GAINESVILLE — Gators head coach Jon Sumrall was in awe when he first saw Urban Meyer walking across a hotel lobby during a national convention.
“I’m like, ‘That’s Urban Meyer, holy cow,’” Sumrall recently told the Orlando Sentinel.
Years later, sitting across from Meyer in his office, Sumrall felt at ease. There was something familiar about the Hall of Fame coach who once commanded the same chair at Florida.
Since Meyer helped lure Sumrall to Gainesville in November, the two men have quickly bonded — to the point that, during a conversation last spring, each was practically finishing the other one’s sentences.
“I feel like I could be related to him,” Sumrall said. “When we have a conversation, we are saying a lot of the same things back and forth.”
Kindred spirits
Few can relate to the position Sumrall now holds. Fewer have succeeded in it. Even less have survived it.
No man understands this better than Meyer.
He arrived in Gainesville at age 39 and led the Gators to a pair of national titles before wearing down after five seasons and stepping away after just one more.
But Meyer is confident Sumrall is built to handle — and potentially thrive in — a job that chewed up and spit out four coaches after Meyer stepped away in 2010.
Florida coach Jon Sumrall, left, chats with former Gators coach Urban Meyer after Sumrall was introduced Dec. 1 at the University of Florida in Gainesville. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)
Meyer sensed it from the start.
When Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin asked him to get a read on an up-and-coming coach from Tulane, Meyer picked up the phone after hearing Auburn was interested in Sumrall, whose wife Ginny went to school on the Plains.
The two coaches clicked during a quick chat. Meyer was sold after a longer conversation later that day.
“I just was like, ‘Man, this guy’s it,’” Meyer told the Sentinel. “I’ve never had a call like this, other than with one of my guys.”
What impressed Meyer most is what Sumrall didn’t say.
“In this day and age complaining about NIL and transfer this, transfer that — that’s usually the second sentence out of every coach’s mouth — it wasn’t that at all,” Meyer said. “It was about toughness. It was about special teams. He told me all about his strength program, and you know how fired up I get when you start doing that — because that’s how you win.”
Sumrall then hit Meyer’s sweet spot.
“The word Tuesday practice came up, and I was like, ‘Wow,’” Meyer said.
Meyer’s “Bloody Tuesdays” set the tone for his championship program at Florida. The two-hour-plus, full-contact practices strained his players’ mental and physical wills while developing the mentality to produce a 47-7 record and two national titles from 2006-09.
A ringing endorsement
When Meyer finally hung up the phone, he was sold. He soon called Stricklin.
“I said, obviously you got to do what you got to do with this guy. He’s built of the right stuff,” Meyer recalled.
The endorsement confirmed Stricklin’s decision to shift his focus away from Lane Kiffin, who was then in talks with LSU, and place it squarely on Sumrall.
Meyer remained active in the process.
“He went from our first couple conversations checking my oil to see whether I was built for this job to, at the end of it, recruiting me,” Sumrall said.
When he decided on Florida, Sumrall had one more favor to ask Meyer.
“I said, ‘Hey Coach, will you come to the press conference?’” Sumrall recalled. “He said, ‘Damn right, I’ll be at the press conference. I’m there.’”
Since Sumrall’s Dec. 1 introduction, Meyer has been available whenever asked.
He attended the team’s coaching clinic and some practices. He spent an hour speaking to Sumrall’s staff.
This summer, Sumrall and his wife visited the Meyers in Sarasota and went out on their boat.
“We’ve had some some cool interactions I’ve really enjoyed,” Sumrall said.
A sounding board
Meyer expects headwinds are coming, but will offer shelter from the storm for a coach who has already endeared himself to a fickle fan base.
Both men had followed a similar path to Florida, having each had two successful two-year stints at two mid-major schools before getting their opportunity with the Gators.
Expectations at Florida were next level. Exposure was omnipresent within the Gainesville community.
“There’s probably five or six like Florida — there are not many — that have just extremely, extremely high standards,” said Meyer, who also spent six seasons at Ohio State University. “The intense interest, scrutiny — I couldn’t leave the house. I just felt swallowed up. That’s the biggest thing, is just the intensity.
“It’s 10X what it was at Utah.”
