transferring to Florida. Baugh (1,170 rushing yards and 33 catches out of the backfield last year) is a legitimate superstar who could easily make All-America teams but he won’t have to wing it alone. With the depth and speed he has at his disposal, Faulkner can keep fresh legs in the game at all time and create mismatches on the edge and in the passing game when he gets these guys outside the box. “I feel really good about where all those guys are,” Faulkner said. “I like that room. It's going to bring a lot more depth than we probably thought we had coming in, and we're going to have find ways to get some of those guys the ball too." When he took the Florida job, Jon Sumrall prioritized keeping Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson out of the portal. He also retained under-used TJ Abrams, who has stretch the field speed that can back safeties out of the box. From the recruiting class, the Gators landed freshmen Davion Groce, Justin Williams, Marquez Daniel and Mason Jordan, one of the better recruiting hauls at the position in the country. From the portal he added Eric Singleton Jr. (Auburn), Micah Mays Jr. (Wake Forest), Bailey Stockton (Georgia Tech) and Jaylen Lloyd (Oklahoma State). Brown caught 40 passes as a true freshman last year while Wilson showed big play potential while battling through injuries. Abrams spent last season open but saw the football only 14 times. Prior to Auburn, Singleton caught 104 passes for 1,468 yards for Faulkner in two seasons at Georgia Tech. Mays is a big play guy comfortable outside or in the slot. Stockton is a possession guy who was Philo’s go-to guy in high school. A healthy Lloyd is a dangerous deep threat. Faulkner has more speed and talent to work with than he ever had at Georgia Tech. He schemed a balanced offense that produced 47 touchdowns scored by 14 different players last year. Faulkner has a similar plan for the Gators. Spread the ball around to keep opposing defenses from shutting down the offense by keying on one or two guys. “When you look around our locker room … there's only one football, and it needs to go to a bunch of different guys in a bunch of different ways, and we're going to try to do that," Faulkner said. An explosive offense has been lacking at Florida since Dan Mullen’s 2020 Gators averaged 39.8 points per game. There is far more talent available than what Buster Faulkner thought he was going to work with when he accepted Jon Sumrall’s offer to come to Florida as the coordinator. Now it is simply a matter of Faulkner adapting the play calling and the scheme to fit the situation.

Photo by Eddie Gilley/GatorBait Media By GatorBait Media Staff Aug. 5, 2026 GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida opened preseason camp under first-year coach Jon Sumrall on Wednesday with a measurable offseason result already in place. Across four primary lifts — power clean, bench press, squat and deadlift — the roster improved by nearly 14,000 pounds from January to the start of camp, Sumrall said during Tuesday's news conference. He credited director of football performance Rusty Whitt and the players, while emphasizing that the gains must translate to the field. The total reflects an offseason built around strength, body composition and durability. Sumrall said the offensive line made significant gains in the weight room and that testing showed notable fat loss and muscle gain across the roster. Still, Sumrall's main message entering camp was not about weight-room totals. It was whether Florida can reproduce its best work every day. “You cannot calculate your effort you give by how you feel.” Sumrall said spring practice produced encouraging stretches, but not enough consistency. Preseason camp is the next test of whether those flashes can become a repeatable standard. “We have a lot of growth that's needed,” Sumrall said. A controlled opening The Gators are scheduled to practice four consecutive days, Wednesday through Saturday. Sumrall said the staff will alternate lower- and higher-load sessions while monitoring practice yardage and total distance, particularly for skill-position players who can be more susceptible to soft-tissue injuries. Most practices will remain in the morning, following the format Florida used in the spring. Sumrall said the second scrimmage will be held at night because the season opener is scheduled for an evening kickoff. Early availability report Florida entered camp with only a few players limited or under evaluation. Sumrall said tight end Jaylen Jordon would miss the opening couple of days with a minor injury. Freshman safety Kaiden Hall had a minor soft-tissue issue and was scheduled to be evaluated before Wednesday's practice. Cornerback Dijon Johnson was available for the opening practice but was expected to work on a pitch count in selected drills as he continued his return from the knee injury that ended his 2025 season. Sumrall said Johnson recently reached 22.5 mph in training. Offensive lineman Fletcher Westphal, who did not play in 2025 because of injury, entered camp as a full participant. Wide receiver Dallas Wilson also is fully cleared after a foot injury limited him in 2025, though Sumrall said Florida will manage Wilson's workload with the season in mind. New additions join the evaluation Sumrall confirmed that defensive lineman Stive-Bentley Keumajou Yondui reclassified from the 2027 recruiting class and joined Florida for camp. Sumrall said the developing prospect has notable athletic ability, a strong work ethic and significant room to grow. Jordon is another unconventional addition. The former Jacksonville University basketball player worked out at Florida's pro day before the staff determined he had remaining football eligibility. Florida will evaluate him at tight end. Quarterback remains the most closely watched position battle. Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo and redshirt freshman Tramell Jones Jr. entered camp as the most experienced candidates, while Sumrall has said the job will be earned through practice. What's next The Gainesville Sun and Gators Online reported that Florida is scheduled to hold scrimmages Aug. 15 and Aug. 22. The Gators open the season against Florida Atlantic at 7:45 p.m. Sept. 5 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The game will air on SEC Network. Watch Jon Sumrall's full opening fall camp news conference.

