Florida Gators Defense MUST be More Aggressive Under Jon Sumrall After FAU Game

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Hi, this is Isaac Shade, host of Lockdown College basketball and Lockdown Tar Heels. Today's episode is brought to you by ADT. Imagine you're watching the game at a buddy's house when you get a call that someone tried to break into yours. In a second, everything can change. That's why there's ADT. ADT security systems help keep your home safe 24-7 with the most company operated monitoring centers in the industry. The ADT Plus app keeps you in control the whole time. Don't leave your home wide open during an emergency. When every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com or call 1-800-ADT-ASAP. Today's episode is brought to you by the Dell XPS. I'm Wes Goldberg from Lockdown NBA Daily and Lockdown Heat. So what does it feel like to have a better laptop like the Dell XPS powered by Intel Core? With a premium design that's thin and light, it feels smooth. With a responsive touch screen, it feels fast and precise.

1:02And with long-lasting battery life, it feels like non-stop energy with a laptop that can keep up. Built for those who want better, the Dell XPS built for you. Respect the Florida Gators defense to be much more aggressive moving forward. You are Lockdown Gators, your daily podcast on the Florida Gators, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Lockdown Gators, part of Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. As of yesterday, you could also catch me on Lockdown Gators, hit you could find us on TikTok, Instagram, all that fun stuff. It's short form content about the Florida Gators. So you get my takes a little punchier way. The Florida Gators defense needs to be more aggressive and also with this blowout that

2:05should happen tomorrow. Should see some true freshmen get playing on that you might not get to see much of this year, but are going to be really exciting before we talk about that. Today's episode of Lockdown Gators is brought to you by CalShi for a limited time, download the CalShi app, use code Lockdown and get $10 when you trade $10 on CalShi. The Florida Gators against FAU, I know that there was this whole, I'm going to call it Hubbub. That's what I'm going to call it. I'm going to call it Hubbub about the Florida Gators defense against FAU. Before we talk about why they need to get more aggressive, I just want to explain that I believe that this defense is meant to be a bit aggressive. I know that there's people I've seen on social media. I started my comment section the other day. I ignored it because I was like, that doesn't make sense to me. I see people talk about like, oh, well Brad White wants to play soft coverage. That's his style. How the hell do you know what his style is?

3:09Brad White as cut his teeth as a defensive coordinator under Mark Stoops, who it was a play calling defensive coordinator. John Someral was never that. This was Brad White trying to call Kentucky's defense, which by the way, the way that Kentucky played, they needed to be banned. Don't break. If you are not an explosive offense and you need to grit and grind yards and points, you need to make the other team grit and grind yards and points. That was complimentary football. I don't think it's that tough to understand. I just don't like people saying, oh, that's his style. You don't know his style. You know what he did at Kentucky? That doesn't mean that's his style over what he wants to do. I'm not saying it's not his style. I think I'm just saying the saying his style thing doesn't make a lot of sense because you don't know his style. You just know what he's done. You don't know necessarily what he wants to do long term. I would say that. I also don't think John Someral would say, hey, let's have a pretty conservative defensive

4:14game plan. That's what we're going to do. I don't think that that's the case at all. I think that the game plan against FAU was, hey, we're going to play off coverage because they are in offense that an air raid. You're trying to get rid of the ball really quickly, get people to come up and then you get to go take deep shots against them. Or you keep running out, you keep running hitches. You hope that at one point you see them try to jump a hitch or try to jump an out. That's when you run a hitch and go, stop and go or an out and up. That's when you take a advantage and create an explosive play against the defensive there. I think it was just the plan of we know that this offense is going to run a ton of crick hitters to the outside. That's fine. We're not going to score explosives like they want to against us. I think that was the game plan. I don't think that that's what Florida wants to do always. I mentioned that the Florida offense, I think it was Wednesday, we spoke about it. At the Florida offense was pretty vanilla and basic in terms of what they were doing

5:18schematically. They were really effective at that. I think Florida's defense is trying to be a little bit more vanilla and basic. I will have to say with all this, it's not necessarily that I agree with what they're doing. My job is to have an opinion about things. I think there's different schools of thoughts like we've talked about. As long as I can see the logic, I'm really not going to harp too much on whether or not I agree with it. Just because I think something doesn't make it right. I only care about there being legitimate sound logic behind decision making. That's it. I don't have to agree with it. So I accept the game plan of playing off-verson-a-rate. That is the thing that I will say. I think I disagree with. Just because I think you're more athletic than FAU and my mindset has been, if you have the better athletes at corner than they have at receiver, then playman.

