GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They are absorbed in another meeting inside the Heavener Football Training Center, and it’s barely 8:30 in the morning.
Gators offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner and several familiar faces from his Georgia Tech support staff – young guys, reminders of himself 20 years ago, starting at the bottom in hopes of climbing to the top – are once again watching film of players, brainstorming about the current roster, team needs, and player evaluations.
Faulkner is in charge and setting the tone on another busy day inside a program undergoing a massive transition. He’s doing exactly what he has wanted to do since a conversation with Robert Hill, his offensive coordinator at Parkview (Ga.) High School in the late 1990s.
If you listen to Faulkner tell the story, he was a 5-foot-10 quarterback who was lucky to throw the ball 25 yards.
Still, he took over as Parkview’s starter in the 1997 season and led the Panthers to a state championship behind a strong running game and opportunistic passing offense. The wins continued to pile up the rest of his prep career. But by the time he was a senior and in the middle of preseason camp, Faulkner wondered if his days in the game were about over.
“I didn’t have anybody calling me to even come play in college,” Faulkner said during a break last week. “I said something to my coach, and he said, ‘You need to coach.’ That was it. I knew from that point forward that I was going to be a coach.”
It’s a story that Hill, a longtime teacher-coach in the Atlanta area who is now with the Athens (Ga.) Academy, has heard before. The two men still talk ball and life often, and Faulkner considers Hill one of his most significant mentors.
Hill’s advice had paid off nicely for Faulkner, whom new Florida coach Jon Sumrall announced as UF’s new offensive coordinator on Dec. 11. Hill told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in December 2022, when Faulkner was named Georgia Tech’s offensive coordinator, why he considered coaching a viable path for Faulkner more than 25 years ago.
“If you needed a group of kids to go do something, you’d say, ‘Buster, get those kids, and y’all go over there and work X, Y and Z,’ ” Hill said. “And he’d take them there, and it would be like one of the coaches was over there with them. Even way back then.”
Before Faulkner’s coaching career started 20 years ago as a student assistant at Valdosta State, he walked on with the Blazers as a player and guided the program to the Division II national championship game as a sophomore in 2002. Faulkner developed a reputation as a scrappy leader who knew how to leverage his talents and leadership skills to benefit the team.
Faulkner used the same traits as he climbed the coaching ranks, serving as offensive coordinator at Valdosta State, Murray State, Middle Tennessee, Arkansas State and Southern Miss before returning to Georgia, where he spent a season as a graduate assistant in 2006, as a quality control analyst from 2020-22 for then-Bulldogs offensive coordinator Todd Monken.
The Bulldogs won back-to-back national championships with Faulkner on staff, and he played a critical role in developing quarterback Stetson Bennett, a former walk-on who connected with Faulkner over their shared backgrounds.
“He’s been extremely important. He’s the one that runs us through drills and just talks ball,” Bennett told reporters before the 2022 national championship game. “I think probably the main thing that he’s helped at is on the sidelines. He is the mediator between Monk and me. Me and Monk don’t really talk during the games, which I think is probably a good thing because we’re both so passionate. His presence is comforting, and he’s a damn good football coach.”
Georgia’s success boosted Faulkner’s career, and he was hired by Georgia Tech coach Brent Key to take over the Yellow Jackets’ offense after the 2022 season. Faulkner’s work with dual-threat quarterback Haynes King and his creative approach earned Faulkner the Offensive Coordinator of the Year Award this past season from FootballScoop.com.
Georgia Tech finished 9-3 and averaged 466.3 yards (13th among FBS programs), 33.1 points (23rd) and 7.09 yards per play (tied for seventh). He takes over a UF offense that averaged 21.6 points (108th), 341.3 yards (103rd) and 5.41 yards per play (89th).
In Faulkner’s first season with the Gators, there will be a new starting quarterback. Sophomore DJ Lagway announced plans to enter the transfer portal last week.
Faulkner has a vision for who he wants as Florida’s starting quarterback.
“It all starts with that position. Regardless of the skill set, you’ve got to be the toughest guy in the building. You’ve got to be the most mentally tough guy on the football team because of the way college football is right now,” Faulkner said. “Regardless of skill set, that is a non-negotiable for me.
“And if they’re that, then it will feed through this program. I don’t get caught up in the hype about where a guy played or how many stars he was. I want the best, toughest kid for this program that’s going to ultimately lead to success, just because of the way they are wired. And I think that’s getting lost in college football a little bit, but it won’t get lost with me.”
The Gators have true freshman Tramell Jones Jr. and redshirt sophomore Aidan Warner set to return next season, and incoming freshman Will Griffin from Tampa Jesuit signed in December. Meanwhile, there has been rampant online speculation that Georgia Tech redshirt freshman Aaron Philo could rejoin Faulkner. Philo announced plans to enter the transfer portal last week, but for now, nothing is official.
What has become clear is that Sumrall hired Faulkner to breathe life into a Florida offense that has underperformed in recent seasons. Faulkner has coordinated the Air Raid, made famous by the late Mike Leach, and helped run the balanced attack Georgia used, with Bennett running the show.
“I may be a defensive guy, but I want to be more of a defensive guy like somebody Coach Spurrier knows, like Bob Stoops,” Sumrall said at his introductory press conference. “I want the scoreboard to light up. The way we’ve played, maybe where I’ve been, has looked a little different than how I want to play moving forward, because your job everywhere you are is to figure out how you win for the place you’re at. Here, I think we can score a lot of points, and that’s what I want to do.”
Add Faulkner to that club.