Dallas Wilson. Photo by Eddie Gilley Observations look promising. But don’t they always? By EDDIE GILLEY GatorBaitMedia.com We got our first look at the 2026 Gator Fall training camp Wednesday morning. It was brief and purposefully generic. No routes, no coverages, unless working on punt coverage counts, and no real contested drills. So, with that being said, here are a few nuggets I took from being there on day 1. Dallas Wilson (pictured here) looks like he is moving freely. No limping, no holding back. When he did the drills, he was all in. That’s good news if he can stay that way throughout the entire season. He looks like an NFL ready wide receiver. The only question will be his durability. Having Vernell Brown III and Eric Singleton line up alongside him or to give him some rest should help him have an All-American type season if he can stay on the field! Jaden Baugh is a physical beast. He looks like he is bigger and stronger than last year. That’s bad news for opponents and great news for Gator fans. The downside is there is significant dropoff in terms of size between him and the rest of the running back room. The others may still be productive, but Baugh is the guy you want to have on the field if you need two yards to close out a game. Like Wilson, his health is a key factor in the success of this year’s Gator team. Miles Graham is another Gator who looks to have flourished in the new weight and conditioning program by this new staff! He looks leaner and yet bigger by. He and Aaron Chiles both are intimidating physical presences in the middle of the defense. They are the kind of guys you want with you in a dark alley late at night. They are scary dudes. That’s what the Gator defenses have missed since Brandon Spikes. A guy who says if the opponents need one yard, they had better try the corner rather than run the ball inside. For what it’s worth, and I think it’s worth nothing, Tramell Jones was the first QB in line when the passing drills started. He looked as good as you could want, spinning the ball to managers. Second guy was Aaron Philo. His throws were also picture perfect. Even Will Griffin looked impressive throwing over the screens to stationary targets. That’s the problem, DJ Lagway looked good last year throwing on the first day of camp. Perhaps we will know more when the first scrimmage rolls around in a week or so, but at least the Gators have some viable options and there is a competition to see who earns the right to start at QB in the Swamp. Overall, the tone was upbeat for early morning practice. The coaches were active and encouraging the players. You get a feeling the players seem to be more unified than last year —more of a relationship of brotherhood and less individualism that was prevalent last year. Time will tell if that is true or that is just the result of it being the first day.

