Rusty Whitt, director of football performance, speaks to the Gators during a summer weight-lifting session. (Photo: Ethan Roy/UAA Communications)
The Growth is Real: Inside Florida's Weight-Room Transformation
Tuesday, August 4, 2026 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They had no chance in January when head coach Jon Sumrall and Rusty Whitt, the Gators' director of football performance who came with Sumrall from Tulane, first pumped up the intensity in the weight room.
Coming off a 4-8 season, the results on the field spoke for themselves and in the game tape Sumrall had watched. The Gators got pushed around by bigger and stronger teams way too much to contend in the Southeastern Conference.
As for lifting a seven-ton African bush elephant? C'mon, man, maybe a baby one in diapers.
But on Tuesday as the Gators reported for their first preseason camp under Sumrall's direction, he and Whitt shared the progress made over the past seven months in the revamped weight room. Whitt sounded like a proud father while discussing what it's like for a man of weights when a team buys into what he is selling.
"Best job in the world,'' Whitt said.
The Gators have gained muscle and lost weight. They have burned fat and increased speed. You hear those statements often this time of year in college football.
But what you don't usually hear is a team improving its ability to push weights in a single offseason by nearly 14,000 pounds in four primary lifts: power clean, bench, squat and deadlift. That's some serious poundage.
The combined improvement equals roughly the weight of a seven-ton African bush elephant.
"The growth has been real,'' he said. "It's as impressive as what I've seen any group do over this length of period we've just had."
When Sumrall took over the program, he entered an evaluation period the same way he had when he became a head coach for the first time in 2022 at Troy, and again when he took the Tulane job in 2024. What is working and what isn't?
He saw a lot he liked, such as the workflow in the facilities, the approach to football nutrition led by Jake Sankal, and the way Katie Turner Doeker planned recruiting weekends on official visits.
The weight room, starting with the narrow weight racks, design and the program's recent in-season history of cutting back on lifting, had to go.
"The first time I walked in there, I was like, 'Okay, I didn't love some of the layout.' I'm not trying to take shots,'' he said. "There's a big patch of turf in the weight room. We got 120 yards of turf right outside. I don't need turf in a weight room. We need weights in a weight room.
"It's like some guys – I'm not gonna name any names – but you got a little patch of hair. What's that doing? Just cut it, don't try to hang on to it."
Sumrall received approval from the University Athletic Association after spring camp to purchase new weight racks, and then reorganized part of the space and worked with his strength and conditioning staff to revamp the approach using those weights.
A sampling of the results Whitt shared Tuesday:
From May to July, the Gators' average power clean increased from 276 to 298 pounds
The average back squat improved 46 pounds, from 376 to 430.
The average bench press went from 290 pounds to 311.
Florida's average deadlift increased from 435 to 469 pounds.
Defensive lineman Jayden Woods is pumping iron over summer conditioning drills. (Photo: Ethan Roy/UAA Communications)
Barring an unusual development, the Gators won't need to lift an elephant during the season. However, they do hope to overpower and outrun opponents while staying as healthy as possible.
The summer weight training has them trending in the right direction.
"You have to be resilient and strong to play this game,'' Sumrall said. "You cannot break. Well, how do you not break? You have to be resilient, strong. You have to train that way."
Perhaps nothing symbolized, at least publicly, Florida's improved muscle over the summer than a video shared of defensive lineman Jayden Woods lifting 405 pounds in the power-clean technique.
The video went viral in Gator Nation and beyond.
"That's elite,'' Whitt said. "To put it in perspective, I think one player in the nation topped it, and he was at North Carolina State, a defensive lineman. So, as far as people putting stuff on social media, if somebody can hit better than a 405 clean at 245 [pounds], I haven't seen it."
The Gators open camp on Wednesday morning. Sumrall and Whitt are ready to see what the work in the weight room looks like on the field.
The first part of camp includes cutting back before turning up.
"There's a lot of lot of teams in our league who can say comparable numbers, but we have a fighting chance,'' Whitt said. "We're in the mix. I'm extremely excited, if you can't tell. The first four days of camp are very critical because you put a helmet on them, and we haven't done that in the last couple of months. So, they're going to have hydration issues. They're going to have fatigue, some dead legs. For the first four days of camp, we don't lift weights. But after the first week, we're going back in the weight room for a 50-minute lift, and we're going to maintain."
Sumrall often works out with Whitt to get his pump in for the day — no word on whether he is lifting more weight these days. What is certain is that Florida's first-year coach likes where the Gators are more today than when he got here.
"I'm really excited about the work that's been done,'' Sumrall said, "but it's not over."
