\u201cJudge me for who I am,\u201d Sumrall said, via Matt Baker of The Athletic<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m a winner, and we\u2019re going to win. Just give me a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n That’s what Florida initially thought it was getting in Napier, too, who had served as an assistant for Nick Saban and also experienced considerable success with the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.<\/p>\n Instead, Napier went just 22-23 during his three-and-a-half year stint in Gainesville, leading Florida to a 1-1 mark in bowl games before getting fired midway through 2025 following a 3-4 start.<\/p>\n Sumrall began his head-coaching career at Troy in 2022 and spent two seasons with the Trojans, going 23-4 and even finishing 19th overall in the AP poll during his debut campaign after winning the Cure Bowl.<\/p>\n The 43-year-old then headed to Tulane, serving as Green Wave head coach for two years. He guided Tulane to a 10-2 regular-season record in 2025 and has the Green Wave currently ranked 21st in the top-25 poll.<\/p>\n Sumrall has gone 19-7 overall at Tulane, but just like in the case of Napier, winning in a smaller conference is certainly not the same as winning in the SEC.<\/p>\n Read more:\u00a0Clemson\u2019s Dabo Swinney Blasted for Latest Recruiting Nightmare<\/a><\/p>\n Florida has not posted a double-digit win campaign since 2019 and has only achieved that feat twice since 2013. The Gators have fallen quite far since their Tim Tebow days, when they captured a pair of championships during the 2006-07 and 2008-09 seasons. They also registered three 13-win campaigns between 2006 and 2009.<\/p>\n Perhaps Sumrall will turn things around in Gainesville, but until he actually proves himself, Florida fans will understandably remain skeptical.<\/p>\n For more on the\u00a0NCAA<\/a>, head to\u00a0Newsweek Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Gators were once one of the top football programs in the country, but they have certainly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[143,28,2530,30,29,10712,142,1538],"class_list":{"0":"post-68723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-gators","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-jon-sumrall","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-football"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68723","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=68723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2249430637.jpg\"\/)
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