On the eve of his fifth fall practice as a head football coach, this one at the University of Florida where he is charged with bringing the Gators back from 15 years in Southeastern Conference purgatory, Jon Sumrall could have very well re-enacted the 1994 Skin Bracer commercial in which lifetime tough guy Jack Palance quipped, “Confidence is very sexy, don’t you think?” From the moment he entered the room to speak to the media Tuesday there was a noticeable jolt of positive energy. Sumrall answered questions in self-assured detail without any indication that he is the least bit fazed by the backslide from the consistent championship-level football that was played at Florida from 1990-2010 to the past 15 years in which four consecutive coaches have ridden off into the sunset with a hefty buyout check after being pink-slipped. There is pressure here unlike anything he ever felt in the Sun Belt at Troy, a speed bump on the Alabama highway that takes you from Dothan to Montgomery, or Tulane of the American Conference, an academic powerhouse located in the Garden District of New Orleans. They enjoy winning at Troy and Tulane, but it is far from an obsession. In Gainesville and wherever the Gator Nation is fruitful and multiplying, a rabid fan base demands a return to the glory days of Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer. Spurrier and Meyer are legends who combined for 18 years in which the Gators won three national championships, eight SEC titles and began and ended nearly every season in the hunt for yet another trophy-hoisting moment. They cast a very long shadow from which Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, Dan Mullen and Billy Napier never emerged. Were they intimidated? They might answer no, but they rarely, if ever, reached out to Spurrier and Meyer for hints on how to not only win big on the field but win over the fan base. A motivated, supportive Gator Nation is powerful. Don’t believe it? Then ask opponents who leave The Swamp with ears that won’t stop ringing for days after a dose of Gator hospitality. Sumrall has embraced the heritage. He views Spurrier and Meyer as assets who still have plenty to offer. Their door is always open and Sumrall isn’t so in awe of these Hall of Fame legends that he is afraid to ask for advice. He admires their success but in no way is he intimidated by it. Confidence will do that for you. So will trust. Here is what we know about Jon Sumrall after seven full months on the Florida job. He is a winner, proven by two Sun Belt championships at Troy, one at Tulane and four-for-four in reaching the conference championship game. He is not afraid to tell you he doesn’t know everything, which has everything to do with why he surrounds himself with assistant coaches and staff who can supply answers. He preaches toughness and accountability of everyone in his organization and that starts at the top with himself. Will Muschamp preached toughness and accountability, which showed on the defensive side of the ball, but Will never had an offensive staff equal to those coaches who held court in the defensive rooms. Jim McElwain boasted of his offensive prowess – “I can win with my dog Clarabelle playing quarterback – then couldn’t produce an offense capable of generating more than 344 yards per game in three years. Dan Mullen needed to replace unproductive assistant coaches but waited too late to make necessary changes. Billy Napier was too hands on. As a head coach you have to delegate authority. Billy wouldn’t let anyone else call the plays or run the offense and special teams were a disaster. Now in his fifth year as a Division I head football coach, Sumrall isn’t afraid to speak of his own evolution. “Yeah, the biggest change I've made is that probably from year one to year five, I delegated a touch more, quite a bit more to be quite honest,” Sumrall admitted Tuesday. “My first year as head coach, I probably micromanaged everybody to a fault, because I wanted everything to just be absolutely perfect. Now, I still want us to chase perfection, but I think as you grow, you understand you have to hire great people and let them do their jobs. “It's my job to, like, hold everybody to the highest standard and extremely accountable for how we do things. The beautiful thing about being head coach in Florida is you can hire a great staff. Like, I'm really, really blessed with the resources our administration has provided us with to put together a staff where, yeah, there's times I may need to walk in the offensive room, or the defensive room, special teams staff, and make sure they understand the vision that we need to be casting and how we need to be growing in certain areas. But all the way to the front office and the support staff, I think just trusting people to do their job well, and then when it's maybe not meeting the standard we need, then call it out but not hold their hand all the time." It wasn’t that way in the beginning. Year one at Troy, Sumrall admitted “I was in every defensive staff meeting, and I was in every special teams staff meeting, and the offensive guys would walk down the hall, I'd be like 'Hey, what's your name?' And so then I was like 'Hey man you got to be the head coach of the whole team, like, you gotta understand it all.' And so, really, my second year as a head coach, I spent more time around our offensive staff then I did our defensive staff, and now I'm pretty balanced. I can kind of, you know, I'm at a place where a play-call at tomorrow's practice goes in, offense, defense, kicking game. I'm dialed-in to what we got going on." Sumrall is dialed in because he’s learned to hire good people, let them coach and hold them accountable. That takes confidence. That takes trust. When confidence and trust are combined with a full measure of toughness, winning becomes a foregone conclusion. It all starts on the practice field where the Gators have a month to prep for their season opener with Florida Atlantic and the 11 games that follow. Beyond FAU and D1AA Campbell in game two, there isn’t an easy mark on the schedule. The Gators have posted four losing seasons in the last five. In retrospect toughness was a rare factor in the Florida equation, both in Mullen’s final year on the job and all four of the Napier seasons. Sumrall is the new sheriff in town and his assistants are his deputies. The old ways were scrapped in favor of a strength and conditioning program headed by former Green Beret. Everything about Whitt and the way the Florida coaching staff goes about business has toughness at the foundation. Toughness demands effort and a burning desire to not just correct mistakes but improve past the point of making them in the first place. Spring