Jon Sumrall says Florida must navigate the Wild West of college football

As much as college football has changed over the past five years, the art of roster building is still one of the most important components of a successful team. The manner in which a team builds that roster, however, has changed, and one of the very real reasons why Billy Napier is not still the coach of the Florida Gators is because he wasn’t willing to embrace that change.

So while Florida’s roster is essentially set in stone for 2026, most would agree that the Gators should have the talent to compete and Jon Sumrall detailed his philosophy on what it took to build this current roster.

Jon Sumrall says college football is like the Wild West

Sumrall was doing an interview with On3’s J.D. PicKell, and he was asked about the current state of college football as a whole. Sumrall reiterated a desire he has previously made about revamping the current college football calendar, but also noted that Florida has to be willing to embrace the current model as long as it is the current model:

“I think it's still kind of the Wild West, which I'm okay with. We evolve, we embrace it. We do whatever we're allowed to do, but I do think there could be some better mechanisms set in place that could maybe model the NFL a little bit better. 

We're becoming what feels like a pro sport to some degree. And so I know some of that is kind of, you're opening up a can of worms because you're talking about player union, collective bargaining type stuff that could come from some of those things. 

But I do think there should be a better model. I'm all for paying players. I want our players to get compensated, but I think we could maybe put some things in place that make that a little bit more consistent across the board of college football.”

Sumrall’s comments highlight something where two things can be true at the same time.

The first is that college athletics as a whole does need to figure out how to better stabilize its rosters from year to year. We have gone from an era where players got suspended for accepting a meal at McDonald's to an era where opposing teams can openly negotiate with a player. When one thinks back to the entire Jadan Baugh offseason saga, it does feel comical that Baugh never hit the transfer portal but was still getting targeted by the likes of Texas.

If that were to happen in the NFL, there would be massive fines for tampering. But in the NCAA, we are told: “Well, what are you going to do?”

But if the rules are what they are right now and no one is going to enforce them, then you might as well play along with the game. Aaron Philo was long assumed to be a Gator even before he hit the portal. Eric Singleton Jr. hit the portal unexpectedly and then magically was a Gator that weekend.

And unlike the last regime, which was determined to follow its process no matter what, Sumrall seems to recognize that whatever roster-building process was used five years ago has to be thrown out the window in 2026.