Report: Brad White following Jon Sumrall to Florida as defensive coordinator
New Kentucky football coach Will Stein will not be retaining the Wildcats’ longtime defensive coordinator.
Instead, Brad White is being hired in the same role on Jon Sumrall’s first Florida staff, according to a report from CBS Sports. White and Sumrall previously worked together at Kentucky and have maintained a close friendship.
“Brad is a first-class human being and a phenomenal person,” Sumrall told the Herald-Leader in 2022 while head coach at Troy. “It starts there. It doesn’t get any better as a human than Brad. Then, he is a very detailed, thoughtful, considerate designer of a game plan. He really is. I’ve got a ton of respect for Brad and just how he goes about his work. He is tremendous at maybe identifying what an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses are and also identifying what maybe his own team’s strengths and weaknesses are. Then finding a way to offset his team’s weaknesses and magnify the strengths while trying to expose the other team’s weaknesses and maybe slow down their strengths by trying to force them to beat you left-handed.”
While Sumrall was preparing for his first spring game as Troy’s coach in 2022, White drove from Lexington to Alabama to offer advice.
“From Lexington, drove nine hours or however far it is to here,” Sumrall said. “That just tells you what kind of person he is. He goes above and beyond. I love him like a brother. I do. I think he’s a great coach.”
White’s Kentucky contract was set to expire in June, so it is possible he would have followed Sumrall to Florida even if UK had kept Mark Stoops as its head coach.
White was first hired at UK as outside linebackers coach before the 2018 season after a six-year stint with the Indianapolis Colts. He was credited with developing edge rusher Josh Hines-Allen into the national defensive player of the year and a top-10 draft pick that season. Hines-Allen recently broke the Jacksonville Jaguars career sacks record.
Stoops promoted White to defensive coordinator in 2019. In his seven seasons in that job, UK ranked in the top 25 in total defense four times.
The results were not as strong in the last two seasons. White’s UK tenure ended with back-to-back blowout losses to Vanderbilt (45-17) and Louisville (41-0) in games where Kentucky’s defense was without four normal starters and three of its top four cornerbacks.
Sumrall and White will face Kentucky and Stein in 2026 in Lexington at a date to be announced.
This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 1:42 PM.