football showed Sumrall what the Gators are capable of doing this fall. The month of August will be spent ironing out the flaws of the spring while developing the kind of team chemistry and toughness that will carry over into a 12-game schedule that includes nine Southeastern Conference games. It is a daunting task. The Gators have talent, but enough to elbow their way back to the elite status that has been slip-sliding away since 2011? Will the toughness that is grilled into this roster every single day be enough to compensate for any talent deficiencies? The Gators have embraced the new way of doing things since Sumrall’s arrival, but will it carry over once the season becomes a weekly grind? Will the grind produce indomitable team chemistry? Will the Gators play with the kind of toughness it takes to compete in college football’s toughest league top to bottom? “We gotta continue to grow as a team and come together, have synergy,” Sumrall said. “We’ve got to have certain guys elevate at certain spots to play winning-level football that still have some question marks at. Just consistency, like there were some flashes of times in the spring where I’m like, ‘oh, this thing could be really good,’ but the consistency wasn’t always there. We have to get into a space where we bring it every day, and you cannot calculate your effort you give by how you feel. Like, being tough is being at your best no matter what the circumstances are around you. And so our guys got to get in a routine of, like, man, every time we go out to practice, it’s a great practice because we’re showing up. We’re gonna show up.” That wasn’t wishful thinking on Sumrall’s part. That was real conviction. There is still a month before the season kicks off in earnest, but if attitudes are shaped into a one-for-all level of confidence, then the Florida Gators will be taking the first steps of a long-awaited road back to glory. Win big and confidence will grow like an out-of-control pandemic among the Gator Nation. The rest of the SEC saw during the Spurrier and Meyer years what happens when the Florida program exudes confidence and becomes a magnet for the nation’s top tier talent. If Sumrall’s past history and present demeanor are any indicator of things to come, then good things are about to happen in abundance and confidence will be restored to the point of near arrogance. Confidence is indeed very sexy, don’t you think?

UAA Photo A plan rooted in toughness, built on accountability, and — maybe most importantly — grounded in reality. There was no chest-thumping, no grand proclamations, no promises of championships hanging in the August humidity. Just a football coach standing at the podium, sleeves metaphorically rolled up, talking about work. And if you listened closely to Jon Sumrall’s first fall camp press conference, you heard something Gator Nation has been starving for: A plan rooted in toughness, built on accountability, and — maybe most importantly — grounded in reality. “We’re going to practice the way we want to play,” Sumrall said, without blinking. That means physical. That means demanding. That also means smart. Because Sumrall isn’t trying to win August headlines — he’s trying to win November football games. There’s a difference. He talked about balancing load management with old-school grit, about alternating practice intensity, about tracking yardage and wear-and-tear on skill players. It sounded less like guesswork and more like a blueprint. And in today’s game, where soft tissue injuries can derail a season before it begins, that matters. But make no mistake — this is still a program being hardened. You don’t accidentally add nearly 14,000 pounds of strength across a roster in an offseason. You don’t stumble into body transformations where linemen are dropping 30 pounds of fat and replacing it with muscle. That’s culture. That’s intent. And that’s where Sumrall’s fingerprints are already showing. “You cannot break,” he said. “Well, how do you not break? You have to be resilient and strong.” It’s the kind of line we media guys might have scribbled on a napkin at a Gainesville diner or bar years ago. Simple. True. Non-negotiable. There’s also a quiet confidence in how Sumrall is evolving as a head coach. He admitted — almost with a grin — that he used to micromanage everything. Now? He trusts his staff. Delegates. Empowers. At Florida, that’s not just growth — that’s survival. Because this staff, by all accounts, can coach. He raved about defensive coordinator Brad White’s football IQ, calling him one of the best teachers he’s ever been around. He described offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner as adaptable and creative — someone who molds scheme to personnel instead of forcing square pegs into round holes. Translation: Florida might finally start looking like a team that knows what it’s doing on Saturdays. Imagine that. There were lighter moments, too. A jab at the old weight room setup (“a little patch of turf…what’s that doing?”), a laugh about squeezing between racks, a glimpse of a coach who understands that environment matters. Because it does. Facilities signal priorities. Investment signals belief. And right now, everything around this program — from the renovated weight room to the sports science emphasis to the nutrition buy-in is pointing in the same direction. Forward. Sumrall didn’t bite on preseason polls. Florida was snubbed. Didn’t care. Didn’t pretend to. “I don’t even look at them,” he said. Good. Florida has spent too much time worrying about perception and not enough time building substance. That seems to be changing. There’s excitement in his voice when he talks about players like Jaden Woods — “high output, low ego” — or the reshaped offensive line, or the infectious energy of Dallas Wilson. But it’s always tempered with a reminder: “They still got to go play.” That’s the thread running through all of this. Hope, yes. Progress, absolutely. But no shortcuts. No illusions. Just work. And maybe that’s why, when Sumrall finally leaned back and reflected on where he is — standing at the helm of one of college football’s proudest programs — he didn’t talk about pressure. He talked about gratitude. “Holy cow,” he said. “We get to play the greatest game in the world at one of the greatest universities in the world.” That’s not a soundbite. That’s a mindset. And if it catches on inside that locker room — if toughness meets discipline, if strength meets consistency, if belief meets execution — then maybe, just maybe, the Gators are closer than people think. Not because they said so in August. But because they’re building something that might actually last into fall. And around here, that’s a start worth believing in.

