Former Florida football coach Ron Zook attends spring practice, addresses team

New Florida football coach Jon Sumrall has embraced the program's history and lineage since accepting the job four months ago.

After already inviting Florida Gators coaching legends Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer to watch spring practices earlier this month, Sumrall let another former UF coach watch spring drills on Tuesday, March 31.

Ron Zook, who coached UF between Spurrier and Meyer from 2002-05, watched practice from the sidelines and addressed the team when practice ended. The 71-year-old Zook, who lives part-time south of Ocala on Lake Weir, went 23-14 in three seasons at Florida and recruited several of the starters on UF's 2006 national title team.

"Everybody reflects back to his time here as the head coach, and that's what they remember," Sumrall said. "But you gotta remember he was also on Coach Spurrier’s staff here as a defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator and, you know, there's several guys on our staff – He helped recruit Mike P (Peterson), he coached Bam Hardmon, Bam’s last year, and he recruited Phil Trautwein here. So, he's been around this program a lot of different facets."

Former Florida Gators head coach Ron Zook addressing the team after spring practice. pic.twitter.com/JNENrIlgeY

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Sumrall said he took a playful jab at Zook, noting that he was a linebacker at Kentucky when he played against Zook's UF team in 2004.

"He still looks like he's in good shape," Sumrall said.

Since 2024, Zook has worked as a special teams quality control analyst at Maryland under Mike Locksley, who was his running backs coach and recruiting coordinator during his time at UF. Sumrall wants to re-emphasize special teams at UF in an effort to help turn around a program that's endured four losing seasons in the last five years. In addition to coaching special teams at UF, Zook was a former special teams coordinator in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers (1996-98) and Green Bay Packers (2015-18).

"He’s a former special teams guy, and he was very complimentary of the flow of practice," Sumrall said. "But he's still got a lot of football going on in that mind."

Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Former Florida football coach stops by for spring practice, talks to team