Florida is expected to hire Tulane’s Rusty Whitt as its new strength and conditioning coach, per Edgar Thompson, marking another major hire in Jon Sumrall’s tenure as Florida head football coach.
Whitt has worked with Sumrall over the past four seasons both at Troy and Tulane as strength and conditioning coach.
Finding a new coach for the role has been a priority for the Gators, and was singled out by former head coach Urban Meyer as a major need for the new-look Florida staff.
Following Sumrall’s introductory press conference Dec. 1, Meyer stated that the first thing Sumrall brought up to him was bringing in a strength and conditioning coach.
“The strength coach, to me, should be number two in charge,” Meyer said. “Head coach, strength coach, then everyone else. That’s the way we’ve always done it … Your strength coach has to be the number two guy in the organization … I feel very strongly about that.”
Whitt is an experienced hire who has served as a strength and conditioning coach for over 25 years, with a break from 2003-2009 to serve in the United States Army.
In the Army, he served as a communication sergeant in the 10th Special Forces Group. He received accolades including the combat infantryman's badge, two Iraqi campaign medals and the Army commendation medal.
Whitt was a safety and linebacker at Abilene Christian University from 1990-1994. He then served at Midwestern State and Texas as a graduate assistant, developing strength programs for both teams.
In 1997, he coordinated speed and agility development for the Team USA volleyball teams and assisted in program development for all sports.
He served as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at William & Mary and Louisville in 1997 and 1998, before serving as Sam Houston State head strength and conditioning coach from 1998-2003.
After finishing his service in the Army, Whitt returned to strength and conditioning coaching, first at Rice as an assistant from 2009-2010, and then as the head coach at Louisiana from 2010-2015.
He then departed to serve in the same role at Texas Tech from 2016-2018, before becoming Army’s assistant strength and conditioning coach in 2019. He then joined Troy in 2020, leaving with Sumrall in 2023 to head to Tulane.
Whitt’s motto for strength and conditioning is “Strength, Power, Speed and Agility,” something he will look to institute at Florida.
He will replace Tyler Miles, who spent three seasons with the Gators. Under Miles, Florida has faced a barrage of injuries, including in 2025, with upwards of 20 players being listed on SEC availability reports at some point during the season.
Meyer stated that Florida needed to get tougher if they wanted to reach their past success.
“Toughness is not something that you say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be tough this week,’” Meyer said. “It’s tough all year round … And that’s what impressed me, to start talking about a strength coach, because a strength coach has a big hand, a huge hand in developing that toughness.”
Contact Max Bernstein at mbernstein@alligator.org. Follow him on X @maxbernstein23.
Max is in his sixth semester at The Alligator and now serves as The Alligator's Football Reporter and is a junior sports journalism student. He previously served as The Alligator's Sports Editor, and served as reporter for women's tennis, volleyball and lacrosse. He also has made multiple appearances on the Paul Finebaum Show. He wants to shoutout his cats, Scooter and Zoe, and niche former Florida Panthers players (shoutout Tomas Kopecky).
