The Florida Gators, after a miserable 2025 college football season, will now look to turn the corner with newly-hired head coach Jon Sumrall at the helm in 2026 and beyond.

So far, the former Tulane Green Waves head coach has done a remarkable job of utilizing the transfer portal, while also making noise within the 2027 recruiting class. However, Florida’s recent success under Sumrall could have looked completely different if it weren’t for one simple decision by the Gators.

When speaking to the media during the SEC coaches meeting on Tuesday, Sumrall told reporters that he would have stayed at Tulane if he were unable to coach the team in the 2025 College Football Playoffs.

“I would have stayed at Tulane and not taken any other job,” Sumrall stated. “I was not going to leave a team playing for a championship to go coach another team. That's not in my DNA, I ain't built that way."

After a brutal 3-4 start to the 2025 college football season, the Gators ultimately decided to move on from former head coach Billy Napier, marking an end to his four-year stint with the program. And with Napier out, this led to a key head coach search from the athletic department to find his replacement and get Florida back to its previous successful ways in 2026.

While many SEC programs were in the midst of competing for a national title, the Gators were able to gain a head start on their coaching search, which paved the way for Sumrall to land the gig.

However, the decision to hire the former Tulane head coach did come with its potential side effects, as the Green Wave were one of two Group of Five schools to reach the College Football Playoffs. Still, the program’s willingness to allow Sumrall to coach in the CFP ended up working out in the long run.

In addition to his remarks about the head coaching job at Florida, Sumrall also doubled down and claimed that “it would not be fair” if he left Tulane during the team’s first-round playoff matchup against the Ole Miss Rebels.

“If Florida or any other school that wanted to offer me their head coaching job was going to tell me the terms it was going to be on, the answer for me was ‘I can’t take the job, I’m sorry, I just can’t do it,’ because those kids gave me too much, and it wouldn’t have been fair,” Sumrall claimed.

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