TAMPA, Florida — Jon Sumrall is almost always available to take a phone call, participate in a media interview and promote his team.
But the most accessible coach in the SEC also knows when to draw the line.
"It's July. It's football season," he said to a small gathering of reporters Wednesday morning at SEC media days. "It's not podcast season."
The pressure is on the first-year Florida coach, who has known nothing but tremendous success -- 43-12 in four combined seasons at Troy and Tulane, including three conference titles and three 11-win seasons — but inherits a program frustrated by underachievements, most recently run aground by Billy Napier, who went 22-23 before being fired seven games into his fourth season.
Sumrall believes he can do what no one at Florida has done since Urban Meyer in the late 2000s -- win a national title. The program hasn't reached double-digit wins since 2019, when Dan Mullen opened his four-year stay with back-to-back 10-win seasons and, later, took the Gators to the SEC Championship Game in 2020. Sumrall says he "spent a ton of time" with Meyer in the offseason.
Sumrall delivers a much-needed dose of honesty to a Florida program that has long been elevated by lofty expectations and reinforced by audacious, misguided messages of championship aspirations, even when the roster was not ready to achieve those goals.
"My message is, we're gonna do everything we can to be really good this year and beyond," Sumrall said. "I'm excited about the rest of our program. We have nowhere near arrived. I'm very, very hungry for our team to improve, because if we don't improve, we're going to get our ass beat."
Indeed, the Gators have suffered through losing seasons in four of the last five years. It's the worst five-year period for the program since the late 1940s.
Sumrall's candidness is like a fresh, clean wind sweeping through The Swamp. "I may have some bad moments, but I don't have bad days," he said. That cooling air can also be unintentionally brisk and brutal. Just ask the Gators' offensive linemen.
"I was very underwhelmed with our strength when I got to Gainesville, with our offensive line," he said. "The weight being moved wasn't up to the standard of what I'm comfortable with. The guys in that room, they've gotten real comfortable with pushing heavy weight. They've improved; their bodies look different."
Florida enters preseason camp with a battle at quarterback. Georgia Tech's Aaron Philo comes to Gainesville with offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner. Philo, a backup in the ACC last season, was incredible in high school, breaking Trevor Lawrence's record for passing yards in the Georgia high school ranks (13,922). Tramell Jones returns after serving as a backup last fall.
Sumrall doesn't have a timeline for naming a starter.
"It may be five minutes before the game before anybody finds out," he said.
"Both guys have been great. They lift on the same rack together in the weight room. They push each other, they challenge each other, they support each other. They've got each other's back. They're gonna fight for each other. The quickest way either one of them could lose the job is to be a bad teammate. They're great teammates. They've been awesome with each other."
Whoever wins the job will have tremendous targets at receiver. Former five-star receivers Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson return. The Gators also benefited from Faulkner's connections at Georgia Tech, leading to the addition of top-10 receiver Eric Singleton from the transfer portal. Wilson skipped spring practices while rehabilitating a foot injury suffered during his freshman season last fall.
"Dallas is freaking awesome! He's back," said Sumrall, his voice rising with every word. "Yeah, I'm fired up by that. Great energy, really hard-working. He's the kind of guy that walks in the room, the temperature in the room changes because he's in the room. He's got that upbeat vibe.
"He's back, man. It's fun watching him."
As for the defense, well, that's a work in progress. "We've got a lot of new faces and a lot of guys that need to step up."
Sumrall's expectations are not necessarily clear. He pointed to his first season at Troy, where he believed they might reach a bowl game, but then went on to win 12 games. His prognostication skills are just a tad off, but that's fine, he said.
"It takes what it takes to be great. There are no shortcuts," Sumrall said.
Sumrall is among the rare, but growing, class of coaches who have led several programs only during the new NIL era. He believes the experience makes him a different breed.
"I do feel fortunate to maybe only have been a head coach since 2022, and so the transfer portal and NIL and all the chaos that has ensued is all I know," he said. "It's not like I've been doing it forever and had to shift mid-stream. It's all known."
All Florida has known in this new era is frustration. These last five seasons have been the Gators' worst in the modern era.
But Sumrall brings something new, something different to Gainesville. He wakes up before dawn, sometimes jogging at 4 a.m. He seeks the best out of everyone and is not afraid to call out those who need to be challenged.
"Man, coach Sumrall is a dog," said Gators linebacker Myles Graham, the team's leading tackler a year ago. "He's energetic. He's the same guy every single day. He's going to push us to be the best. He really loves us. He'll yell at us, but at the end of the day, he's going to remind us that he loves us. No matter what, he's always going to be there for us."
That much was clear during his first appearance at the SEC's media days. He cussed on the big stage twice in a span of two sentences, likely testing the trigger fingers of the SEC Network's censors. Earlier, a reporter's phone rang in the large ballroom, stopping Sumrall cold as he answered a question.
"You'd be kicked out of our team meeting," he said. "I swear. You're lucky I'm not gonna throw this fricking podium.
"I would say, 'Who is that?' but I'm not going to embarrass anybody."
Nobody was embarrassed on Wednesday around Sumrall. His gregarious, welcoming personality -- and his candidness -- are adored by the media. Still, Sumrall hasn't faced a high-pressure situation quite like the one he'll handle during his stay at Florida.
Sumrall contends he will not allow bad moments to expand into bad days.
"Anytime we're in adversity, or we're facing adversity, we all have to say 'good,'" Florida running back Jadan Baugh said. "You have bad days, you have rough times, but you're going to learn something from them. Each and every day when we're facing adversity, it seems bad, but we're going to say 'good,' and we're going to just overcome it."
