Jon Sumrall wasn’t who Florida fans wanted. It won’t matter if he wins
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In the end, there was no widespread fan revolt.
There were no burning pitchforks or Sunday protests.
There was no coup d’état of Florida’s athletic department as the coup de grâce for the failure of Florida’s administration to land their longtime preferred candidate, Lane Kiffin.
Instead, Twitter (or X), that sinkhole where self-restraint goes to die, proved to yet again not be real life.
Florida introduced new head coach Jon Sumrall — still of Tulane (more on that in a moment, since Lane Kiffin has suddenly made that controversial and unique) — as its new head coach on Monday afternoon, welcoming him at the Gainesville airport, ushering him off to meet with national championship winning basketball coach Todd Golden, and holding a press conference which, to no surprise of anyone who’s ever listened to Sumrall talk, proved impressive to most Florida fans.
I won’t go as far as suggesting that Florida won the press conference Monday.
Unless Florida hired Lane Kiffin, it would never win the press conference after loud posturing from Florida’s fan base made “Lane or else” the mantra for weeks after Billy Napier was fired. The Florida athletic department, famously close-vested, did little to douse the flames as Ole Miss fought to keep its most successful head coach since integration and another well-moneyed suitor (LSU) noisily entered the fray.
Florida also wasn’t ever going to win the press conference by hiring a Group of 5 head coach from a school in Louisiana, who, fairly or not, is perceived as a spitting image of the Group of 5 head coach from a school in Louisiana who the same athletic director, Scott Stricklin, hired the last time he picked a football coach.
When Sumrall stepped off the plane with his family on Monday wearing a suit and tie combination that echoed Napier’s choice 4 years ago well, occasionally the football gods give the football writers a little manna from heaven.
The messy conclusion and postmortem to Florida’s coaching search is still being written. Florida’s biggest booster was initially blamed, despite the actual evidence being that he was willing to give Kiffin what he desired. Scott Stricklin’s failure to see eye-to-eye with the people’s champion, Lane Kiffin, appears more credible a criticism, though in the end, Florida offered Kiffin everything he and his superstar agent, Jimmy Sexton, asked for and desired. An existential battle royale played out on message boards, with the most despondent Florida fans wondering if Florida was destined to remain mired in mediocrity for years to come.
None of this alligator’s nest of problems has anything to do with Sumrall. It isn’t fair to him or his family, either.
At Monday’s press conference, in fact, Sumrall acquitted himself just fine.
“The standard (at the University of Florida) is to win championships,” the 43-year-old Sumrall said on Monday afternoon. “That’s why I came. I’m built for this job. I was made for this job. Winners win; I’m a winner; we’re going to win.”
On that point, Sumrall truly gets it.
Florida was never winning the press conference hiring Jon Sumrall, but who cares?
Whether it’s the late Pat Summerall or Jon Sumrall, the key to winning hearts in Gainesville will be doing what Florida hasn’t done nearly enough of lately: win games.
None other than Florida’s very own Steve Spurrier, patron saint of southern sidelines, pointed that out on Monday afternoon.
“I like (Sumrall’s) attitude and emotion, to start with,” Spurrier said. “Teams take on the characteristics of their coaches. I guarantee you this guy hates losing. You can tell that just talking to him. You find me a guy who hates losing, he doesn’t lose too much, it seems like.”
While Napier was calm to the point of docility, Sumrall is fiery and passionate.
But the differences from Napier mostly stop there.
Like Napier, who was 40-12 at Louisiana before taking the Florida job, Sumrall hasn’t lost much, at least yet. But his 42-11 record is at the Group of 5 level, and his playing and coaching experience in the SEC doesn’t distinguish him from Napier, it reinforces the comparisons.
To end those comparisons and build a winner in the SEC, Sumrall will need to fix 3 long-term systemic issues that have contributed to Florida’s program being lost in the swampy wilderness for nearly a decade and a half.
First, Sumrall, a defensive coordinator by trade, must fix the Florida defense. From 1990-2019, only Alabama and Ohio State had more top-10 defenses than the Gators. Since 2020, Florida has never finished inside the top 50 in total defense, success rate defense, or yards allowed per play. While Florida’s innovative, prolific offenses grabbed headlines and fans’ imaginations, defense was the anchor that made Florida the winningest program in the SEC from 1990-2019. Florida’s defensive failings must be fixed, and quickly, under Sumrall’s watch.
Second, Florida has not fielded an elite offensive line in over a decade. This season’s unit was supposed to be just that, led by All-American center Jake Slaughter and preseason All-SEC tackle Austin Barber. Instead, the unit struggled early in the season and only showed glimpses of the talent the roster possessed.
If Sumrall can’t fix the line of scrimmage issues that plagued Florida under Napier, Dan Mullen, and Jim McElwain, his tenure won’t last any longer than those eras did.
Finally, Florida needs to be Florida.
Florida’s desire to chase Nick Saban’s Alabama or Kirby Smart’s Georgia by hiring the next process-oriented Saban or Smart clone has failed spectacularly.
Florida became who it was by recruiting speed from its home state, spreading it out on both sides of the ball, and blending modern offensive schemes with downhill, attacking defense. Under Spurrier and Meyer, that process worked. Sumrall would do well to be his own man and chase that history, not Alabama’s or Georgia’s.
Sumrall will coach out the Playoff process at Tulane, honoring his commitment to his players in New Orleans. That’s admirable, and how it should work, and full credit to Florida and Tulane for being the adults in the room to make that happen.
Once the Green Wave are eliminated, though, the work in Gainesville starts.
No coach in the history of Florida football will have the financial support, booster investment, facilities, and infrastructure to win Sumrall inherits.
If Florida was behind its SEC brethren throughout the 2010s, the Gators are now at least on level ground with most, and likely past the bulk, of their SEC rivals.
If Florida wasn’t a top-10 job over the last decade, it is again, at least in terms of administrative commitment, in-state talent pool, and NIL support.
There are no excuses.
Against that backdrop, it’s fair to wonder if Scott Stricklin and the Florida administration missed the moment.
Was this really the time for an up-and-coming process-oriented grinder? Or was it a time when, resources fully loaded and boosters and institutional commitment aligned, Florida made the type of hire that alters the gravitational trajectory of a program lost in the muck?
If Sumrall’s right, and he’s a winner, the question will answer itself.
Winning press conferences doesn’t matter.
Florida needs to win games.
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
