{"id":352868,"date":"2026-07-26T12:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T12:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/352868\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T12:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T12:18:18","slug":"thats-really-kind-of-weird-new-florida-coach-jon-sumrall-made-his-first-comments-about-tennessee-and-hes-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/352868\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;That&#8217;s really kind of weird&#8217; \u2014 New Florida coach Jon Sumrall made his first comments about Tennessee and he&#8217;s right"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Florida Gators head coach Jon Sumrall made his first comments about the Tennessee Vols at SEC Media Days in Tampa this week.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2100\" height=\"1244\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-25-at-12.35.38-PM.png\" class=\"attachment-1280 size-1280 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Tennessee Vols football\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  data-hero=\"atoz-hero\" \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Florida Gators head coach Jon Sumrall hasn\u2019t said much about the Tennessee Vols since getting hired last winter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that\u2019s probably because Florida doesn\u2019t play Tennessee in 2026. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks to the new nine game SEC schedule, the Gators and the Volunteers won\u2019t play each other for the first time since 1989. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sumrall, who played at Kentucky from 2001 to 2004, finds it \u201cweird\u201d that the two programs won\u2019t play this fall. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEvery game\u2019s a big game,\u201d said Sumrall at SEC Media Days in Tampa this week. \u201cWe don\u2019t change. You can ask about Georgia, it doesn\u2019t matter who we\u2019re playing, we don\u2019t change our prep for the game. It stays the same. But it is new and unique to be playing Texas a third year in a row. That\u2019s not something that\u2019s historically been a part of Florida\u2019s past. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho would have thought 10 years ago that Florida would be playing Texas for the third year in a row and not playing Tennessee? Like, we don\u2019t play Tennessee this year. That\u2019s really kind of weird.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sumrall knows all about SEC rivalries after playing and coaching at Kentucky (he also spent a season as an assistant coach at Ole Miss), so it\u2019s no surprise that he finds it odd that Florida and Tennessee aren\u2019t playing this season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the way, Sumrall has been on the opposite sideline in the Tennessee vs Kentucky rivalry nine times as a player or coach. He\u2019s 1-8 against the Vols, with the lone win coming in 2020. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-24-at-12.25.09-PM-200x200.png\" alt=\"Tennessee Vols football\" loading=\"lazy\"   width=\"200\" height=\"200\" style=\"object-position:50% 50%\"\/>\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/atozsports.com\/nashville\/volunteers\/vols-florida-gators-legend-cheap-shot-tennessee-football-backfired-badly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA Florida Gators legend just took a cheap shot at Tennessee, and it backfired badly\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-body-small\">A Florida Gators legend took a shot at the Tennessee Vols and ended up looking foolish as a result. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tJuly 24, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Florida Gators head coach Jon Sumrall made his first comments about the Tennessee Vols at SEC Media&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,31476],"class_list":["post-352868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-tennessee-vols"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}