It really has been two months since Florida’s coaching search came to an end, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow wasn’t Lane Kiffin. After weeks of speculation and hope, Kiffin wound up leaving Ole Miss for LSU, and Florida wound up pivoting to Jon Sumrall.
Despite the initial wave of resistance, which included us here at Hail Florida Hail, Sumrall has done well to gain fan support and allow Florida fans to look ahead to the future. But the YouTube series This is The Swamp just dropped a 30-minute episode that included one last look at just how close Florida felt they were to landing Kiffin instead of Sumrall.
Danny Wuerffel touches on pivoting from Lane Kiffin to Jon Sumrall
One of the things that came out after Sumrall was hired was that Florida legend Danny Wuerffel was knee-deep in the recruitment and vetting process for the coaching search. Wuerffel appeared on multiple podcasts in the wake of Sumrall's hiring to try to quell any dissatisfaction fans may have had over not landing Kiffin.
Wuerffel appeared on the latest episode of This is The Swamp and made a notable comment about the pivot to Sumrall:
“That person (Lane Kiffin) initially showed a lot of interest in Florida. So there was a lot of focus on Lane. While also trying to do the process of vetting out other coaches, it really seemed like he was very much leaning toward Florida.
At a certain point, that sort of changed. It's pretty clear it changed. Didn't ever really explain it. I got the sense that over a period of time in that window, perhaps maybe he had decided he was going somewhere else, but his agent didn't want them to say that because they may have been using us as leverage to get more money somewhere else.
And so we were continuing our process, as we looked through this, and there are some really good coaches we talked to, but this guy Jon, there's something about this guy Jon Sumrall that kept sort of bringing him up to the top.
It'll also be known that man, this is not gonna sit well with fans when they first hear it. We knew that was gonna be a tough few days, and it sure was. I think that's when a lot of these rumors surfaced, which sort of made it even uglier.”
The past is in the past, but...
To Wuerffel’s point, Sumrall did not sit well with us at Hail Florida Hail when it was first announced. The major concern we had was that his analytical profile from Tulane did not scream that he was the “it” guy, especially since it had many similarities to Billy Napier’s profile from Louisiana.
As we have also written at length over the last two months, we do like Sumrall’s demeanor, and he has fans fired up and ready to run through a brick wall.
But what is notable about Wuerffel’s comment is when he states they felt Kiffin was leaning towards Florida at first, but then it was “pretty clear” it had changed.
In the weeks leading up to Kiffin’s decision, everyone outside of Florida’s circle indicated that it was down to Ole Miss and LSU and that the Gators were well out of the picture. Yet it kept getting reported that people inside Florida’s circle still felt good about landing Kiffin. Even up until the day before it was announced Florida was out of the running, Gator insiders were still learning towads Kiffin winding up at Florida.
So yes, the sudden public pivot towards Sumrall was jarring, but that’s because Florida fans were being fed a narrative that the Gators had some magic card up its sleeve when in truth Florida had been out of the running for weeks. That, in turn, allowed some of the rumors to blow up, including one that mega booster Gary Condron was the driving force behind pushing Kiffin away in favor of Sumrall.
The reality is that one way or another, Jon Sumrall is going to define Scott Stricklin. If Sumrall succeeds, Stricklin will be remembered as the AD who pulled off a master pivot.
If Sumrall fails, given all the other failed coaching hires Stricklin has had across the board, Stricklin’s legacy in Gainesville won’t be a good one.