Sumrall Slayed The Room In Tampa. So Why’d The Pollsters Still Send Him To The Cheap Seats?

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So here’s the question I keep chewing on like week-old gum: If the man is this good at selling the vision, why isn’t anybody buying the stock?

Anybody who’s spent five minutes around Jon Sumrall will tell you the man communicates like it’s his second sport. And yet, when the actual ballots got counted, the league’s media members shrugged and slotted Florida ninth in the USA Today preseason poll — with zero Gators making the All-SEC team, one of only four schools in that boat.

By Buddy Martin

GatorBaitMedia.com

Here’s the thing about SEC Media Days: It’s the only event in sports where a man can throw a fake tantrum about a cell phone alarm, get compared to a “sleeping giant” by Nick Saban himself, and still walk out of Tampa ranked ninth in a 16-team league. Welcome to Jon Sumrall’s introduction to the conference that eats optimism for breakfast.

By all accounts — and I mean all of them — Sumrall owned that podium on Wednesday. Bruce Feldman of The Athletic, who doesn’t hand out compliments like Halloween candy, came away calling him “the best thing to happen to Florida football in almost 20 years.”

Nick Saban, sitting across the SEC Network set, gushed that Sumrall has “the right stuff” to build something that lasts, dropping the phrase that’s now stuck to this program like gum on a shoe: “Florida, I think, is a sleeping giant.” Even the reporter whose phone went off mid-answer got a highlight reel out of it, with Sumrall threatening — through a grin — to “throw this freaking podium right now” 

That’s not an act. Anybody who’s spent five minutes around Sumrall will tell you the man communicates like it’s his second sport. And yet, when the actual ballots got counted, the league’s media members shrugged and slotted Florida ninth in the USA Today preseason poll — with zero Gators making the All-SEC team, one of only four schools in that boat. The 247Sports poll was even less charitable, tucking the Gators in at 10th. Same neighborhood, same middling zip code.

So here’s the question I keep chewing on like week-old gum: If the man is this good at selling the vision, why isn’t anybody buying the stock?

Easy answer. Preseason polls don’t vote on vibes. They vote on résumés, and Florida’s résumé says 4-8 last year, a first-year coach who’s never called a play in the SEC, and a brand-new nine-game conference gauntlet that has grown men griping in the hallways of Tampa hotels. You can be the most electric guy in the room and still get graded on last year’s transcript. That’s just how these polls work — ask Billy Napier’s ghost.

But here’s where I think the voters are missing the forest for the trees, and where Feldman’s piece nails it: Sumrall isn’t some motivational speaker who happens to coach football.

The man has receipts. He walked into a dead Troy program and went 23-4 with back-to-back Sun Belt titles. He walked into Tulane and won the American Conference in year two, then took the Green Wave to the College Football Playoff. 

That’s not a hype man. That’s a guy who turns programs around on a schedule, and he’s done it twice.

And it’s not just talk that’s kept this thing from cratering further. Jadan Baugh, Dallas Wilson and Jayden Woods — legitimate difference-makers who could’ve bolted for greener pastures after a 4-8 fire sale — stuck around for Sumrall. 

Players don’t stay for a good speech. They stay because they believe the guy giving it. That’s the tell the pollsters can’t quantify, but it’s the one that actually predicts wins.

This “sleeping giant” business, by the way, isn’t just a media-day soundbite Saban cooked up for TV. Sumrall’s been saying it since the spring game back in April — “it’s not a question of if we will win here, but rather how quickly” — long before any pollster had a chance to weigh in. And way back in the 1960s the first person to hang that tag on UF was Bear Bryant.

Say what you want about a coach who repeats his own catchphrase, but at least Sumrall is consistent, which is more than you can say for the parade of personalities that’s marched through Gainesville since Urban Meyer departed. Muschamp, McElwain, Mullen, Napier — all of them had something to sell, and none of them could close. 

Since 2010, Florida’s had more losing SEC seasons than winning ones. That’s not a program in a rut. That’s a program that forgot which way is up.

In post-mortems, while Sumrall racked up kudos, Pete Golding garnered recognition. In fact, Paul Finebaum flat out said, “the winner of SEC Media days was Pete Golding!” Which seems odd considering that just a couple of years ago they wanted to run Golding out of Tuscaloosa as defensive coordinator. I did not notice Finebaum  coming to his rescue then.

So where does that leave us? Not with a coronation, and not with the same tired “same old Gators” cynicism that’s been the house special in this state for a decade and a half. Somewhere in between, which is exactly where an honest column ought to land.

Here’s my balanced read: I’m not picking the Gators to shock the world and win the East in year one — the schedule’s too cruel and the roster’s still finding its legs under a new staff. But I’m also not buying ninth.

A team that kept its best players through a coaching change, that’s got a coach who communicates at an elite level and has never had a losing season as a head coach anywhere, doesn’t play like a ninth-place outfit. I’ve got Florida finishing closer to the middle of the pack than the bottom of it — bowl eligible, with at least one signature win over a ranked opponent that makes the rest of the league sit up, and a foundation in December that looks a lot more finished than it does right now in July.

The giant isn’t awake yet. But for the first time in a long while, somebody’s actually banging on the door instead of just talking about it. Ask me again in December — I’ve got a feeling the pollsters are going to owe Sumrall an apology.