Everything Jon Sumrall Said After Florida's Week 3 Win Over Auburn

AUBURN, Ala. — The Florida Gators opened SEC play with a 44-39 win at Auburn on Saturday, giving head coach Jon Sumrall his first signature win of his tenure.

Jadan Baugh rushed for 162 yards and three touchdowns, marking his fourth consecutive 100-yard, multi-touchdown game dating back to last season, while the Florida defense sacked Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown seven times.

Here is everything Sumrall said after the win, which gave the Gators its first 3-0 start to a season since 2019.

Opening statement:

“Alright, no bad wins. Always good to win. We still have a lot to improve upon. That’s not our best football. We’re going to get there. So much to work on to improve. The penalties were out of control. I mean, 16 penalties, we won’t win another game all year if we do that again. Not one more game. And so I got to get it cleaned up, as a staff got to get it cleaned up, got to play more disciplined. I didn’t agree with all of them, but still I’m not gonna let our guys off the hook, that’s inexcusable. But man, I grew up in this state. As a kid, there was a couple people I always watched, and one of his name’s on this field, Pat Dye. Like, I got a ton of respect for Pat Dye, God rest his soul. And then the other two across the state, Gene Stallings and Bear Bryant, like I watched those guys my whole life and Bear Bryant died basically when I was born but I’ve idolized the great coaches that have coached in this state, and for our first SEC win as a program with me as a head coach to do it on Pat Dye Field, I can’t tell you what that means to me personally, because I’ve got a picture of Pat Dye and Bear Bryant in my office in Moundville, Alabama hunting rabbits, and to do it on Pat Dye Field means something to me. But this is about our guys, I’m so proud of them. They found a way. A lot of people doubted them. I heard a lot of people all week second-guessing why we were favored in this game. It didn’t have to be as close as it was. They’re well-coached, they’re a good football team, wish them nothing but the best, and excited to get back on this plane and get back home and get to work tomorrow.”

On being able to run against Durkin’s defense, it being a concern going into this game:

“It was a concern for who?”

For you guys:

“I knew we were going to do what we did on offense tonight. Hey, I’ve watched them enough to know how we were going to play on offense. The interception, we gave them a gift, didn’t need to give that to them, but I had no doubt how we were going to play on offense. Like, the people that were concerned about how we’re going to play on offense – I’m probably more concerned about our defense holding up to be honest with you, but offensively, I knew we were going to run the ball on them, I knew we were going to throw the ball on them. They’re good up there, but I felt like we were better. I felt like the matchup leaned our way. Jadan Baugh did a great job responding. That’s, really unfortunate play, should have caught the ball, bad, bad, bad play. I grabbed him and I said ‘Hey, around here, when something bad happens, we say good, and when something good happens, we say good’, and so I went over to him after the play and I said ‘Hey, good, you got a chance to redeem yourself now, go make another play next time’. I didn’t like it, but that’s our mindset: when something bad happens, we say good.”

On the poise they played with:

“I don’t know if we played with poise. I mean, I thought we responded, that’s what I thought we did. I think if we played with better poise we wouldn’t have had the dumb penalties we had. I do think we showed them we have some mental toughness and we’re resilient, but I don’t think we played with poise all the time. I think our responses were good. Anytime they countered, we had a couple jabs left in the left, you know what I mean? Like, we kept responding all night. So I don’t know if we played with the poise I need to see us play with if we feel like where we need to go, but I do think our response was really good.”

On Philo’s first road start in this environment:

“I thought he handled it really well, you know. He’s got a little bit of, like, a cowboy mentality, man. Like, he’s tough as nails. He don’t talk a whole lot just to talk, he ain’t that type of dude, but he ain’t gonna back down or nothing. Like, I can tell watching him, just how he carries himself, I got a lot of confidence and our team has a lot of confidence in him, just because that’s the way he’s wired. He’s a tough, blue-collared, chip on your shoulder type of guy.”

On Emmanuel’s performance considering the week he had:

“Yeah, he was a true game-time decision. HIm and E (Eric Singleton Jr.) were both. I think we’ll have a real good shot at getting E back next week. But Emmanuel really only ran around a lot on Friday, and never really fully practiced all week and was very questionable going to the game, and so proud of him showing up and playing with the toughness he did.”

On the consecutive sacks for Emmanuel:

“Huge, huge. Like, that’s what I talk about. We made responses. I don’t know that we played really clean, but we responded in some big moments where you had to go make a play.”

On keeping Byrum Brown in the pocket, limiting his ability to have unscripted plays:

“I thought for the most part we did a good job. A little bit leaky at times. The thing that I was not pleased with was we felt like with him, the type of passer he was, we needed to stay on the top shoulder of the route all night and try to force him to make intermediate or short game throws, and we did not do that at times. But the run game, really the couple he got, really, we just didn’t stay in our rush lanes. But most part you felt us push the pocket, get frontal on him and not allow him to be real comfortable.”