6:21If you've got better athletes and they can playman, I want you to playman. I think that every corner in this room can playman. Genuinely, I've said, I think Dijon Johnson is the best overall corner in the room. I think he's the only one that you can really raise a question about because he's got the athletic limitations. Even then, I think that he offsets it by being so good at playing press coverage that he throws guys off and that he can help limit big plays there. I think that you should be playing more press men this weekend if you're Florida. I think tomorrow against Campbell, you say, hey, we're going to play press men in a live setting and we're going to work on that when you are more athletic. That's what I think you should do. I think when you're more athletic, you should dare them to challenge you and test you there. Because wherever their receiver goes, I can get there faster. I think that's part of the game plan. Again, I don't know if you do that against Campbell. It might be, hey, we're going to play quarters again and we're just going to work on that. I will also say that there's the possibility that the defense was going, hey, we plan

7:26on playing quarters in this game. We're going to work on it right against Auburn. We plan on playing quarters. That's we're going to run against FAU. It could be, hey, quarters is the coverage that we are least comfortable with with this defense. We know we're better than FAU. We know we're better than Campbell. We're going to rep the hell out of quarters and that's what we're going to do. I think this is going to be a more aggressive defense, especially because John Somerall was on this show in late March, early April, and it was late March. We spoke about what the defense might look like. John Somerall has said, hey, I'm a middle of the field closed guy. That's not a thing I'm really budging on. Middle of the field closed means you're going to have a deep safety over the middle. One, one deep safety over the middle. That generally means the coverage is your most likely to play. Cover one, cover three. You could also say covers your short, but John Somerall has said, hey, I'm a middle of field closed guy. That's a more aggressive defense.

8:26Okay. I don't want people to think like, oh, yeah, this is going to be just quarters, quarters, quarters. John Somerall has said, like he said, hey, I brought in Shia Wood when I was at Troy my first year and he was in middle of field open guys to high safeties. I told him, hey, we're going to be middle of field closed. That's what I want to do. I don't think that John Somerall is all of a sudden going to budge off that. Even if hypothetically Brad White wanted to, I don't think that's the thing. John Somerall is willing to change on. I think you have the athletes to run middle of the field closed. I think you have the ability. I think you have the guys that can generate a pass rush there. I know you didn't really see it against FAU. Again, I think that that's more indicative of FAU's offense than it was anything else and other teams are going to have longer developing plays. In FAU, one of the fastest offenses in the country in terms of how many plays they go, how many plays they run offensively, but they're also one of the fastest teams in the country in terms of how quick they get right at the football. They're incredibly quick with it.

9:26Kaden Veltkamp, out of a QB, right? I think that you will see the Florida Gators defense be a bit more aggressive this week. They mentioned also kind of through the players under the bus a little bit by saying, hey, it was communication issues, which they am. When you face an offense as fast as FAU, that's going to happen. Again, they said, hey, we had some communication issues. Guys shouldn't have been there. Hopefully from now on, that won't be the case anymore. I know that we got the report that Brad White has started implementing in practice quizzes to make sure everybody knows what they should be doing in which situation. We'll see if you get it wrong. If you don't get a hundred percent, they said, if you don't get a hundred percent, it's up down for everybody. It seems like there were quite a few issues that shouldn't have happened against FAU. And we'll hopefully be cleaned up against Campbell. If not Campbell, then definitely by the Auburn game against Campbell. Florida, by the way, is like a 51 and a half point favorite right now. They should absolutely dominate Campbell.

