Florida may finally have a coach who understands what the fanbase wants

With SEC Media Days now in the rearview mirror, there is something we can safely state now that it is obvious to the rest of the SEC:

Jon Sumrall is a great cultural fit for the Florida Gators.

Whether or not it will translate into wins on the field remains to be seen, but given the backdrop of the past decade in Gainesville and the landscape of current SEC coaches, Sumrall walked away from Tampa having impressed almost everyone who was in attendance.

Florida has a great cultural fit with Jon Sumrall

Thursday’s slate of coaches who closed out SEC Media Days were all notable, but frankly for all the wrong reasons. The headliner from Thursday was the opener, Lane Kiffin. We don’t have to rehash Florida’s failed pursuit of Kiffin and why things went south, but it would be naive to ignore that he was the first choice for a large chunk of Gator fans back in November.

And Gator fans knew that if Kiffin came to Gainesville, he would have some quirks and mannerisms that might not perfectly align with Florida’s fan base. This is the guy who did his big offseason feature interview with Vanity Fair after all.

What seemed strange, though, about his Thursday appearance is that for a man who seemingly craves the spotlight, he also has this inner desire to control when the spotlight is and isn’t on him. Case in point, he filibustered his opening remarks long enough that there was only time for four questions on the podium, none of which dove into anything significant or deep.

Florida wasn’t going to hire Kiffin for his ability to conduct press conferences; they were going to hire him for his ability to score points. But what has developed since December is that the coach Florida did get has been willing to embrace that spotlight head-on while Kiffin has seemingly bobbed and weaved his way around it.

Florida is glad their coach has aura

Kiffin’s appearance on Thursday was still better than the appearance Ryan Silverfield had. The new Arkansas coach at one point went on a tangent when the topic of “aura” came up and the assertion that he didn’t have much of it:

"I got a hot wife for a reason. I can get down. I can recite Notorious B.I.G. lyrics...I've got enough aura. Enough to find ways to win football games and that's all that matters."

Now, on paper, that sounds like a quote from someone who has aura. But the problem is that his actual delivery was with the same deadpan lifelessness that Billy Napier had as Florida fans tried desperately to convince themselves that he too had aura.

So we’ll take Sumrall over that.

Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby looked like a car salesman, and to give an idea of his reign in Starkville, Napier beat Mississippi State last year, and Napier was still fired the next day.

So we’ll take Sumrall over that.

And then there was the airing of grievances from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian. You would think after an entire offseason to reflect on missing out on the playoffs that he wouldn’t still be droning on about the fact they scheduled and lost to Ohio State and rather the fact he lost to that same Billy Napier who managed to beat that same 7-18 Jeff Lebby.

No, he did not. He still thinks Texas was robbed of a playoff berth.

So we’ll take Sumrall over that.

Just win, baby

In the words of the man who once fired Lane Kiffin, you can be as big of an oddball as you want.

Just win, baby.

But part of the reason why Jim McElwain did last at Florida even though he did win games was that he just wasn’t a cultural fit. Dan Mullen won a bunch of games too, but too often tried to make weird inside jokes that only 5% of the fanbase understood, and he too wasn’t a cultural fit.

Billy Napier didn’t win games, and he wasn’t a cultural fit, so there is a reason why he goes down in infamy.

Jon Sumrall has a chance to be that unicorn who is both a cultural fit and who wins a lot of games.

He has part one down.

Part two remains to be seen.

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