![Florida head coach Jon Sumrall autographs items during the second half of the Orange and Blue game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, April 11, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_122,w_2651,h_1491/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01ksra5qazbx0n0mre4j.jpg "Florida head coach Jon Sumrall autographs items during the second half of the Orange and Blue game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, April 11, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Jon Sumrall saw the loyalty that players had for the Florida Gators the minute he stepped on campus.
When the coach was hired away from Tulane, it was a little more than a week before the Early Signing Period had ended. Much of the Gators' recruiting class that was compiled by Billy Napierj decided to take a wait-and-see approach instead of immediately backing away from their pledge. And to the surprise of many, and that probably includes Sumrall, most of the recruits decided to stick around and be part of his vision. Of the 18 that were committed when Sumrall got hired, 16 of them stayed and signed with Florida.
Jon Sumrall appreciates the recruits that stuck with him.
Sumrall credits much of the support staff for keeping things together and singled out Katie Turner Doeker, who is the Assistant AD for Recruiting Strategy. And the coach knew that the best way to keep that group together and retain some of the top talent in the program, like running back Jadan Baugh, was going to be by building a staff that put the players first.
"Yeah, at the end of the day, you got to win, right? However, how you do things matters just as much as what you're doing," Sumrall added. "It's important to hire good people, people that care about others, that are selfless. It's not all about themselves. As I walked through and kind of evaluated maybe who was here, who fit, who needed to stay, who needed to be added, it really starts with what kind of person are they?"
It's such a rarity to see a recruiting class hold form through a coaching change. Even in the days prior to the NIL and transfer portal, if there was a mid-season or expected coaching change, the class would usually crumble pretty quickly. Look at what happened at Iowa State when Matt Campbell and, subsequently, at Penn State, where most of the class James Franklin put together, migrated with him to Virginia Tech and left Campbell with next to nothing in the days leading up to early signing. Florida's class was different. Most of them never wavered and that showed Sumrall exactly what they were about and how much they wanted to be Gators.
"The players, their feedback, man, they love the place. They love the environment. They love the passion here. They liked the quality of life of being a student athlete at the University of Florida. Our life skills program in Gator Made, they raved about. The recruiting process, how recruiting had been done here. So there were so many things that they were positive about," Sumrall said on the "Next Up with Adam Breneman" podcast.
Much of Sumrall's success with keeping together the Gators class he inherited and the one that he's currently building can be attributed to his authenticity. It's one trait that has served him well as he has ascended to this point and the one that he believes will lead to continued success with the Gators.
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