10:27You should see twos playing, threes playing, fours. I want to see the walk on. One thing that I do want to see. True freshmen. Totally defensively. I got three guys that I want to see get reps this week. We're going to talk about it on lockdown gators. If you've got a sweet tooth like this guy right here, you know how tough it is to find the perfect treat without all of the sugar. That's why cotton candy five hour energy shop brings that nostalgic flavor back in a whole new way. This is that classic cotton candy tasty. You remember, but with a tasty caffeine boost and zero sugar, it's a quick easy way to satisfy that sweet craving while keeping things simple and on the go. I love cotton candy. I was the kid at the baseball game. Cotton candy ice cream in the helmet. That was me always bring on the sweetness with cotton candy five hour energy shots available online now for our energy.com or on Amazon.

11:27Get that sweet tooth without all of this sugar. I say, if you're a lot of time gators, you're first listen of the day every day, we are available daily and free with us the podcast and on YouTube. The floor to gators have some freshmen that are incredibly intriguing to me and I want to see them get playing time. I'm going to start with the one that John Someral mentioned on Monday that, hey, if we went out there for another drive offensively, Will Griffin was going to go out there, which would have been something, right? True freshmen, Will Griffin is a very highly talented recruit out of Jesuit in Tampa and we didn't get to see him, but we could have, we could have, they got one more stop got back on the field, but if you just decided, you know, unless they get out of here, this is a whooping. I don't blame you. I really don't. But Will Griffin is someone that I would love to see this weekend. I do, I just want to see him get some reps. He's a fascinating recruit to me because when he committed the Florida, I was pretty

12:31openly not a huge fan of his. I thought he had a lot of room to grow. Similarly to how I talk about David Davidson, except I was more confident in Will Griffin, just because I think David Davidson has a physical limitation in the height and the arm length that prevents your, your motion from getting to where it needs to be. Incredible arm talent, right? I'm not taking that from him. It's just that seems to be a concern for me, right? Will Griffin did not have that concern. Will Griffin, he was a technical mess. That's what was driving me nuts. I was like, that kid's getting a lot of work and low and behold, he came back for his senior year. We went live for three hours on lockdown gators and we watched a bunch of film and Will Griffin was there. He was one of the players we watched and that was my first time watching a senior film. That's how I do it. I watched junior film usually when kids commit or if I need to refresh her, I watched junior film and I don't watch their film again until signing it.

13:35That's just the way that I've gone about it. I do that live, that live signing day show. Now we do that and that is the time that I watched your senior film. That's it. Outside of that, I haven't seen it. So Will Griffin could get a huge jump from junior year to senior year. I loved it. That automatically made me way higher on him as a recruit than I was when he first committed the Florida because it had been about a year and a half at that point. I think he's just a dude, right? Or not a year and a half, which is less than that. But I think it's just an absolute dude and I wanted to see him play against FAU. I do want to see him play this weekend against Campbell. I think this is the best chance and probably the last opportunity that you're going to get to play him at least a couple of drives. And I hope that if he does come out there, you let him throw it. I don't want to see him come out and hand it off. I want to see you get out there and throw the football. Another player, Justin Williams. Justin Williams is an interesting case because it doesn't necessarily need to be a blowout

14:36for him to get playing time. Eric Singlethe Jr. Listed as highly questionable going into this game. I am extremely doubtful that we see him. I'm not confident that we see him against Auburn either. Getting rolled up on as I was just an ugly thing to see. Like I mentioned before, I saw him in a walking boot after the game. Lidge could be nothing, but based on Johnson Ross saying highly questionable and Buster Faulkner, I mean, going, I just, no one was as heartbroken as me. I hated for him. I hated for us. That kind of made it seem like, hey, like it might not be a year thing, like a full season thing, but it's probably going to be at least a couple of weeks. And so I am not anticipating Eric Singlethe Jr. available for this game. Maybe not Auburn, which again, we all know that's a game he's going to want to go to. And he's going to want to be at any time want to be active in. He was there last year. Didn't go great. We know what he wants to do. Justin Williams.

