Many Florida football fans are upset over the hiring of Jon Sumrall, but really, they should be celebrating and glad they’re not in the middle of what has become a dramatic exit for Kiffin from Ole Miss, bringing negative energy with him to LSU from the get-go.
Plus, from the sounds of Sumrall confiding in Kiffin and Sumrall’s comments in his introductory press conference, it didn’t sound like Kiffin wanted to be a Gator. “We were both in agreement that I was the right man for the job,” said Sumrall on his conversation with Kiffin, the now head coach of the LSU Tigers.
Florida wasn't ready for the drama of Lane Kiffin
Ole Miss is ranked No. 6 in the latest AP poll and is predicted to make it to the college football playoff. Instead of finding out with his team if they will make it into the playoffs and instead of finding out with his team who they could potentially play, he will instead sit in Baton Rouge and watch his team move forward without him. Though not fully his choice, that is strike one on Kiffin, for not telling LSU, "I will make my decision once my team is done for the year."
Strike two and adding more drama to the madness is Kiffin not even saying goodbye to his team. Kiffin was not present for the Rebels’ final regular-season team meeting after defeating Mississippi State 38-19. Adding salt to the wounds for the players was the fact that no one really cared about the result of that game. Sure, the media covered what happened, but the storyline became about where Kiffin was going next.
Kiffin vowed when he got to Ole Miss that he would bring a national title home to Oxford, Mississippi. Now, he sits as the head coach of that very school’s rival, leaving his team to rebuild and figure things out with a new coach while trying to focus on doing so.
To add to that, how can LSU trust that a few years down the road, if not sooner, that Kiffin won't do the same to them?
Kiffin has gone from being described as a hero to a villain. Many are saying he is trying to peg himself as the victim in the story, when in reality, things could have gone differently. And now, Ole Miss athletics also looks like a partial villain in not letting their former coach finish out the year.
What started as a slippery slope of a situation has turned in to a big mud-hole-like mess.
On the other side of things, you have Sumrall, Tulane University, and the University of Florida – three parties all doing things the right way. Sumrall had a conversation with his players, his university, the situation was laid out, and all parties were in agreement that though he would accept the head coaching position on Sunday, he will finish out the year with the Green Wave, who are playing for a conference championship on Friday. And you can bet all eyes will be on that game and the new head coach of the Florida Gators.
These two schools have now turned into partners and friends, whereas Ole Miss and LSU just went from fellow SEC Rivals to a rivalry filled with even more hate and animosity than it had before.
Florida won. Tulane will win. Sumrall wins. And Florida escaped a mess by hiring a winner who wanted to be a Gator, but who also wanted to transition the proper way, the professional way, with no drama or added soap operas.