The Gators have been wandering in the football wilderness long enough to know every cactus by name. They have cycled through coaches, quarterbacks, coordinators, athletic-department philosophies and enough hope to fill Lake Alice. Yet Meyer, who knows a little something about winning at Florida, placed the Gators among the programs most likely to sustain success in the coming years. By Buddy Martin GatorBaitMedia.com There was no shocker in Urban Meyer putting Ohio State at the top of his list of college football programs best built to keep winning for the next decade or two. Urban Meyer picking Ohio State No. 1 is a little like asking the late Colonel Sanders to rank fried chicken. He has a certain affection for the product. And there was no surprise in Georgia and Texas getting the bronze-medal penthouse, tied at No. 2. Both are currently loaded, located in recruiting-rich territory and backed by administrations willing to spend money with the enthusiasm of a lottery winner in a tackle shop. But Florida at No. 9? Now that got my attention, in a good way. The Gators have been wandering in the football wilderness long enough to know every cactus by name. They have cycled through coaches, quarterbacks, coordinators, athletic-department philosophies and enough hope to fill Lake Alice. Yet Meyer, who knows a little something about winning at Florida, placed the Gators among the programs most likely to sustain success in the coming years. That is not nostalgia talking. At least, not entirely. Urban’s list came during an episode of The Triple Option podcast, where he laid out his four pillars of football permanence: Recruiting infrastructure, administration, fan base and history. You need the players, the money and support, the people in the stands, and preferably a trophy case that has seen some traffic. By those standards, Florida still has the bones of a blueblood, even if the recent product sometimes resembled a beautiful old house with a few too many squirrels in the attic. Meyer was blunt about the Gators. Recruiting, he said, is elite. The fan base is elite. And when The Swamp is rocking, he called it “the best stadium in college football.” He also raised the obvious question about administration, awaiting the inauguration and leadership of new president Stuart Bell, calling that part “to be determined.” Fair enough. At Florida, the question has never been whether the program can win. The question has been why it occasionally behaves as though winning national championships requires a permission slip from Tuscaloosa or Tallahassee. “How do you not win there in football?” Meyer asked. Exactly. Florida has the population. Florida has the recruits. Florida has the brand, the facilities, the weather, the tradition, the stadium and the memories of Spurrier, Meyer, Tebow, Wuerffel, Emmitt and a long parade of men who made Saturdays in Gainesville feel like a state holiday with better barbecue. The missing ingredient lately has been alignment. But there is a positive spin emerging on that lately. Everybody pulling the rope in the same direction, preferably before the rope has been sold to a booster collective and renamed after a local car dealership. That is why Meyer’s ranking of the Gators is also something of an endorsement of Jon Sumrall. Urban sees Sumrall as a younger version of himself, which is a compliment carrying both horsepower and a warning label. Meyer was restless, demanding, obsessive and capable of turning a program into a machine. If Sumrall can bring even a portion of that edge to Gainesville, while surviving the modern complications of NIL, the transfer portal and social-media quarterback evaluations from people whose only coaching experience is Madden, Florida can climb fast. Meyer knows the job. He won two national championships there from 2005 through 2010. He knows what Florida looks like when it is operating at full voltage. It is terrifying to those who fear the sleeping giant is awakening to the rest of college football. His top 10 ranking was a reminder that sustained success is not always a reflection of last season’s record. USC, which Meyer put at No. 10, has spent years trying to remember where it left its swagger. Oregon, at No. 8, has built itself into a national operation through investment, innovation and Phil Knight’s checkbook, which may qualify as its own branch of government. Then come Michigan, Miami, LSU and Notre Dame, programs