Inside Florida's massive weight room overhaul under Jon Sumrall

GAINESVILLE - The Gator Football Performance Center is empty and cavernous as Black Sabbath booms over the sound system.

Pumped and sweaty, Jesse Ackerman trains in solitude during UF's semester break, putting the team's new weight room through its paces.

The retooled 14,000-square foot space is Ackerman's sanctuary, and the factory where he and boss Rusty Whitt will build the Gators. Players will return to the assembly line soon, welcomed by a shiny, state-of-the-art workspace.

"They’re gonna be really excited," Whitt, the Gators' director of player performance, told the Orlando Sentinel. "Just the way this place breathes more … the visual nature of it. It’s gonna really pop to them.

"When they start seeing the spacing and the organization that we’re going to have, they’re going to be excited about it."

Ackerman, who serves as Whitt's right-hand man, called the changes “significant.”

The massive overhaul is also critical to coach Jon Sumrall's rebuild of Florida’s football program.

"The only limiting thing here, really, with what we have now is our imagination," Ackerman told the Sentinel. "We just increased the safety, the space, and we increased the methods we could use with these guys. If you limit the methods, you limit the development of your players.”

Coming off a 4-8 finish during Billy Napier's final season, the Gators face an uphill climb.

To accelerate Sumrall's rebuild, Whitt and Ackerman set out to overhaul the training facility after the April 11 spring game.

"We have world-class football players here, and now we have a world-class setting for those guys to train in," Whitt told the Sentinel.

Once Sumrall asked Whitt to join him at their third stop together following two-year stints together at Troy (2022-23) and Tulane (2024-25), the 54-year-old former Green Beret visited Gainesville to survey his new home.

Whitt immediately identified shortcomings, inefficiencies and potential safety hazards.

"The previous room was functional," Whitt said. "Don't get me wrong: The guys who were here weren’t morons. They were professional strength coaches, okay? But at this level, it’s like racing Top Fuel dragsters - every mile an hour matters.

"This room had to fit my philosophy down to a ‘T.'"

To meet Whitt's standards, the school installed 32 power racks from Sorinex featuring nylon safety straps and wider cages offering more room to operate.

An athlete performing squats no longer has to shuffle backward with hundreds of pounds on his shoulders to allow teammates to spot him.

"Before we had to do everything outside of the cage," Ackerman said.

If an athlete's muscles fail or the bar slips, the interior straps - capable of supporting 1,500 pounds - catch the weight rather than metal spotter arms attached outside the cage.

"It’s just a safer surface to drop on," Whitt said.

When bench pressing on the other side of the cage, the wider racks no longer require 250- and 300-pound men to squeeze into confined spaces to spot a teammate. New benches are 12 inches wider.

"We’re dealing with really wide-shoulder guys," Ackerman explained. "Your benches have to be solid all the way on your back. It can’t oscillate. These benches are solid."

Workers also removed a 30-yard strip of synthetic turf, measuring 14-feet across, from the center of the room. The space allowed for sprinting and plyometrics, but had become unnecessary.

The weight room is located at the south end of the team's 120-yard indoor practice facility.

Lifting shoes also makes footing an issue, Whitt said. A larger concern was hygiene because the surface collected sweat.

"The turf was a bacteria trap," he said. "It’s really hard to keep that stuff clean. When they rolled it up, you could smell three years of funk underneath it. Guys always have abrasions from playing football. You add bacteria with the turf and you’re looking at staph (infections) all kinds of things."

The performance center now features flooring made from rubber with a quarter-inch thick skin on top. The surface compresses under the weight of large athletes and coaches standing for hours at a time.

"It just feels better on your feet," Whitt said.

Heavy weights dropped after power cleans or dead lifts bounce vertically rather than side to side.

A safer, more appealing facility puts the Gators on more equal footing, yet much work remains.

"We’re the national champions of the offseason right now," Whitt said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The Gators have already made significant strides under the new regime.

Whitt said the 111 Gators gained 722 pounds of lean muscle and lost 610 pounds of fat - an average difference of 6.6 pounds per player.

"Fat doesn’t fly," he said.

Setting the bar even higher, Whitt aims for similar gains leading up to summer practices.

The Gators’ new digs give them a chance.

"Nothing’s going to be given to us," Whitt said. "These guys aren’t just going to walk in and be excited and all of a sudden start winning. We have to do a lot of work, and this place is going to give us kind of a clean slate to do that."

Under Napier, the Gators had not only the wrong type of equipment, they also lacked the right leadership.

Mark Hocke arrived from Louisiana with Napier to oversee the strength program but was replaced after two seasons. Craig Fitzgerald, Hocke's successor, left after two months for Boston College to reunite with his former boss Bill O'Brien.

Napier then elevated 34-year-old Tyler Miles from within. Miles soon hired Ackerman, who served under Will Muschamp from 2012 to 2014 and spent five seasons (2016-2020) as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Atlanta Falcons under Dan Quinn.

Having known Whitt for more than a decade, Ackerman stuck around. He embraces the upgrades and philosophical shift, beginning with a revamped schedule installed by Sumrall.

During spring practices, players arrived early for lifting sessions or headed to the field before leaving by 11 a.m. Under Napier, the Gators often lifted early before practicing later in the afternoon.

"When you stretch it that day, the likelihood of injury can go up," Ackerman said.

The 2025 Gators sustained numerous significant injuries, leaving the team without key players during critical games.

The ultimate indictment occurred during Florida Pro Day. Three-year starting guard Dameon George bench pressed 225 pounds just 12 times, prompting Sumrall to say, "Hell, our coaches need to be hitting 12."

These days, Sumrall - a former linebacker at Kentucky - lifts with his players and holds his own. Ackerman said the 43-year-old even borrowed his bench last weekend.

"It's awesome when a coach likes to train," Ackerman said. "That’s the buy-in. The guys see it. They like that."

The Gators may return bright-eyed, but they better be ready to grind. A shiny new weight room awaits, ready to test their limits.

"We have to put this to use," Whitt said. "The mission hasn’t changed. We’ve got to get tremendously stronger, faster and leaner, and this room is going to give us all we need to do that.

"It’s just up to us now."

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com

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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 7:41 PM.