The Florida Gators got embarrassed against Missouri in Week 5 and now Jon Sumrall is going to see if his team is really as tough as they looked in the first four weeks. No one can blame him for being absolutely fired up right now, but not in a good way.
Sumrall hasn't lost much in his first four seasons as a head coach, whether that was at Troy or Tulane, but he's been here before. When you coach in the mid-majors, there's a good chance that one of the power conference schools is going to take your team behind the woodshed. But Sumrall arrived in Gainesville in part because of his ability to push his team forward through the hard times, which has been why so many fans have been so high on him.
And there will be some hard times this week in Gainesville. Sumrall all but promised that with his postgame comments.
Jon Sumrall: 'The fact that we put less than our best out there makes me sick. How we did what we just did is not acceptable. I'm livid.'
— Edgar Thompson (@osgators) October 3, 2026
Sumrall also added that he was going to quickly find out who on this Gators team is willing to own their poor efforts
Jon Sumrall will test Florida far worse than Missouri did
Losing is one thing. If you're involved in any sport long enough, it happens, and it's going to happen more than once. But losing because you didn't show up is a problem because Florida's performance in Week 5 was the result of a team that wasn't ready for the challenge in front of them. That part is something Sumrall can't deal with, and it's become very common with the Gators since about 2010.
There have been jokes about programs that fail to stand up to the challenge. For years, there was a joke about Clemson doing this thing called "Clemson-ing", which came to define their inability to see a great season to the finish line. And then the Tigers started doing it and that term became a thing of the past.
Florida isn't at that point yet, because the Gators have yet to prove they have a championship-caliber team. Instead, they are stuck on the first ladder, which is when a program has some good news and the minute they get too high, reality comes and bites them in the backside. Even under the last coach, it seemed like whenever Florida got some momentum, things went south.
Sumrall isn't going to let that happen. It's never happened in his career as a head coach, and he's not going to let this trend of the Gators' inability to handle success continue on his watch. The mark of a great team, a great program and a great coach is as much about the response as it is about the actions.
Florida took a beating against Missouri. It wasn't what anyone around Gator Nation wanted to see, but it happened. Anyone can get knocked down once, but the winners get angry and then they get up. The Gators will see plenty of anger this week from Sumrall. Now let's see if they can get up.
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