How Troy football coach Jon Sumrall is using lessons learned from Neal Brown, Mark Stoops
Troy football turned to a familiar face in hopes of better results and already new coach Jon Sumrall has a sense of ownership.
"Sometimes (when) you walk into a new environment, a lot of people say, 'Wait till coach gets his guys or wait till they get their recruiting class,' so I got news for you," said Sumrall at Sun Belt Football Media Days in New Orleans on Wednesday. "These are my guys. Like, these are my guys right here. The guys on our team (and) in our locker room, they're our guys whether I recruited them or not."
The Huntsville native was hired in December to replace coach Chip Lindsey, who the Trojans fired in November after three five-win seasons and no bowl appearances. Sumrall spent over 15 years as an assistant at Kentucky, San Diego, Tulane, Troy and Ole Miss.
Sumrall is implementing lessons learned from his mentors, West Virginia coach Neal Brown and Kentucky coach Mark Stoops.
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"I've got two really quality mentors that are currently FBS-sitting head coaches, both at the Power 5 level that have done it the right way, and they're players-first coaches, and I'm the same way," Sumrall said. "Everything we're going to do is going to be from a player's first model. Last time I checked, if there weren't any players, there wouldn't be any football coaches."
The Trojans haven't had a winning season since 2018 and only three winning seasons since 2011. Troy players have appreciated the change under Sumrall.
"These past few years we've been falling off," senior linebacker Carlton Martial said. "We definitely haven't had the years that we were supposed to have, but I feel like coach Sumrall is really bringing back the culture and the grit back to this team."
Although there is a new coach, senior offensive lineman Austin Stidham said the players have some responsibility.
"We've had, like Carlton said, a huge cultural shift within our locker room, and it's being led by the internal leadership," he said. "That's something that our program has been missing. It's not so much coach related as it is internal locker room related, and we're making strides every day to push the culture, keep the integrity high (and) keep the competition high."
The Trojans, who switched to the Sun Belt Conference West Division, play at Ole Miss to open the season on Sept. 3.
"I don't like it when guys say, 'Oh, it's just another game' because it's not another game," Stidham said. "This is an opportunity for us not just to represent Troy University but to represent our conference in a positive manner and show how competitive our conference is."
The Sun Belt Conference preseason poll predicts Troy to finish in third place in its division. Five players made the preseason first team including: Martial, Stidham, wide receiver Tez Johnson and defensive linemen Javon Solomon and Will Choloh, while the second team featured defensive lineman Richard Jibunor and defensive back TJ Harris.
"We've got goals within our program that our guys are going to know, and our staff knows and that have been set for what we want to achieve and accomplish," he said. "There'll be a lot of outside noise as the season goes. No one's going to put more pressure on themselves to be successful than us as an organization."
Derrian Carter is a sports reporting intern for the Tuscaloosa News. Contact him at DCarter@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @DerrianCarter00.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Troy football coach Jon Sumrall is using lessons learned from Neal Brown, Mark Stoops
