Report: Florida, Jon Sumrall expected to hire Kentucky's Brad White as defensive coordinator

Jon Sumrall now has a staff to build after taking the head coaching job at Florida. Among the biggest hires will be with the coordinators, with him going back to one of his previous stops to get his first one for their defense.

Per Matt Zenitz at CBS Sports, Kentucky’s Brad White is expected to be hired as the Gators’ defensive coordinator. That’s as White was set to have his contract expire this offseason with the Wildcats, and with his future program going further in question with UK’s firing of Mark Stoops on Sunday and now hiring of Will Stein on Monday.

White had become the second-longest tenured member of the football staff at Kentucky under Stoops. He came to Lexington in 2018 and spent a season as their outside linebackers coach before being promoted and having been the team’s defensive coordinator since 2019. In seven years with him in the role, UK allowed an average of 22.9 points and 347.2 total yards per game, being more than once among the nation’s best in scoring or total defense, under White.

White came to Kentucky after six seasons as a defensive quality control coach and a linebackers coach for the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL. His other experience in college included two years as a graduate assistant at Wake Forest, a year as a safeties coach at Murray State, and one year as an inside linebackers coach at Air Force.

Back to that time at Kentucky, though, White worked alongside someone named Jon Sumrall, who returned to coach at his alma mater, playing for the Wildcats from 2001 to 2004, in 2019. The two worked together for three seasons on staff under Stoops, with White as defensive coordinator and Sumrall as their inside linebackers coach, from 2019 to 2021. That was the last assistant job for Sumrall as he would then eventually become the head coach at Troy, then at Tulane, and then, as of Sunday, now at Florida.

When finalized, White, who was set to be a free agent anyway at the time, will be the first official hire to the debut staff for the Gators under Sumrall. They’d be set to work together in game-planning against offenses in the SEC – with both having the chance to now make their returns to the bluegrass sometime on the schedule in 2026.