A number of Florida Gator fans tuned in to the American Conference title game on Friday night to watch Tulane and new Florida coach Jon Sumrall knock off North Texas to virtually clinch a berth in the playoffs. While looking for things like scheme was a useless exercise given that Sumrall will have a new coordinator once in Gainesville, we had highlighted prior to the game that we would be looking at Sumrall's sideline demeanor, organization, and 2nd half-decision making.
So how did Sumrall fare in these areas? Mostly as expected, which is a mixed bag depending on your perspective.
Jon Sumrall's sideline demeanor was as advertised
Sumrall looks like a guy who shotguns two Monster Energy drinks for breakfast, then has a Red Bull for lunch, then has raw eggs for dinner while he winds down with a Celsius.
Compared to the ASMR of Billy Napier, this is going to be a welcome change in Gainesville. Sumrall isn't afraid to stick of for his guys when he disagrees with the ref and it was on full display early on Friday night.
By the end of the game, Sumrall's voice was shot from the intensity, and that's a good thing.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) December 6, 2025
Orgainization
For the most part, Tulane looked under control, and we didn't see the Green Wave look lost like we would with Napier. There was the unnecessary roughness penalty Tulane took to open the 2nd half, which wasn't great. The only other penalty to nitpick was a false start to start the 4th quarter, because that felt like shades of Napier.
But beyond that, during the high leverage situations in the first half, when Tulane went for it on 4th down multiple times, the Green Wave looked poised, and even on their first drive, when they called a timeout, they came back and scored a TD coming out of the timeout. Sumrall also used a timeout late to set up the game sealing interception.
The field goal unit also looked composed when it had to rush into duty and there were no 10-men on the field issues that plagued the previous staff.
2nd half decision making
This is where it gets complicated, because the very real knock on Jon Sumrall and what had us the most concerned when he got hired was his tendency to clam up in the second half and make things tighter than they needed to be.
He may not be Billy Napier 2.0, but Will Muschamp 2.0...
In the 2nd half, Tulane had 32 plays on offense and ran the ball on 23 of them, and the Green Wave were clearly trying to milk the clock.
And if one is honest with themselves, Tulane kind of got fortunate in the second half that North Texas didn't make a comeback. There was an interception for a TD that Tulane almost for sure fumbled prior to crossing the goal line, and there were two other drives where North Texas was inside the ten-yard line and threw an interception.
For as much as Sumrall said at his press conference, he wants to "light up the scoreboard," his offense scored three points in the second half and had a ball-control mentality to close the game out.
It worked this time, but it is worth keeping in the back of one's mind when Sumrall comes to Gainesville.