Florida coach Urban Meyer reacts during the second quarter of his Gators’ debut against Wyoming on Sept. 3, 2005, in Gainesville. (Phil Sandlin/AP file)
Sumrall’s candor and wit were a winning formula as he sold his program’s direction. His personality connects with nearly anyone he meets.
Now that Week 1 is here, criticism and questions are sure to follow as soon as Florida loses a game.
“I was pretty good, too, until you get hit in the face,” Meyer said. “I wasn’t ready for the hit in the face.”
Mayer arrived in 2005 coming off a historic 12-0 season at Utah and carried a personal 20-game winning streak into Tuscaloosa to face Alabama. On the Crimson Tide’s first snap, Brodie Croyle connected with Tyrone Prothro for an 87-yard touchdown, igniting a 31-3 rout that wasn’t as close as the score.
Two weeks later at LSU, Florida failed to capitalize on a plus-five turnover margin as the offense managed just 206 yards in a 21-17 loss.
As Meyer passionately defended his players’ effort to reporters, tears began streaming down his face.
Yet the nadir of Meyer’s first season didn’t come until a 30-22 loss that November at South Carolina, led by Steve Spurrier — the man many fans hoped would return to Gainesville for a second act.
“That was the Rubicon moment,” Meyer said.
Once the team plane landed, Meyer kept it idling on the tarmac and eviscerated his team after watching players goof around during the short flight home from Columbia.
“That was the moment the program could have said go or not go,” Meyer said. “We beat Florida State two weeks later.”
Sumrall sure to stumble
A year later, Florida won a national championship.
Few coaches have experienced such a run of success as Meyer, whose 187-32-2 is virtually unprecedented.
Sumrall might one day join him and Spurrier as a Gator coaching great.
This season, some tough Saturdays surely lie ahead on a schedule featuring four preseason top-10 teams and ranked as the nation’s seventh-most difficult.
“I’m going to be there for him from for all that,” Meyer said.
Sumrall’s hard-charging, hyper-competitive approach will test him, as it did Meyer.
“We’re both so wired in we take losing really hard — I’m a terrible loser,” Sumrall said. “When things aren’t going good, I’m harder on myself than anybody will ever be on me.”
Meyer recalled how a loss at Florida, “eats you alive.” The intensity eventually led him to step down to address his health.
Florida head coach Jon Sumrall yells during a preseason practice Aug. 5 in Gainesville. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)
A shared philosophy
Now 62, Meyer is a grandfather with a son coaching on former assistant Dan Mullen’s UNLV staff and is an analyst on Fox. Twenty years since winning the first of three national titles, including in 2014 at Ohio State, Meyer has developed a sense of perspective.
He also remains a football coach at heart, and he has found a kindred spirt at the school where his storied career took flight.
A sign hangs in Sumrall’s office, reading, “Coach the team.”
“He’s not one of those coaches who starts saying we don’t have this, we don’t have that,” Meyer said. “Whenever I took a job, I’d tell our staff, ‘I’ll let you go if I hear you ever complain about your players or the previous staff. Quit making any excuses.’
“Coach your team.”
Sumrall inherited a program coming off four losing seasons in the past five years, with NIL coffers not quite as robust as some other SEC programs and a roster with needs yet to be met.
Meyer took over a struggling Florida program, but one that had not endured a losing season since the 1970s. The roster was two years removed from a No. 1 recruiting class and featured 18 of 22 starters on the ’06 title team.
Still, there will be shared experiences for Meyer to draw upon, making him a valuable resource when needed.
“I feel so blessed to be able to have that phone-a-friend, if you will, and just go, ‘Hey Coach, let me run something by you,’” Sumrall said. “This job’s different. Everybody thinks they know what it’s like until you’re in the chair and you’re like having to deal with it.”
Meyer was happy to share his experience with Stricklin when the athletic director set out to make a hire that would define his own legacy. A native of Ohio, Meyer felt an obligation regardless of the direction the Gators went in their search.
Sumrall ended up making Meyer’s job simple, a refreshing change for him at Florida.
“I feel like I owed Florida,” he said. “But when you meet Jon, you see how sincere he is. He wants to do well and all his energy is focused on the right things — that’s what I love about him.
“I would have done it anyway, but it’s so much easier now that it’s Jon Sumrall.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com
Up next …
What: FAU (0-0) at UF (0-0)
When: 7:45 p.m., Saturday
Where: Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Gainesville
TV: SEC Network
Favorite: UF by 26.5 points