![Florida head coach Jon Sumrall speaks after spring practice at Sanders Practice Fields in Gainesville, FL on Tuesday, April 7, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2501,h_1406/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kqyycb1gpacjbne05s.jpg "Florida head coach Jon Sumrall speaks after spring practice at Sanders Practice Fields in Gainesville, FL on Tuesday, April 7, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Jon Sumrall quipped earlier in the week the measures he would take if Florida didn’t make a bowl game in 2026. He was being tongue-in-cheek, but it also highlighted what his own personal standards are for the Gators as he gets set for his maiden voyage in Gainesville.
Florida hasn’t made a bowl game in two of the last three seasons, so any bowl game would be progress. Though we suspect Sumrall has his sights set higher than what one recent bowl projection seems to think for Florida.
Gators projected to a make a bowl in 2026
On3 and CBS Sports both put out projections for bowl season now that spring practice has wrapped up for everyone. On3’s Brett McMurphy projects the Gators to make the ReliaQuest Bowl, formerly the Outback Bowl, against Illinois. To be honest, this wouldn’t be a bad landing spot for Sumrall’s first season and would instantly be an upgrade from anything Florida has been in since 2021.
And the ReliaQuest Bowl would definitely be an upgrade over what CBS Sports has in store, which is a date against Oklahoma State in the Liberty Bowl. Obviously, a bowl is better than no bowl, but if it wasn’t for the past results of Napier, the Liberty Bowl is not the standard Florida would shoot for.
Last year, the Liberty Bowl was between 10-2 Navy and 7-5 Cincinnati.
Coincidentally, this hypothetical matchup would pit Sumrall against Eric Morris, whom Sumrall beat for the American Conference title this past season while Sumrall was at Tulane and Morris was at North Texas.
The real bar for Sumrall to clear is to make the playoffs and eventually make a run, especially with expanded playoffs on the horizon. Part of why the Billy Napier Era was such a failure was that even with expanded playoffs, he could never come close, whereas Dan Mullen, Jim McElwain, and Will Muschamp all had at least one season where they would have made an expanded playoff.
Florida opens its season against FAU, will open SEC play against Auburn, and will close the season as always against FSU.
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