with enough history, resources and recruiting appeal to remain dangerous even when they stumble. Georgia and Texas at No. 2 make sense because both have become modern football factories. Kirby Smart has Georgia operating like a high-security facility for five-star prospects. Texas has the money, the recruiting base and now the kind of institutional focus that makes old Southwest Conference ghosts sit up straighter in their rocking chairs. And Ohio State at No. 1? Of course. Meyer credited the Buckeyes for adapting, for being ahead of the Big Ten curve in recruiting nationally and refusing to settle for merely being the best team north of the Mason-Dixon line. Ohio State has won three national championships this century and has built a standard of excellence that does not allow many rebuilding years, only temporary disappointments followed by a new fleet of wide receivers. But Florida being in this neighborhood is the real story for Gator fans. It means Meyer believes the program is not broken beyond repair. It means he sees the ingredients still sitting on the counter, waiting for the right chef to stop burning the soufflé. It means the Swamp can still become the place visiting teams dread, recruits dream about and old Gators remember with a grin. Urban Meyer is not saying Florida is back. He is saying Florida is built to come back. And for a fan base that has spent too many recent Saturdays staring at the scoreboard as if it were a foreclosure notice, that is a premise worth endorsing.

There is a bit of that old Al Davis – “Just win, baby!” – swagger in Jon Sumrall, whose four teams at two different whistlestops prior to Florida (Troy and Tulane) produced 43 wins, four trips to conference championship games, three conference championships (2 Sun Belt, 1 American) and one trip to the College Football Playoff (Tulane 2025). Just because Florida is a step up in competition, Sumrall has the same championship expectations that he had coaching in the Sun Belt and American conferences. In Tampa at SEC Media Days, Sumrall refused to set a minimally acceptable win total for the Gators. He said he expects to win every game. For that to happen he has to inject confidence and higher expectations for the 2026 Gators, who are coming off their fourth losing season in five years. An eight win season would be Sumrall's worst record since becoming a head coach, but eight wins doubles last season and sets the tone for future UF teams. Offensive efficiency will go a long way toward determining the fate of the Gators this season. Sumrall has to turn around an offense that ranked near the bottom third of the nation in six of the most important offensive categories. To win at least eight games in Sumrall Season No. 1, the Gators need to make quantum leaps in all seven of these offensive categories that factor heavily in winning. To turn things around, Sumrall snaked Buster Faulkner off the Georgia Tech staff to coordinate the offense. Faulkner was Stetson Bennett’s quarterback coach when Georgia won back-to-back national championships (2021-22). The last three years at Georgia Tech, Faulkner’s offenses have been balanced, productive and at the same time explosive. Can he do the same thing at Florida, which hasn’t won more than eight games in a season since 2019? Here is a look at the seven important offensive categories and how the Gators performed in contrast to Sumrall at Tulane and Faulkner at Georgia Tech. Further contrast is provided by the top three playoff teams a season ago. TOTAL OFFENSE Georgia Tech (9-4): 460 yards per game (No. 11 nationally/6.98 yards per play (No. 4 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 411.4 yards per game (No. 38 nationally)/6.13 yards per play (No. 30 nationally) Florida (4-8): 341.3 yards per game (No. 104 nationally)/5.4 yards per play (No. 91 nationally) Playoff teams top three Ole Miss (13-2): 489.7 yards per game (No. 2 nationally)/ 6.68 yards per play (No. 15 nationally) James Madison (12-2): 452.6 yards per game (No. 15 nationally)/6.37 yards per play (No. 22 nationally) Oregon (13-2): 452.2 yards per game (No. 16 nationally)/6.87 yards per play (No. 9 nationally) What Florida has to do: During the Mullen years, the Gators were always among the national leaders in yards per play. The Gators had a top 50 offense in Billy Napier’s first two seasons, mostly between the 20s. The last two seasons the Gators were 66th and