15:39Could get playing time because of it. Because of the injury, let alone on blowout. But because of the injury, Justin Williams could get playing time. We've heard great things about Justin Williams. He's another player that when we watched his film at signing day for 2025, as in in December 2035, we watched his film for signing day. And he's someone that I love his ball tracking ability. Again, a thousand yard rusher, a thousand yard receiver in high school. That's all cool. That's all dandy. I love the way that he tracks a football. I think that he's just got great eyes. I think he does a great job of getting his head around actually tracking it in the air and reeling it in. Because there's a lot of guys that look they can look over and they could see the ball. But then when it comes time to actually get your hands where they need to be, you make that mistake. Justin Williams was launching it over the shoulder, really, and just dropping it in. It was great, right? And he had to make some tough catches too. So Justin Williams is someone that I really want to see play. I wanted to see him play a significant amount against against FAU last week.

16:44We did not see that much again, just as it is, but he's someone that we were told, hey, you know, he might get some run. He is someone that also in the spring game, got a few, you know, designed touches. So you could see him there against Campbell. The last player to talk about on the offensive side of the ball is Tyler Tuchem. Tyler Tuchem is not someone that I want to see play much this year. He is someone that I was very, very high on coming out of high school. Instead of before coming out of a, it's appalled I think the name of the school is or town. But I said when he came in, I was like, this is my favorite high school offensive line film up there with Fletcher Westfall. Now Peyton Miller, the center in the 2027 class is also in that ring. I think those are the three guys from like I absolutely love their film coming out of high school. I think they're awesome. I think they bring a lot to the table and I think they're NFL guys.

17:45Fletcher's been dealing with injuries. Tyler Tuchem, true freshman. Again, not a guy that I want to see play much. I am firmly against saying, hey, true freshman, give me significant time on the offensive line. That very rarely goes well. It's one of the reasons where I did not like what a mechee court you did at Stanford. Okay, I was not thinking of that. I didn't think it was good film. I didn't think it was quality film. But the experience was helpful, but it was some quality film. But I don't hold it against him too much because he was a true freshman playing at the power for a level. The reason that I don't want true freshman playing at the power for a level is because you are going to get your ass kicked. There is a big physical difference between a high school offensive lineman and a power for offensive lineman. There's a big physical difference between a high school offensive lineman and a power for defensive lineman that you're facing. There's a lot to do mentally there. It's just it's just a lot to take on that kind of workload as a true freshman. And so it's something that I generally want to avoid if it's possible to avoid that.

18:49However, this is Campbell. I've watched the Campbell film. They are not big. You got a starting edge that's like 6 to 260. You've got their defensive tackle. Their nose is 511 to 90. It's nuts to see. They've got guys that I think some of them have some tools, but nobody on that defensive line really. Last for me. 37 had a couple good plays in the East Tennessee State game. I forgot his name, but he had a couple good plays. Did not play against Western Carolina. So we didn't see him. Don't know what he's going to be like. 40 has 7 pressures this year. So he's got some production. But I'm going to be real. When I saw he had 7 pressures, I was like, does he doesn't feel like he had 7 pressures? It didn't. I didn't think they played 2 games for the way. And so it didn't feel like he had 7 pressures. I don't remember him popping off on film. These are guys who are like, hey, Tyler, you should be able to handle these guys. You're a freshman and you're bigger than them already.

19:51And I know that you're a good athlete. I know you're a good blocker. I want to see out there handling these, these, these Campbell fighting camels. Right. There's guys on defense that I want to see, including one that I thought we'd see somewhat more of in week one, but we didn't. We're going to talk about that when we get back with locked on Gators. You've waited all off season for this. Now it's time to make every NFL week count because Fandals making this your most rewarding season ever, whether it's back in a favorite team, building a same game, Parley betting player props or making picks on the biggest matchups. Fandals gives fans way more ways to play throughout the season. Also, they've got sick game specialists week one or the first game of the season because this is week one, the first game of the season, Patriots, Seahawks, they had a special those plus 100. And it's just the teams to score a point combined. So basically the game to not end in these zero, zero tie.

