John Sumrall is the new head football coach for the Troy University Trojans.

Sumrall was formally introduced to the Trojan nation on Monday, December 6th.

It’s a return to Troy for Sumrall who spent three seasons as an assistant to Neal Brown. Sumrall says he knew Troy was the place for him to make the next step in his coaching career.

“I was in a great position at the University of Kentucky, very happy, I was not looking to leave just for any opportunity that came up.,” says Sumrall. “Troy’s a special place to me and my family. We developed a lot of relationships here with people that’ll be lifelong during our first stint here as an assistant and then if I was going to take a head job I wanted to be somewhere where you had a chance to compete at a high level and win big and this place football matters here. It’s always been a winner and we need to get it back to being a winner. This place football matters, it’s very important and the expectations are high. We embrace that. I’m extremely excited about this opportunity grateful for for this opportunity to be the head football coach at TROY. It means a great deal to me my family and so just very honored to be here in front of you as the head football coach.”

“Sumrall was a part of Troy during the “Rebuild the Wall’ era under Neal Brown so he says he knows what it can take to build a program to new heights.

“I think we got a chance to to get this thing going hopefully quick,” says Sumrall. “But I think I will draw on some of the experience I have previously been here with coach Brown. When we were here and I got here in December 2014 and we didn’t have this facility. We have a lot of things that we didn’t have then and so there’s a lot of positives in place here that weren’t in place at that time. So while there’s a lot of obstacles and a lot of things we’ve got to overcome, I also think there’s a lot of things that have made this situation maybe better.”

Fans packed the introductory press conference and seemed excited about the new hire. Sumrall says he needs the Trojan fans to keep that level of excitement into football season.

“We need them,” says Sumrall. “We need them to buy tickets. We need to show up to games. We need to show up early. We need them to stay late. We need to be loud in between. So we need total total commitment and buy-in from everybody that is a part of Troy University that cares about this place and cares about the university we need everybody bought in and contributing.”