Sumrall restores hope as Texas faces a reckoning

File photo: Jon Sumrall on the Florida sideline against Ole Miss at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Sept. 26, 2026. Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media.

Thoughts of the Day | Oct. 24, 2026

A few thoughts to jump-start your Saturday morning:

Confession time. In the privacy of your own home with no one to witness, raise your hand if you thought two weeks ago that the Florida Gators would be most fortunate to limp home with a 6-6 regular season? Losing to Missouri and South Carolina in thank you sir may I have another fashion will do that to you.

Memories of Mizzou and South Carolina are in the rearview after the upset of Texas in Austin and the bye week has provided necessary time for Florida’s walking wounded to heal up in time for the five-week gauntlet ahead. Have the last two weeks pumped hope back into the collective mindset of the Gator Nation? Or, is it because next up is Georgia next Saturday in Atlanta that you are tempering your expectations?

Fair questions that deserve honest answers.

Bunch me in with the doubters, especially after the way the Gators were skewered and rotisseried by the Gamecocks at The Swamp. Losing to Missouri wasn’t necessarily a surprise given the way the Gators seem to always dial up crappy when they travel to Columbia. Even a 28-point loss could be rationalized to a certain degree. But blown out by the Chickens on national TV in The Swamp?

That had me thinking 6-6 likely, 7-5 if the offensive line could remember it’s legal to block somebody wearing a different-colored shirt and the defense discovered that it is okay to get off the field on third down. Then came Texas and that 15-play drive that took more than eight minutes off the third-quarter clock. Once the Gators fell behind 17-3, the defense went beast mode, turning Arch Manning and the Texas offense into a generic version of corn flakes. You know the type. Crispy until the milk turns them soggy.

Hope is once again whizzing through my veins. Eight wins? Not only doable but an achievement since it will be doubling up on last year’s four-win total. Nine? Not out of the question. Impossible without a win over Georgia or Kentucky but as Auburn proved to Georgia and Alabama to Kentucky, if you are vulnerable you can be had.

I’m not even going to think about getting to 10 wins. That would mean running the table but before dismissing that as a possibility, I can’t overlook that Jon Sumrall had win streaks of 11 and 10 games in his two years at Troy, eight and five in his two years at Tulane. He is 48-14 counting the 5-2 at Florida this season. To paraphrase Curt Cignetti, he wins. Google it.

Some may dismiss this as another case of sunshine pumping on my part, but I started writing about college football in 1967. I’ve been around. Experience tells me certain coaches have this aura about them. I am reminded of the late, great Bum Phillips and his awe of Bear Bryant. Bum said, “He could take his’n and beat yours, and take yours and beat his’n.” Wherever he was, whatever the circumstance, whoever his players were, Bear Bryant won. Something about Sumrall gives me a similar feeling.

I admit, I wanted Lane Kiffin. I think everybody did. All the things Lane says that cause us to shake our heads we would be defending right now if he were the Florida coach. He’s only outrageous when he’s coaching somewhere else. If he were a Gator we would be saying he’s Spurrier, Part Deux.

But Lane is at LSU where he’s probably going to win a national championship when all is said and done. Jon Sumrall is at Florida and I couldn’t be happier. Starting with his first press conference, he’s grown on me and continues to grow on me. He doesn’t sugarcoat things. He speaks his mind. He demands accountability from his coaches, his players and everyone associated with the program. He takes personal responsibility when everyone else around him comes up short of expectations.

I think he’s the right coach at the right time and for all any of us know, he just might win a national championship here before Lane Kiffin wins one at LSU. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

URBAN MEYER ON THE FLAW IN THE 24-TEAM PLAYOFF

Like it or not – I don’t – the 24-team College Football Playoff era is upon us, maybe as soon as next year. I may warm to the eventuality of playoff expansion but for now I’m stuck in the Stone Age.

Urban Meyer, while admitting the 24-team playoff concept has grown on him to the point of acceptance, laments that expansion isn’t without consequences.

On his Triple Option podcast, Meyer said, “The only concern I have, and I’ll keep saying this as long as I’m around, those who say that conference championship games are not important, I will say never played in it, never coached in it, and never won a ring … Conference championship games are one of the most exciting things that ever happened in my lifetime, and certainly for my players. And they’re gone. They’re gone.”

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte spent a portion of his Friday trying to convince the civilized world that everything is just peachy on The 40 Acres, which is what Texas calls the campus in Austin. Sark is just fine. Arch couldn’t be better. Life could be a dream. The only people who don’t think so are the ones who don’t live in Austin.

He was selling hard. Not so sure how many are buying, certainly not those of us living in the real world. And how many of the folks living in Austin are happy that, despite all the cold, hard cash the faithful have poured into football, the Longhorns find themselves on the brink of playoff elimination?

Life could be a dream is the Del Conte message and yes, should the Longhorns whip up on Ole Miss tonight and run the rest of the regular season table they will be sitting pretty at 10-2, virtually assured of the College Football Playoff. Do that and Steve Sarkisian goes from overhyped and time to leave to conquering hero who should hang around awhile.

Nightmares are dreams, too. If you ignore the peachy keen rhetoric, instead taking the I live in the real world approach, a nightmare is what Texas will have if it gets kicked in the crotch by Ole Miss tonight. Thanks to the Big 12 which could have two unbeatens and another two one-loss teams in the regular season, the Southeastern Conference probably only gets three teams in the playoff, none of which will have three losses. So tonight is an elimination game for the Longhorns.

As if the idea of missing the playoff isn’t pressure enough, there is the Manning factor. Ole Miss is where Archie and Eli Manning played college football. The entire Manning clan with the exception of Peyton, who the faithful whisper was dropped on his head too many times as an infant, thus explaining why he went to Tennessee, is Ole Miss royalty. Texas has to win this game for obvious reasons, but Arch Manning has to play lights out to uphold the Manning honor. If Arch flames out like he did against Oklahoma and Florida, it will be like tossing a couple of those NASCAR pitstop cans filled with gas on the bonfire that is already raging back in Austin.

Here is the kicker to this narrative. Had Arch chosen Ole Miss instead of Texas back when he was the consensus No. 1 high school quarterback in the country, it is highly unlikely that Trinidad Chambliss would have wound up in Oxford. Trinidad is the nation’s best quarterback, whose journey to Ole Miss is routed through Division II Ferris State in Michigan. On his average to bad days he’s still better than Arch is on his good ones. On his good days, Trinidad Chambliss performs like it’s a Heisman Trophy audition. With him at QB, Ole Miss might win the national championship. He’s that good.

Would Arch have developed at Ole Miss? He certainly hasn’t developed under Steve Sarkisian who seems destined for a pink slip in the event of a loss tonight. The next and most painful question that begs to be asked: Is Arch Manning simply the worst of the Manning quarterbacks? Secondly, can his career be rehabbed?

If Sark loses tonight everything won’t be peachy in Burnt Orange Country. If you believe the rumblings from the boosters that echo from sea to shining sea, Sark is a goner if he loses to Ole Miss. The last two games have exposed Arch’s lack of football common sense. His inconsistent football instincts are why he has gone from a candidate to be the overall No. 1 draft pick next April to desperately needs another year of college football to see if the rough edges can be smoothed out. Will he stay at Texas if Sark is fired? Ole Miss will need a QB next year. As blasphemous as it sounds, would Ole Miss even welcome Arch if he entered the portal?

This is football’s version of the soap opera. If Days of Our Lives had plots like this it would still be on network TV instead of streaming.