20:52If you're a new customer by the way, you can get $350 bonus bets guaranteed when you bet $5 every day for seven days, get $350 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet $5 every day for seven days. That's right. $5 each day get $50 in bonus bets every day for seven days. Fandals get started. Make this your most rewarding season ever with Fandals. The season is just kicked off their silver 14 more games to pick from though and everyone's making predictions right? Who wins the division? Who makes the playoffs? Who's lifting the trophy at seasons and Jackson Smith and Jigbo? Can you go crazy again? Hall of a start. Hall of a start against the Patriots on Cal State America's number one prediction market platform. Trade those predictions in a live market and being in a live market means that you're trading against peers. There's no house. And as a probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. Trade the draft pick the game and more on Cal State down the Cal State app.

21:56You just go locked on to get $10 when you trade $10 KALS H.I. Cal State trade on anything 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Cal State products are not available on all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned for more information. See CalSheet.com slash regulatory. Shout out Warren G once again and the Florida Gators defense should have some freshmen playing. I'm going to say considerable snaps against Campbell. One guy that I thought we'd see a lot more of against FAU was KJ Ford. KJ Ford's an interesting case, right? He is someone that coming out of Duncanville as an edge. A lot of promise. I loved his film because he was this wiery looking edge rusher quick first step dynamic rusher. But you watch the film and where he's lined up and he's lining up where Cam James and

22:57annually about his show and L.J. McCray line up. He's lined up as a four I that's inside shoulder the tackle and or sometimes a five which is head up or outside and he's lined up there and he's fitting the run and he's handling the run. He's taken on tight ends and tackles because five you're on the outside shoulder and tackle. So you're going to you're going to get double teed and he's out there fighting like hell and making some plays and I was like, all right, this is a freshman where or this is a high school recruit where when you are that good and that much more athletic than people, you don't need to try super hard, right? When you can rush the pastor like that, you don't need to try super hard. However, he was someone that I really like the film came into the 2026 spring and started making some waves got a lot of attention from people and he was someone that I think people were watching and going, I like this guy could be taking Kofiya's R.E. spot.

23:58That's what we heard in the spring. We heard, hey, he just might be taking Kofiya's R.E. start. Let's start. Then fall camp starts going on and fall camps going and all of a sudden, Kofiya, sorry, he's taking more reps and it's no longer really a 2A, 2B situation. It seems like it seems like a 1, 2, 3 situation at Jack. KJ4 played 6 nappscence FAU, 3 pastor's opportunities generated a pressure. I want to see him play more. There's no reason he shouldn't be playing more because he is someone that throughout the course of the season, you're going to need him. This one isn't a, oh, well, that'd be really fun to see, right? This isn't a, a, a, will Griffin or Tyler Chuchy and where it's like, hey, well, we have no expectation from the play. KJ4 or someone that I do think the expectation is at some point he's going to play. I don't think this is a thing where you're going to say, hey, every year, or every week,

24:58Jaden Woods is playing 55 snaps, Kofiya, sorry, he's playing 30 and then KJ4 seeing 6. And the part of that is because LJ McCray can move around and play a bit of Jack, right? But I do think that KJ4 or someone that we should expect to see, like think about it already. Emmanuel, about as you banged up, that means that LJ is probably going to play more snaps at the F with Cam James, which means that those Jack snaps are probably going to be open. And so Jaden Woods, right? It's Kofiya, sorry. And it's KJ4, the KJ4 is going to need to play. Get on these live game reps or he can kick ass and help him build that reputation again. I or help him build that that consistency, help him build that confidence. I've, like I said, I've watched Campbell. I wrote about their offense and defense for small-sake and with that subsite.com. I am not a fan, it's free. I am not a fan of their offensive line. I do. I know their offensive line is good PFF grades because they run so many RPOs that

