![Defensive Coordinator Brad White keeps an eye the defensive workout during the first day of Florida Spring football practice at Heavener Football Center in Gainesville, FL on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2478,h_1393/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01ks2mqjkwby9fhdbj70.jpg "Defensive Coordinator Brad White keeps an eye the defensive workout during the first day of Florida Spring football practice at Heavener Football Center in Gainesville, FL on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
One of the first major moves Jon Sumrall made when he arrived at Florida was to hire Brad White as his defensive coordinator. Sumrall and White had worked together at Kentucky, and for the most part, the move was seen as a positive. Kentucky’s defenses over the years had a reputation of being tough, and getting someone with extensive SEC experience was seen as an upgrade.
But there are some deeper stats from Kentucky that also should give Florida fans a bit of pause, especially if White was just going to run the same defense at Florida that he ran at Kentucky. According to Sumrall, though, Florida fans shouldn’t expect a 2.0 version of Kentucky.
Florida won’t just be a remix of Kentucky
During White’s time as defensive coordinator at Kentucky, which spanned from 2019 to 2025, the Wildcats gave up an average of 22.8 points per game. On the surface, that’s a solid mark, and the Wildcats topped off in 16th in points against in 2022.
The problem is that Kentucky had a tendency to get shredded when facing ranked opponents. During White’s time at Kentucky, the Wildcats gave up an average of 19.5 points when facing an unranked opponent.
In the 27 games Kentucky played against a ranked opponent, the Wildcats gave up 30.2 points per game.
The knock on Kentucky is that they tend to run static zones that work great when playing against QBs who are average at best but the moment they faced someone who knew what they were doing they got exposed.
Sumrall was asked about this on the Gator Nation Football Podcast and was asked whether the defense at Florida was just going to be a continuation of what White did at Kentucky. Sumrall claims he’ll keep some elements from what White did, but it isn’t going to be a carbon copy:
“I think it's a blend. I'm not going to tell Brad (White) like, hey, scrap everything you've done. Let's redo everything. We're not doing that.
I'm also not telling Brad, hey, let's do everything exactly how you did it in Kentucky, because even if he was still at Kentucky next year, you'd still evolve after watching cut-ups and tape from the previous year and go, all right, what went well, what didn't go well?
Where do we need to recalibrate?”
It is a key step for Sumrall since it would be easy for him to just let White copy and paste his defense from Kentucky. There are also arguments to be made that White was simply doing what Mark Stoops was telling him to do.
Either way, if Florida is going to have a defense that holds up in the big games, it’s good to see Sumrall put his on stamp on things heading into 2026.
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