After a nearly two month search, Florida has its next head football coach: Jon Sumrall.
The former Tulane head coach was hired by the Gators Nov. 30. According to Pete Thamel of ESPN, Sumrall signed a 6-year contract with Florida. He will make $7.5 million annually, the report states.
Sumrall, 43, has recorded a 42-11 record in four seasons as a head coach, serving at Troy and Tulane.
At Troy, Sumrall led the Trojans to back-to-back Sun Belt Championship titles in 2022 and 2023. He finished his tenure at Troy with a 23-4 record.
In two seasons at Tulane, Sumrall has led the Green Wave to a 19-6 record. In 2025, Tulane has a 10-2 overall record and a 7-1 record in American Athletic Conference play, good enough to qualify for the AAC Conference Championship game.
The Green Wave are currently ranked No. 24 in the College Football Playoff rankings, the highest of any Group of Five program. Their path to the playoff starts with the AAC title game against 11-1 North Texas Dec. 5.
Prior to becoming a coach, Sumrall played as a linebacker at Kentucky from 2002-04. After leading the Wildcats in tackles in his junior season, his football career was abruptly ended by a spinal condition.
Following the injury, Sumrall became a graduate assistant at Kentucky before serving as an assistant coach at a handful of programs.
From 2007-11, he coached at San Diego, where he served in a number of roles including associate head coach and defensive coordinator.
Then, Sumrall served at Tulane as co-defensive coordinator from 2012-14, before taking the associate head coaching position at Troy from 2015-17.
After brief stints in the SEC as a linebacker coach at Ole Miss in 2018 and linebacker coach and co-defensive coordinator at Kentucky from 2019-21, he was hired by Troy.
Sumrall assumes leadership over the Gators, who went a disappointing 4-8 in 2025 after starting the season ranked No. 15 in the AP Top 25 poll.
Former Florida head coach Billy Napier began the season at the helm for UF, but was relieved Oct. 19 following the Gators’ 3-4 start. He finished his tenure with a 22-23 record, the worst record of any Florida head coach through 30 games since Raymond Wolf, who went 13-24-2 from 1946-49.
From there, wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales served as interim head coach for Florida’s final five matchups, in which UF went 1-4.
Sumrall’s hiring ends the coaching saga that began following Napier’s midseason firing. In his statement announcing the coaching change Oct. 19, Stricklin said that the focus for UF would be to hire “an elite football coach who will embody the standard we have at the University of Florida.”
Former Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin appeared to be Florida’s primary target, but the Gators reportedly dropped out of the race for Kiffin on Friday.
Florida then pivoted to Sumrall, who was reported to be the “clear favorite” to assume the vacancy on Saturday.
Sumrall was heavily pursued by Auburn, but he reportedly removed his name from consideration for the Tigers’ head coaching job Saturday.
Tulane also reportedly offered Sumrall an extension that would have made him the highest paid Group of Five coach in the country, but he opted for the Florida position instead.
Contact Max Bernstein at mbernstein@alligator.org. Follow him on X@maxbernstein23.
Max is in his sixth semester at The Alligator and now serves as The Alligator's Football Reporter and is a junior sports journalism student. He previously served as The Alligator's Sports Editor, and served as reporter for women's tennis, volleyball and lacrosse. He also has made multiple appearances on the Paul Finebaum Show. He wants to shoutout his cats, Scooter and Zoe, and niche former Florida Panthers players (shoutout Tomas Kopecky).