26:01they're going to get into the ball quick. I don't expect this to be a team where you generate a ton of pressures, but you can kick ass really quickly without generating a pressure because they're going to get into the ball quick. You're not going to get a pressure. You can still beat that offensive line. Also, CJ Brona played his first college snap last week. He is someone that, again, high school loved the film genuinely. Just absolutely loved that one of my favorite corners to watch when at a high school they committed Florida or that Florida even recruited. But I was like, hey, he needs to ball call up. He's balled up. I'll say that. He came into spring ball and like 61160, I think it was. He's now 611, like 185, 190 something like that. So I'm in person after the game. He's a pretty well built dude. He's a pretty well built corner. I'm not going to hide that from anybody. I want to see him get some reps this week. I don't think there's many reps available at corner for the rest of the season. There's a little bit

27:01of a lock jam. DJ John Johnson played a really good game against FAU. Ben Hanks has been really promising. He showed some ball skills still. Kormain McLean, I will say that, I think that was the most disciplined game we've seen from Kormain McLean in his college football career. Like I've said, I think that he's someone that wants to jump routes. He wants to be really aggressive. And against FAU, I think he looked frustrated when they were just dinking and dunking underneath outside. And I think that yeah, he wants to jump around. He didn't. I will commend you for that, because I think that's good football. I think that's you saying, hey, I'm doing my job. That's even if I don't want this to be my job. It is my job and I'm doing my job. And I think that matters. I think that's playing good football. I think that's playing clean winning football. Do your job. If everybody does their job and executes their job, you will win games a hell of a lot

28:04more than if you took a different approach. And so Kormain, I know he got frustrated or it seemed like he got frustrated. I'm good with it. Javari Flowers, banged up right now. He got hurt against FAU and it was clear for a couple of plays that he was banged up and did not play. Jordy Lowry played a few snaps. Played, it was like 15, but he played snaps. I want to see CJ Brown not play more. He had one snap. I want to see him play more. I want to see him go out there and get reps and be able to make a play against Camden Sixkiller who is hell of a name. Pretty good FCS quarterback. Right. The last player to talk about Steve Bentley, Kumaju, Yan, Dui, did not make his college football debut. He is someone that also was a 2027 commit reclass to 2026 class so that he can join right now. And he got listed as the what is it called, Job taker of the week, which if that means

29:06the same thing as it did when Hayden Hansen was here, right, because Hayden used to come on the show every week. That meant basically a scout team player that was really impressive in that time. And so Steve Bentley, Kumaju, Yan, Dui got Job taker of the week there. He was a scout week player last week, made a lot of plays. And I would imagine that he was probably being the scout detackle for CJ Dogget, the defensive lineman on FAU that is listed as, it was on the athletics freak list. Not too far off size wise. They're both shorter guys that are good athletes. It wouldn't shock me if that's who he was and he was giving the interior offensive line hell. That's a good sign. I want to see you go do it against Campbell because I know you can. Again, I've seen their offensive line play. I know you can give them hell. And when you have teams that are going to give it to the

30:06ball quickly, on the interior, you need to penetrate. On the outside, get your hands up into the throwing lanes. Like that's what you got to do. Interior, penetrate, exterior, outside, whatever you want to say, get your hands up into the throwing lanes and disrupt passing lanes, disrupt windows there. And so Steve Bentley, Kumaju, Yan, Dui, you got a chance. It's going to be an ass weapon. You can get out there early, play the whole second half if you want, make some plays there. Thanks for your watching. Gators, you're first listen up the day every day. We are available daily and freebos in the podcast and on YouTube, we will be going live immediately after the game tomorrow. It's probably going to be a long one because there's probably going to be a lot of point scored for Florida, a lot of puns for Campbell. We'll see what happens with it, probably a lot of innovations as well. I'm going to hope so at least. But for lockdown Gators, I am Brandon Olson, definitely following me on Twitter at WNS and it's for Brandon. Find all my red work about the Florida Gators or swamp signal. That's subs.com and I will see you all next time.

31:30For more information, see kowshi.com slash regulatory.