Gator Football: Sumrall’s Day in Tampa Very Successful. Now What's Next?
“Let me just say one thing to you, Jon. I’m a Florida resident now and down there amongst the Gators … and I want you to know, I’m kind of a semi-Gator,” Saban said.
The sun was already baking Water Street by the time Jon Sumrall walked into the JW Marriott on Wednesday morning, and by the time he walked out nearly six hours later, the Gators’ first-year head coach had done everything from radio row to a live jab session with Kirby Smart to getting playfully threatened by Nick Saban on national television.
Welcome to SEC Media Days, Tampa-style — the league’s first time hosting its preseason circus in the city, and Sumrall’s first time doing it as an SEC head coach.
First report card: He gets an A, borderline A-Plus. Not even needing the Orange and Blue glasses.
The beauty contest is over, however, and we don’t care who won Mr. Congeniality.
His day started early. Sumrall hit SEC Creative at 9:05 a.m., then rotated through SEC Network Social, SEC Radio, SiriusXM, CBS and Electronic Media before finally stepping to the main podium at 10:30 for his address to the full room of assembled media, followed by stops with ESPN, Marty & McGee and the SEC Network set to close out his morning.
“This is Gator country,” he announced right away, drawing battle lines.
Running back Jadan Baugh, linebacker Myles Graham and receiver Vernell Brown III (see photo) worked their own gauntlet of interviews alongside him, representing a Florida program that opens the season September 5 against Florida Atlantic.
It wouldn’t be a Sumrall press availability without somebody asking about Lane Kiffin. The two coaches lived parallel lives last November — both fielding calls about jobs in the SEC, both angling toward the College Football Playoff with their old teams — before their paths split. Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU before the Rebels’ playoff run was finished; Sumrall stayed at Tulane through the end of the American Championship before officially taking over at Florida.
A reporter pushed him on whether the two situations were really as similar as everyone kept saying. Sumrall wasn’t having it.
“I’d say no two decisions are alike, right,” Sumrall noted. “Lane and I are friends, and talked several times during the process in October and November about what it was looking like about how things were going to unfold. Lane said, ‘you and I are going through the same thing,’ and I’m like, ‘No Lane, we’re not. If you leave, you’re leaving an SEC school to go to an SEC school.’ I was leaving Tulane. But it was challenging to do it, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I wanted to make sure I left Tulane the right way. If any university told me I couldn’t coach in the playoff game, I don’t think I would’ve taken the job, just because I couldn’t leave the team I had coached all year.”
While Kiffin and Sumrall have discussed the situation numerous times since last December, there was one part of the process the two coaches never agreed on — they were not the same situations, at all, and Sumrall made sure everyone in the room understood that distinction. Even so, he made clear there was no bad blood in it.
“I did not envy Lane’s situation at all,” Sumrall said. “Every time he and I would converse, I felt terrible for what he was enduring and for everyone involved, because it was unfair to all parties”.
Not every moment was so serious, either. A reporter’s phone rang mid-answer, and Sumrall didn’t miss a beat with the crowd. (Later he admitted he was joking.)
“You would be kicked out of our team meeting, I swear,” he said. “Like, you’re lucky I’m not going to throw this podium right now. That drives me crazy. I would say who is that, but I’m not going to embarrass anybody.”
If the podium session was measured, Sumrall’s stop on the SEC Network set was pure theater. Once he wrapped his main media session, the crew — including Nick Saban — broke down his performance live, and the Hall of Fame coach couldn’t resist needling the rookie.
“Let me just say one thing to you, Jon. I’m a Florida resident now and down there amongst the Gators … and I want you to know, I’m kind of a semi-Gator,” Saban said. “So, if you don’t get your shit together, I’m gonna be in the middle of it”
Sumrall laughed it off and told Saban he appreciated the vote of confidence.
Underneath the joke, Saban was genuinely complimentary of the job Sumrall has done building out his first Florida staff.
“I think that Jon has a great attitude. I think he’s had a great attitude in terms of how he’s taken over every opportunity that he’s gotten as a head coach, and he’s done a phenomenal job,” Saban said, praising Sumrall’s approach of building on what’s already working rather than blowing things up. He singled out offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner and defensive coordinator Brad White as strong hires, and predicted quarterback Aaron Philo is “a little bit underrated as a passer” who fits Faulkner’s system well. Saban did flag two trouble spots for Gainesville to watch — the offensive line and the back end of the secondary — as the things standing between Florida and “a really good team”.
Sumrall also had to answer for a needling he took days earlier from Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who cracked at a Steve Spurrier award event about how many head coaches Florida has burned through during Smart’s tenure in Athens. Sumrall shrugged it off with respect rather than a rebuttal. “Yeah, it’s a great rivalry, I think it’s one of the best rivalries in college football. I have a lot of respect for Kirby and the job he’s done over the years, they’re very consistent,” he said, adding that the two had already caught up before the event went live. “What would you expect from the coach Spurrier award show other than a lot of jabs being thrown?
There might not be as an authentic coach in the SEC, besides Pete Golding, and both were making their conference debuts this season a few hours apart in the same Tampa ballroom. And if anyone bet on either man getting through a press conference without cussing at least once, they most certainly lost that bet on Wednesday. Sumrall had nothing but praise for his fellow first-year man, even with Tulane having been run over twice by Ole Miss last season under two different coaches.
“Pete is going to be himself. He’s not going to change,” Sumrall said of Golding. “I have an appreciation for that. You have to be authentic. I think he’s going to do a phenomenal job. Really do. Happy for his opportunity there”.
By the time Sumrall left the SEC Network set, he’d covered a coaching carousel soap opera, absorbed a good-natured threat from arguably the greatest coach of his generation, and still found time to talk up his quarterback battle and the fanbase that helped sell him on Gainesville in the first place — an 18-straight-sellout streak “through maybe not ideal on-the-field results,” as he put it. Kiffin and Sumrall won’t even meet on the field in 2026 — the first year since 1970 that LSU and Florida haven’t been scheduled against each other — but their story will keep following both coaches into the season anyway.
No two decisions are alike. But in Tampa, everybody sure wanted to talk about the one everyone insists on comparing anyway.
JS HAS POTENTIAL TO BE A GREAT COACH.
Awww, it was an A+, Buddy. Thanks for this wrap up to our new ball coach’s wonderful, awesome, winning day. Coach Sumrall keeps confirming as much as he can without a game coached that he’s our best hire since Urban. We have more reasons to feel good and believe again than in quite a long time.
Early last season as Ole Miss was prepping to host Tulane, Lane Kiffin declared that Jon Sumrall “will be coaching somewhere in the SEC next year.” I thought then that Kiffin would head to Gainesville as the Gator bandwagon for him kept loading up. It seemed to me at least that Kiffin thought Sumrall would succeed Lane in Oxford. But then LSU lost its third straight game and the big money people in Louisiana made Brian Kelly $54 million richer. Isn’t it funny how it all turned out?