then 104th. Playcalling was predictable and that is being kind. An average offense produces between 380-400 yards per game and somewhere between 5.75 and 6.0 yards per play. The Tulane offense the last two years went for more than 400 yards and better than 6.1 per play. Buster Faulkner’s Georgia Tech offenses at Georgia Tech were balanced and productive, always good for at least 420 yards and more than 6.1 yards per play. For the Gators to win eight or more games this season, the offensive production needs to be 420 or more yards and at least 6.1 per play. THE RUNNING GAME Georgia Tech (9-4): 197.46 per game (No. 13 nationally)/5.54 per carry (No. 8 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 166.42 per game (No. 57 nationally)/4.52 per carry (No. 56 nationally) Florida (4-8): 136.75 per game (No. 91 nationally)/4.27 per carry (No. 75 nationally) Playoff teams top three Indiana (16-0): 212.88 per game (No. 12 nationally)/5.17 per carry (No. 19 nationally) Oregon (13-2): 198.6 per game (No. 20 nationally)/5.41 per carry (No. 13 nationally) Texas A&M (11-2): 184.69 (No. 30 nationally)/4.82 per carry (No. 32 nationally) What Florida has to do: Good teams typically average between 160-180 yards per game and more than 5.0 yards per carry. The Gators averaged more than 200 yards in Napier’s first year, but that was with two NFL-bound running backs (Montrell Johnson Jr. and Trevor Etienne). The running game has been predictable and rarely explosive the last two seasons even with Jadan Baugh getting the most carries. Baugh is back for a third season and he should thrive in Buster Faulkner’s scheme, which spreads the field to create running lanes and makes defenses account for the quarterback as a runner on every snap. Because he is also a threat as a receiver, Baugh should have an All-America type year. He is backed up by Evan Pryor and London Montgomery, transfers who were top 10 recruits out of high school. For the Gators to win eight or more games this year, the running game needs to average somewhere in the 5.3-5.5-yards per carry range and the quarterback has to be enough of a threat to take off that it keeps at least one of the linebackers occupied. If Baugh can average 85 yards per game he will eclipse 1,000 yards to become the first back in Florida history to record back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. THE PASSING GAME Georgia Tech (9-4): 262.5 yards per game (No. 31 nationally)/8.7 yards per attempt (No. 13 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 245.1 yards per game (No. 50 nationally)/8.1 yards per attempt (No. 30 nationally) Florida (4-8): 204.6 yards per game (No. 93 nationally)/6.6 yards per attempt (No. 97 nationally) Playoff teams top three Ole Miss (13-2): 313 yards per game (No. 3 nationally)/9.0 yards per attempt (No. 9 nationally) Ohio State (12-2): 268.2 yards per game (No. 23 nationally)/9.2 yards per attempt (No. 7 nationally) Alabama (11-4): 263.5 yards per game (No. 29 nationally)/7.6 yards per attempt (No. 50 nationally) What Florida has to do: First and foremost the Gators have to improve the yards per pass attempt by at least a yard. Anything less than 7.5 per attempt is quite pedestrian. Both Sumrall and Faulkner have relied on a lot of play action and balancing things with the run threat to open the passing lanes. Far from ground and pound, which was the perception at Georgia Tech, Faulkner had a passing game that averaged 8.7 yards per attempt which was without the kind of receiving talent he has at his disposal this year. The foursome of Vernell Brown III, Dallas Wilson, Eric Singleton Jr. and Micah Mays have much more speed and explosiveness than the crew he had at Georgia Tech. Operating with a brand new QB and new wide receivers, Georgia Tech averaged 8.1 yards per attempt last year. Whether it’s Aaron Philo or Tramell Jones Jr. at quarterback, it is imperative for the Gators to average at least 8.0 per pass attempt to keep the safeties from packing the box to stuff the running game. SACKS ALLOWED Georgia Tech (9-4): 9 for -61 yards (No. 3 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 12 for -80 yards (No. 7 nationally) Florida (4-8): 20 for -106 yards (No. 39 nationally) Playoff teams top three Ohio State (12-2): 16 for -110 yards (No. 13 nationally) Ole Miss (13-2): 19 for -98 yards (No. 27 nationally) Texas A&M (11-2): 19 for -111 yards (No. 27 nationally) What Florida has to do: The Gators emphasized getting the ball out of DJ Lagway’s hands quickly last year so the offensive line’s pass protection looks better on paper than it really was. When it was a straight dropback, Lagway was a sitting duck, in part because he was slowed by hamstring issues. Both Philo and Jones are more mobile than Lagway or Graham Mertz ever were. New OL coach Phil Trautwein’s Penn State O-lines were very consistent. Trautwein brings an element of toughness to the O-line that has been missing for years. For the Gators to win eight or more games, the O-line has to keep the opponents’ sack total to 16 or fewer. THIRD DOWN CONVERSIONS Georgia Tech (9-4): 71-154, 46.1 percent (No. 23 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 77-183, 42.08 percent (No. 43 nationally) Florida (4-8): 52-152, 34.21 percent (No. 116 nationally) Playoff teams top three Indiana (16-0): 113-200, 56.5 percent (No. 1 nationally) Ohio State (12-2): 81-152, 53.29 percent (No. 2 nationally) Texas Tech (12-2): 109-220, 49.55 percent (No. 12 nationally) What Florida has to do: The Gators have been very poor converting third downs for five years running. Last year they were one of the worst in the country. Anything less than 40 percent usually means an ineffective offense. Florida hasn’t converted 40 percent since Napier’s first year on the job. Faulkner’s Georgia Tech offenses have been more than 46 percent two of the last three seasons. Sumrall’s 2024 Tulane team converted 50.29 percent on third down. First and foremost, the Gators have to do well enough on first and second downs that it’s third and short most of the time. A year ago the Gators seemed to always be third and long. To win eight or more games, the Gators need to convert 45 percent or better. EXPLOSIVE PLAYS (10+ yards) Georgia Tech (9-4): 195 (No. 36 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 220 (No. 8 nationally) Florida (4-8): 148 (No. 101 nationally) Playoff teams top three Ole Miss (13-2): 252 (No. 2 nationally) Indiana(16-0): 249 (No. 3 nationally) Miami (13-3): 227 (No. 5 nationally) What Florida has to do: Of Florida’s 148 explosive plays last season, only 26 went for at least 30 yards, which is indicative of a grind it out type of offense. The Gators had 79 plays in the 10-19-yard range and 43 that went for 20-29 yards. Contrast that to Ole Miss, which had 90 plays between 20 and 29 yards and another 50 between 30 and 40 yards. Florida won four games. Ole Miss won 13. Sumrall’s Tulane team had 220 explosive plays and Georgia Tech had 195. Sumrall’s first team (Troy, 2022) had 179 explosive plays, the second 219 and his first Tulane team 219. Georgia Tech had practically the same number of explosive plays all three years Faulkner was the OC. Playoff teams tend to make at least 190 plays of 10 or more yards yearly. Since 2000, every national championship team had at least 200 plays that went for at least 10 yards. For the Gators in the upcoming season, it is imperative to get running backs to the second level and receivers hitting seams for those 17-yard darts that keep the safeties backed off the line. If the Gators make 200 or more explosive plays they’re going to win at least eight games. RED ZONE TOUCHDOWNS Georgia Tech (9-4): 32 (No. 47 nationally) Tulane (11-3): 31 (No. 54 nationally) Florida (4-8): 23 (No. 95 nationally) Playoff teams top three Indiana (16-0): 56 (No. 2 nationally) Ole Miss (13-2): 49 (No. 3 nationally) Ohio State (13-2): 46 (No. 5 nationally) What Florida has to do: The Gators struggled to score in 2025 when they got into the red zone only 36 times in 12 games. They were efficient, converting 23 touchdowns and 13 field goals, but scoring opportunities were rare. The Gators scored only six touchdowns from outside the red zone. Georgia Tech made it to the red zone 55 times, scoring 32 touchdowns (17 field goals) while Tulane scored 31 TDs and kicked 19 field goals in 56 red zone trips. Since 2000, every national championship team has gotten to the red zone regularly, most of the time punching it in for a TD. Indiana ran the table a year ago, getting to the red zone 77 times (56 touchdowns, 15 field goals), an average of nearly five red zone trips per game. In the SEC, Ole Miss also got there 77 times (more than five per game; 49 touchdowns, 17 field goals). For the Gators to double from four wins to eight, they’ve got to get into the red zone more often and convert touchdowns.