Once Scott Stricklin and the Florida Gators whiffed on Lane Kiffin, it was going to be difficult to pivot and land a coach to excite Gator Nation. The reality is that the list of Plan B options available in this coaching cycle was thin, and there wasn't a slam-dunk hire out there to replace Billy Napier.
But in true Scott Stricklin fashion, rather than take a swing at a hire that at least someone could squint at and see the upside, he has gone back to the Group of Five well in a bargain basement hire.
Florida hires Jon Sumrall
The Gators will be hiring Tulane coach Jon Sumrall to be their next head coach. According to Pete Thamel of ESPN, Sumrall will get a six-year contract worth $7.5 million per season.
Sources: Florida is finalizing a six-year deal to make Tulane’s Jon Sumrall the head coach at an average of nearly $7.5 million per year, with significant incentives tied to the College Football Playoff. Sumrall is 42-11 in four seasons as a head coach. pic.twitter.com/woryZCvedm
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) November 30, 2025
We don't have a time machine to fast-forward and see whether or not the hire is going to work out, but the data points to a picture that it won't end well.
Yes, Sumrall has been a "winner" at each stop he has made as a D1 head coach, but there are several data points he has to overcome:
- No American Conference coach has won the conference title and gone on to be a successful Power Four coach
- Almost no ranked Power Four programs are led by a coach whose previous stop was the Group of Five
- Sumrall has a ton of data that is similar to the data Billy Napier had when he was at Louisiana
Even if we ignore the data, the optics of this hire don't align with the messaging Florida tries to put out. The Gators swear up and down that they are one of the power programs in the SEC and scoff at the notion that they can't keep up financially.
And yet, for the third time in their last four football coaching hires, the Gators have grabbed a Group of Five coach to lead the program rather than go big game hunting.
Florida under Stricklin is the type of program that claims it wants to go car shopping at Aston Martin, only to take a convenient detour to OkCarz and pretend it's the same thing.
But we shouldn't be surprised this was the end result, as Stricklin has botched virtually every hire he has made across all of Florida's sports.
So welcome, Coach Sumrall. May the odds forever be in your favor.