Florida’s early bowl outlook suggests Jon Sumrall’s impact is already visible

In the age of expanded playoffs, it’s not unfair to hold Florida to a playoffs-or-bust standard. Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, and Dan Mullen would have all made an appeances in the playoffs had the field been expanded to 12 teams during their time in Gainesville. Part of the very real failure of Billy Napier is that the field could have been expanded to 24 teams, and he still wouldn’t have sniffed the postseason in any of his four years with the Gators.

So while early bowl projections wouldn’t be the endgame goal for Jon Sumrall and the Gators, it would be Florida’s best season since the 2020 campaign.

Florida projected to land in the ReliaQuest Bowl

Brett McMurphy of On3 dropped his list of “2026 Way-Too-Early College Football Bowl Projections.” In it, he has Florida making the Outback Bowl, also known as the ReliaQuest Bowl, in Tampa against Wisconsin.

As a reference point, while bowl games have long since lost their luster, this past season’s edition of the game featured 9-4 Iowa beating 10-3 Vanderbilt. And considering that since 2021 the Gators have appeared in the Gasparilla Bowl twice and the Las Vegas Bowl once, while missing a bowl the other two seasons, this would be a positive first season for Sumrall if the Gators were to land here.

Realistically speaking, Florida would need to go 9-3 to wind up in the ReliaQuest Bowl, and while most “Way-Too-Early Top 25” polls don’t have the Gators ranked, this isn’t an unrealistic mark to hit.

As pessimistic as we here at Hail Florida Hail may seem sometimes, it speaks to two beliefs we have heading into the 2026 campaign:

1. Jon Sumrall is going to get more out of Florida’s roster than his predecessor. That’s not exactly a bold statement, but if the defense is organized, the Gators have more than enough playmakers on offense to be a thorn in the side of everyone if the offensive line can hold up.
2. Florida’s schedule is more favorable in 2026 than it has been in the past two seasons.

In the modern era, as Indiana showed, it doesn’t take five years to rebuild if you are the right coach. If the ceiling for Florida over the next five years is the ReliaQuest Bowl, that’s a problem.

But for year one in Gainesville, considering how the past five years have gone, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to finish the season around New Year’s in Tampa.