![Florida Head Coach Jon Sumrall reacts during first half of an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 7, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_3000,h_1687/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ReutersImages/mmsport/213/01m73gbwgcjdke5xee3f.jpg "Florida Head Coach Jon Sumrall reacts during first half of an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 7, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
After losing to Oklahoma and falling to 5-4 in his first season at Florida, the grumbles about Jon Sumrall are starting to build. We have said before, and we will say again, that our acceptable floor before the season was 8-4, and he would need to win out to reach that.
If fair is being fair, though, when compared to other Power Four first-year head coaches, Sumrall is largely in line with everyone else, and in one category he is sitting alone at the top.
Jon Sumrall is ahead of most first year head coaches
Seventeen head coaches this year are in their first year at their respective Power Four programs. When looking at raw record, Sumrall is currently sitting in the middle of the pack:
- UCLA: Bob Chesney, 9–0
- Utah: Morgan Scalley, 9–0
- Kentucky: Will Stein, 7–2
- LSU: Lane Kiffin, 6–3
- Oklahoma State: Eric Morris, 6–3
- Ole Miss: Pete Golding, 6–3
- Virginia Tech: James Franklin, 6–3
- Auburn: Alex Golesh, 5–4
- Florida: Jon Sumrall, 5–4
- Michigan: Kyle Whittingham, 5–4
- Penn State: Matt Campbell, 5–4
- Iowa State: Jimmy Rogers, 4–5
- Kansas State: Collin Klein, 4–5
- Stanford: Tavita Pritchard, 4–5
- Arkansas: Ryan Silverfield, 3–6
- California: Tosh Lupoi, 3–6
- Michigan State: Pat Fitzgerald, 3–6
Through this lens, being tied for 8th out of 17 isn’t a complete disaster, and considering Sumrall beat Pete Golding and Alex Golesh straight up, one could argue he is doing just fine compared to his peers.
That’s where another stat, when diving into the actual wins themselves, helps boost Sumrall’s case. All five of his wins have come against teams currently with a winning record. As it turns out, Sumrall is the only first-year Power Four coach with five wins against teams with a winning record. Golding and Will Stein both have four wins against teams with a winning record, while Bob Chesney, Lane Kiffin, and Eric Morris, among others, have three.
Jon Sumrall’s first season has been a roller coaster
What’s been tough to evaluate with Sumrall and Florida this year is that this is the same team that beat down Ole Miss and went on the road to beat Texas. And we would agree that while the roster Sumrall inherited had its flaws, it wasn’t so flawed that double digit losses to Missouri, South Carolina, and Oklahoma are nothing to sneeze at.
Yet going back to his five wins over teams with a winning record, if those five wins hold, it still puts him ahead of almost everyone in modern Florida history. No Florida coach since Galen Hall has beaten more than four teams in their debut season who finished with a winning record. Hall beat six teams in 1984 who finished with a winning record after he took over mid-year for Charlie Pell, and he again picked up six wins against teams with a winning record in 1985, his first full year as Florida’s head coach.
So we’ll see how this season finishes, and we’ll paint a full picture at season’s end, but the up and down nature of the 2026 season has made this one of the tougher seasons to evaluate in Florida history.
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