Jon Sumrall had a great response to the fan reaction after he was hired at Florida

Jon Sumrall heard all the criticism when he was hired to be the next Florida Gators football coach, and he doesn't take the response from the fans personally. As a matter of fact, he understands where they are coming from.

Sumrall had a long conversation with CFBudge as part of his recent media tour that has seen him travel the state and sit down on many podcasts and webcast. When it was brought up about the less-than-positive fan response to another G5 coach from Louisiana taking over in Gainesville, Sumrall said that he expected it and was willing to take it on.

"I understood their reactions. Before I accepted the job, I asked the administration, 'You do realize this is going to be the general public reaction that doesn't know at first...y'all are aware of this?," Sumrall said. "I get the parallels and I honestly don't shy away from it. I'm fully comfortable with it, and I was comfortable with it before I took the job."

As Sumrall said, it's easy to see the parallels between him and Billy Napier. The former Gators coach had a stellar record at Louisiana, winning 10+ games in his final three seasons. Sumrall has a record of 43-12 in two-year stops at Tulane and Troy. The personalities of the coaches couldn't be more different thus far and Sumrall has seemed to embrace the culture in Gainesville far better than Napier did. 

"This is a place that I think has got so many things that can attract the best of the best in our country, in regard to staff and coaching and players, I should say. So staff and players that we can get great players here. We can get great coaches here. It's the University of Florida," Sumrall concluded.

Jon Sumrall addresses the initial fan response to his hire

Sumrall is right to believe he has nothing to apologize for. The path he has taken to Florida is what it is, and he wouldn't have been hired for the job without being successful at every previous step along the way. Urban Meyer spent the first seven years of his coaching career at Illinois State, an FCS program, and Colorado State before taking an assistant coaching job at Notre Dame under Bob Davie and then moving to head coaching jobs at Bowling Green and Utah. He never coached in the SEC before he got to Florida and became one of the most successful coaches in Gator sports history. 

Others that have come from SEC stock, like Jim McElwain, never really embraced the culture in Gainesville. Dan Mullen, who had plenty of history in the conference and at Florida, had conflicts with the expectations of the program when he was in charge of the program. It goes both ways. 

"You can sit here and type anything the way you want it to, good or bad, you can say that this coach was from that level and didn't have success, but then you can also say that Curt Cignetti was a G5 coach and that's gone pretty well," Sumrall said. 

Sumrall isn't worried about the comparisons, nor should he be. He will ultimately be judged on his results on the field and on the recruiting trail. He has shown plenty of chops in recruiting already and if that momentum can lead to wins on the field, everyone is going to be very happy. 

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