On the confidence level they’ll clean up the penalties:

“We better. I’m not confident yet, because we haven’t done it. You know, we played really good football Week 1 penalty-wise, we had four in week one. Then we had eight last week. We had 16 (tonight), so I’m not a mathematician, so four to eight’s doubling them, and eight to 16 is doubling them again. If we don’t get that fixed and get back to how we were in Week 1, we are about to get absolutely embarrassed when we play high-end SEC teams.”

On conversations about finishing:

"This week, the conversation was really three words: work the cut. Alright? So I don't know how familiar you are with boxing or UFC, but Justin Gaethje came and talked to our team back here in training camp. And I showed them pictures of Gaethje's fight against [Ilia] Topuria in DC, the White House lawn this year. And everybody thinks you knocked the other guy out by just a big hit. That's not how it happens. In fighting or anything in a game, man, you have to cut the eye. And then you keep cutting the eye with the jab. And then at some point you wait for the uppercut. But you don't start with uppercuts; you wear the guy down, and I think that was really on the headset all night -- when something good would happen or bad would happen -- I'd go to the all-call button and say, everybody, tell the guys, 'Work to cut. Work the cut. Work the cut. Work the cut.' And eventually, if we keep working the cut, we'll find ourselves victorious. They got a couple punches in on us too. Like, they bloodied our eye a couple times, too. But we were the last man staying."

On the photo with Bear Bryant and Pat Dye, hunting rabbits:

"They were hunting rabbits, yes. They're in Moundville, Alabama, in a hunting camp, getting ready to go hunt rabbits. They were eating rabbit soup or rabbit stew. I got the picture in my office. It's a, you know -- I grew up in a state. I love football. I love the football has been played in the state forever. Like, at both schools and all schools, at Troy.  Like, I love Troy football, man. And so I've idolized Pat Dye, Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings, my whole life. And so, yeah, they were hunting in Moundville, Alabama. Alabama people here don't even know where Moundville, Alabama, is, but I do, because I'm from the state. But it's a picture I cherish because I love great football coaches and I have a lot of respect for both of those guys."

On if he liked the team's confidence pre-game:

"I knew our guys were ready, but yeah. Like, I might have used some motivation from outside people that had said, like, we weren't really as good. We hadn't played anybody. That's what I heard a lot of from like, some people out in the media. We hadn't played anybody. I think FAU is pretty good. I think Campbell was a decent football team. But they talked about how they had played people. Well, they played us tonight. And so we were going to be ready to play the game the way we needed to play it. It still wasn't good enough to go win the big ones we got coming. We were able to win this one. We turn the page tomorrow to the next one. If we play like that, we will get just slaughtered. It won't even be close. So we've got a lot to work on. But I think our guys were mentally prepared to come on the road, take the challenge, hostile environment, great crowd, backs against the wall a little bit.  Like, a lot of people against us and play with the demeanor of being a good, tough football team."

On the up-and-down defensive performance:

"Well, yeah, it goes back to -- if we would just do our job and stay on top of the coverage. Like, I might, I'm not going to throw this table. I said it at media days, I was going to throw the podium or something.  We did not at times do simple things that we were coached to do. Like, stay on the top shoulder. We just dive to the low hip and I'm like, 'Well, that's not what we've talked about. Just do your job.' And so until we are so on point with everybody doing their job all the time, we're going to give up stupid explosive plays like we did the night that were not necessary. And they made, credit to them, they made some plays. But like, there's a couple of them out there that we just decided to give them a gift. And that's not what good football teams do."

On interviewing with Auburn:

"Who said I interviewed for this job? What are you talking about? I didn't interview. They didn't want me, I didn't want them."

On halftime adjustments from Buster Faulkner:

"We felt good coming into the half about some things we could do to attack them off of some things we had seen. It's huge to set the tone early. I do think that was really the game-deciding, if you will, swing back and forth of like, how we came out of the locker room the start of the second half. I felt like we were a little bit more dialed maybe than we had been the whole game, to be quite honest on both sides for a minute there. So I thought it was a huge sequence for sure."

On how momentum continued into the second half:

"Yeah, I just thought our guys played with confidence. You know, if we don't get the holding penalties late in the game there -- like I said, I think we stopped ourselves, but it was nice to see us respond coming out of halftime. Sometimes you worry about starting the second half in a lull, or maybe a lethargic vibe, and our guys didn't have that at all offensively. Or really defensively to start the half."

Closing statement:

"I do want to say another thing. Kayla Beckley, John Beckley's wife. John Beckley worked for me at Troy -- he was a GA for me, he's now coaching at Tulsa.  His wife passed, young, like 30. Really young, recently, and, you know, while I'm celebrating a win tonight, there's people that do this that have real lives and family. And John Beckley, a dear friend of mine, somebody I Iook at really closely because he worked for me when I was head coach at Troy, lost his wife recently, and way too young. Just want to acknowledge a lot of the guys that coach with him wore yellow ribbons tonight. I didn't make a big deal out of it, but we're thinking of them during this tough time. So thank y'all."

Enjoy our content? Make Florida Gators on SI a Preferred Source to see more stories from us on Google: https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=si.com

Add us as a preferred source on Google