Jon Sumrall recalls transition from CFP prep at Tulane to Florida: ‘It was a sh-t show’
By Ethan Stone
Published:
Jon Sumrall earned his pay in December of 2025.
Sumrall led the Tulane Green Wave to the College Football Playoff with a win over North Texas in the American Championship game, earning the 11-seed. Just a week prior to beating the Mean Green, Sumrall was hired by Florida to be its next head football coach. Two weeks later, the Green Wave would face Ole Miss in the first round.
Sumrall insisted on staying and finishing what he started with the 2025 Green Wave, who fell to a physically superior Ole Miss squad 41-10. While speaking at the SEC spring meetings on Tuesday, the new Gators head coach described the transition from Tulane to Florida, candidly, as a “true sh-t show.”
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Yeah, we’d believe it.
Not only did Sumrall have to prepare to face a tough Ole Miss squad, he also had to prepare for recruiting out of the transfer portal at Florida, competing in an SEC landscape that puts a heavier importance on the portal than the American conference.
Interestingly, Sumrall insisted that if he were not allowed to coach Tulane through the College Football Playoff, he would not have taken the job at Florida.
“I would have stayed at Tulane and not taken any other job,” Sumrall said Tuesday. “I was not going to leave a team playing for a championship to go coach another team. That’s not in my DNA. So, if Florida, or any other school that wanted to offer me their head coaching job, was going to tell me the terms they needed to be on, the answer for me was, ‘I can’t take the job. Sorry, I just can’t do it.’”
He also added, “That’s not a shot at anybody.”
Ethan Stone is a Tennessee graduate and loves all things college football and college basketball. Firm believer in fouling while up 3.
