Jon Sumrall reveals advice from Urban Meyer, assessment of 'parallels' in careers

When Florida introduced Jon Sumrall as head coach, Urban Meyer was one of the legendary figures in the front row. Meyer previously built a relationship with Sumrall as he entered the mix to replace Billy Napier, and the new Gators coach shared the advice he received.

In the process, Sumrall learned some of the “parallels” between the duo’s careers. After working as wide receivers coach at Notre Dame, Meyer became a first-time head coach at Bowling Green and spent two years with the Falcons. Following two more years at Utah, he got the Florida job, where he won two national titles.

Sumrall also spent two years at his first head coaching stops – Troy from 2022-23 and Tulane from 2024-25. He said that was also part of his conversation with Meyer rather than other issues facing college football.

“As Urban and I talked, we didn’t really talk about NIL, rev-share or transfer portal,” Sumrall told On3’s J.D. PicKell on The Hard Count. “We talked about a little bit of his career path. He was at Bowling Green for two years and Utah two years and then came here. Talked about maybe the correlation of my career, being at Troy for two years and Tulane for two years. That was the parallels we discussed a little bit.”

Beyond the similarities in backgrounds, Sumrall said his values align with Meyer’s. In particular, they agree on what it takes to build a roster, and Meyer shared his impressions of Tulane’s tape while evaluating Sumrall as a coach.

But Meyer also sought to understand how Sumrall interacts with the media. As a result, he watch some of his press conferences. During the conversation, Jon Sumrall said it put his journey into perspective considering how highly he thinks of Meyer.

“We talked about offseason conditioning, weight room, mat drills – a lot of that stuff – at length,” Sumrall said. “I think we have a shared philosophy, to some degree, on maybe how you build a team. He ended up telling me later, he’s like, ‘Man, I’ve watched game tape on y’all. I’ve studied a lot about how you do things.’ He told me since taking the job, he’s like, ‘I went back and watched, like, 10 or 12 of your media availabilities to see what you were about.’ And as [he] watched them, he’s like, ‘I really came to grasp like you fit this place.’ So that, for me, was really cool to hear Urban Meyer say.

“You’re sitting there as a coach, similar age as what he was when he came to the University of Florida. And to hear him voice that, in his own way, was one of those moments you’re like, wow, that’s pretty cool to hear from a professional in our world that I have a great deal of respect for how he did things and what he accomplished at this stage.”