New Florida coach Jon Sumrall tried to contrast himself with Lane Kiffin on Tuesday, but nobody was buying it.
Sumrall accepted the Gators job while still coaching Tulane, which was still in the College Football Playoff at the time. Lane Kiffin did the same by going from Ole Miss to LSU, but Sumrall was allowed to coach Tulane until the end of their season, while Kiffin was not permitted to coach Ole Miss.
On Tuesday, Sumrall said if the choice had come down to it, he would have stayed at Tulane and passed on the Florida job if he had to leave the Green Wave before the end of the season.
“I would’ve stayed at Tulane and not taken another job,” Sumrall claimed. “We were playing for a championship. That’s not a shot at anybody.”
If Tulane had not allowed Jon Sumrall to coach in the CFP while taking the Florida job, what would he had done?
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) May 26, 2026
“I would’ve stayed at Tulane and not taken another job. … We were playing for a championship. That’s not a shot at anybody.”
Sumrall was permitted to work both jobs simultaneously because Tulane and Florida aren’t competing for the same recruits with the same resources. Thus, he did not have to make that decision. It is very hard to believe, however, that he would have passed up the chance to go to Florida if he had actually faced such a situation.
The general consensus was that it was easy for Sumrall to say this now without having had to actually make the choice.
This is so disingenuous. The only honest answer to this is “I’m not sure what I would have done. I’d have wanted to coach.”
— Kyle V. (@kvallo3) May 26, 2026
His feet to the fire tho, he’d have done exactly what Lane did.
Sumrall did get to find out what it’s like to work two jobs at once. He probably would prefer not to do that again.
