For now, all we can do is BELIEVE

We have been down this road before. Four times to be exact since the Urban Meyer swansong at the Outback Bowl following the worst – 8-5 record – season of his six-year run as Florida’s head coach. Will Muschamp was the head coach in waiting at Texas, the next great thing. Jim McElwain was an offensive genius who had been the coordinator for two Alabama national championship teams. Dan Mullen was Urban Meyer’s offensive coordinator and had put together the most remarkable nine-year run in Mississippi State history. Billy Napier was on everybody’s short list for the next big thing and we were lucky to get him. Or at least that’s what they sold and we bought.

Four coaches, all of them well thought of before they arrived at Florida and all four of them gone before their contract expired.  Muschamp, McElwain and Mullen left with winning records. They just didn’t win enough and all three suffered the indignity of losing seasons, something that hadn’t happened in Florida in 34 years before Muschamp’s injury-marred 2013 disaster. Billy Napier posted three losing seasons in four years, the only winner an 8-5 record in 2024 that included stunning late-season wins over LSU and Ole Miss.

We can point to all the things that went wrong for these four coaches until the cows come home without accomplishing anything more than rehashing what we already know. But, for the sake of relevance, here is the Reader’s Digest condensed version for all four:

Will Muschamp proved he can coach a ferocious defense but his offenses stunk to high heavens. Had he learned how to be a head coach at a couple of directional schools in the hinterlands prior to Florida, he might have figured out how that it is legal to throw downfield passes on something other than third down and an overnight hike.

Jim McElwain was doomed from the “my dog Clarabelle” remark. If he was an offensive genius then Einstein was nothing more than a garage mechanic. He was paid more than $4 million or more a year yet couldn’t spend a few hundred bucks to get his yellow teeth whitened. Plus he lied his way out of a job.

Dan Mullen could and still can coach up a dandy offense that can move the football and put points on the scoreboard. He never grasped the concept that winning big at Florida means recruiting better players than the ones that can take you to the Liberty Bowl at Mississippi State.

Billy Napier preached integrity and all the good things players were doing off the field. It was as if he wanted to put 22 Boy Scouts on the field, never truly understanding that winning in the SEC requires a handful of Boy Scouts and an overwhelming majority of borderline psychopaths who view football as a chance to take out their aggressions without the fear of imprisonment.

Four in, four out. Zero SEC championships. Three trips to the SEC Championship Game, all of them losses at the hands of Alabama. Zero appearances in the College Football Playoff although Muschamp’s 11-2 team in 2012 and Mullen’s 11-2 in 2019 would have certainly made the field if a 12-team playoff had existed at that time.

From 1990 to 2010, the Gators went 210-57-1, the best record in all of college football that included eight SEC and three national championships. With the exception of the Zook aberration (2002-04) and until Meyer’s final year on the job, the Gators never had a season with fewer than nine wins.

In the 15 years since Meyer the Gators are 110-79 with five seasons with nine or more wins – 2012, 2015-16 and 2018-19 – and six sub-.500 seasons. Contrast that to Alabama which is 183-26 over the same stretch with five national championships, Georgia which is 167-38 with two national championships and LSU which is 142-52 with one national championship.

That brings us to the here and now with the question that looms at least subconsciously in the mind of every committed Florida fan: Has the program sunk so far in terms of prestige that it will take a coaching savant like Steve Spurrier or Urban Meyer to miraculously return the Gators to life among the elite?

And that question should be answered with another question: Does Jon Sumrall have the same kind of Spurrier and Meyer qualities in him to lift the Gators from the depths of mediocrity back to the level of consistent championship contenders?

Is he the one? We had out doubts about Muschamp since he had never been a head coach before. McElwain was too busy trying to act like the cool kid at high school who never wore socks with his Weejuns and drove a convertible. Mullen was so enamored with his own offensive genius that he never took the time to address mounting problems on the other side of the ball or on the recruiting trail. Billy Napier tried to convince us he was the smartest guy in the room.

At some point – some earlier than others – everything fell apart for the four coaches prior to the hire of Sumrall. There were flaws in all four of them that eventually negated whatever positives they brought to the Florida football program. Once exposed the Gator Nation turned on them and asked for change.

So now it is up to Sumrall to put Florida back on the path of football righteousness.  He comes to Florida with better head coaching credentials than any of his four predecessors. In four seasons he has won four conference championships – Troy 2022-23, Tulane 2025 – across two competitive leagues. The one non-championship year was 2024 when Tulane made it to the league championship game.

Since arriving he has been transparent and approachable. We were led to believe the four previous coaches were too busy taking care of issues within the Florida program to spare precious moments of their time. Instead of living in self-imposed exile within the football complex, Sumrall is out there for everyone to see. He is affable and doesn’t seem offended by well wishers who simply want to shake his hand or offer an encouraging word.

As many Gator fans have remarked these last eight months, Jon Sumrall doesn’t seem full of himself.  

Now that’s not to say he lacks an ego. When you make $7 million a year as a Southeastern Conference head football coach you better have an ego large enough to apply for statehood because with the money and with the job come the slings and arrows the moment you screw up or when the media takes aim. Sumrall got a taste of that recently at SEC Media Days when he scolded a reporter whose cell phone went off while he was answering questions and then after admitting he enjoys a pedicure. That’s minor compared to what will happen the first time a Sumrall-coached Florida team loses a football game.

Then we will find out if he withers under the pressure or simply views it as a speed bump.

The Gators went 4-8 last year. Double the win total this year against a schedule that includes Ole Miss, Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma and Sumrall should be viewed as somewhat of a miracle worker. A four-win turnaround against a schedule like that will be a major accomplishment, but we already know there will be no shortage of critics every time the Gators come up empty. It won’t be long before we discover how Sumrall reacts to pressure to win like he’s never before experienced and that will give us our first real clue to what lies ahead.

Right now, all we can do is hope. Hope that he’s the right guy. Hope he’s not a clone of the four before him who couldn’t deal with the pressure and expectations. Hope that he won’t be too overwhelmed by his own successes that he falls into a canyon of frustration when he loses. In other words, he can’t get too high when he wins, too low when he loses.

All that we will learn in the future. For now, all we can do is take a page from the Ted Lasso script and tape a sign that reads BELIEVE to our hearts and minds. We have no choice but to believe Jon Sumrall is the right coach at the right time and the right place.