“I love the challenge of where we’re at and trying to flip this thing pretty quickly offensively,” Faulkner said. “That’s probably what excited me the most about it.”
BUSTER BALL
A Q&A with new Gators offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner:
Q: What is your background with Coach Sumrall?
A: Jon and I really kind of grew up in the profession with a lot of mutual friends and people who have worked together. We’ve known each other now, probably going on seven or eight years, and have always just kept in touch. He’s somebody whom I’ve watched from afar and was really drawn by his personality and the way he coaches his team. And he’s done it now at two different stops as a head coach. Just being around a proven winner is going to be a lot of fun. That was obviously the biggest draw, and then when you talk about the University of Florida, you’re talking about a place I believe can compete for SEC championships and national championships and get into the playoffs. I consider it one of the blueblood programs across America, and this is what you coach for. It’s in the best league in the country. I spent some time in the league at now an arch-rival, so I’ve got a lot of familiarity with the way it works, what goes into winning, what it takes with recruiting and what you’ve got to do there. And the way it’s 365 days a year, right? That’s what I enjoy doing.
Q: How do you describe your style as a play-caller?
A: We’ve kind of built this thing and morphed it into something very unique. It’s a pro-style hybrid offense is really the best way to say it. You’ll see a lot of the pro game, right, because it’s our job to get these kids to the next level, and they all want to play in the NFL. I want them to be ready to play in the NFL when they walk into a locker room. And it’s also a mixture of a lot of things you see across college football and high school football. I think we have been able to mesh the two over the last three to four years. We want to create matchups, get the ball in space to our playmakers, however that looks. Whether it’s down the field, perimeter screens, or being highly involved in the run game, we really pride ourselves on trying to be the most versatile offense in the country.
Buster Faulkner as a quarterback at Parkview (Ga.) High School in the late 1990s. (File photo from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
Q: What is the focus right now for you as you transition to UF?
A: The biggest thing right now is keeping the guys. You go in, evaluate the film, and see where guys fit and how you see using them. And, obviously, in this day and age, seeing about keeping them. A lot of that is going on right now as we evaluate our needs for when the portal opens. Seeing where we need numbers, all those different things that go into having a football team. You can’t go add after [January] anymore. I think it’s very important to add depth at every position. We need to bring some guys in who have the right makeup to create competition. I think competition breeds success.
Q: What was the key to your offensive success at Georgia Tech in 2025?
A: It really started with our head coach, Brent Key, giving us the free rein to be creative, think outside the box, and that’s something, as I said, we took a lot of pride in. We had a lot of fun doing it, and the thing that makes it successful – and really any offense, no matter what you’re doing – is the quarterback. He was a big part of what we do, and it will still be the same way. Will it look a little different depending on the quarterback’s skill set? Yeah, absolutely. It always starts with the quarterback, and I believe in getting great skill around him and playing to the strengths of the offensive line. Those are things we did a good job of, and again, always try to be on the cutting edge offensively, and that’s something that is important to me. In this day and age, there’s a lot of film out there, a lot of people talk, so we’re always trying to stay ahead of it. We’ve been able to assemble a great staff, and a lot of guys who have been with me in a support staff role have been able to come over, and they’ve had a lot to do with it, how we go about preparing, finding different ideas, being creative. So those guys are going to be a crucial part of it, and then we are able to add what I think are some big-time coaches at the full-time positions. It’s going to be exciting. We’re really ready for January to get here and get everybody in place.
Q: As an underdog player, you found a way to win big, so how important is attitude for you when you are recruiting a player?
A: I’m all about winning. Whatever it takes to win. I was fortunate I was raised by the best high school staff that I’ve really ever been around at any level. And we won football games back then, honestly, just running the football. And then I go to college, and it’s Air Raid. We won games that way. And that’s when you look back and build your foundation. I’ve been part of running. I’ve been part of throwing. Both won. But it takes what it takes to win. Whatever that is, whatever that looks like, that’s what we’re going to do. The one thing I like, especially at the quarterback position, is a guy that has won, regardless of what everybody else thinks about him. I want guys who win. Fortunately, at the last two stops, I’ve been around two kids at that position who are the toughest kids I’ve ever been around, both mentally and physically. Not many people believed in them. A lot of people had written them off. But they had the intangibles and the traits to lead the program. Ultimately, one of them was part of two national championships; the other one, you completely flipped a program. That is important. I want a guy, really, at all positions that are worried about the right things. When they are worried about the right things and not worried about the distractions, we’ll have a chance.
Q: What’s a perfect meal?
A: Steak that I cook, sweet potato and probably some type of greens. That’s a perfect meal for me with a few good cookies to follow.
Q: What’s your favorite hobby?
A: I finally got back into golf about five years ago. So, when I finally do get some time, I like to play. I enjoy playing. It’s a really good getaway.
Q: What’s your best day as an athlete?
A: As crazy as it sounds, I did score 38 points in a basketball game one time. That may be one of them. I just couldn’t miss. To me, it goes back to winning. State championship [in high school], that’s one. I was never concerned about me. I just wanted to win. Playing for a national championship as a player at Valdosta State is something I will always remember.
Q: What would you be doing if you were not coaching football?
A: I don’t know what I would be doing. I’m living a dream. This summer, I built something at the house, and I was back to being a foreman. I was back there having everybody run around. I like being in charge.
Q: What’s the most interesting place you have been?
A: It’s funny you ask. I have been going to the same place for the last 25 years on vacation. I’m pretty simple. I don’t do a lot. I love football. I love my family. They are the most important thing in the world to me. When I’m not doing football, it’s usually at a kid’s game. One thing you will find out about me, I’m a very simple person.
