GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Jon Sumrall started his first public comments as the Florida Gators’ head coach by acknowledging the elephant in the room: He is not Lane Kiffin.

“We’ve talked a lot,” Sumrall said of the now-former Ole Miss coach. “We were both in agreement that I was the right man for this job.”

The visor-wearing, high-scoring, joke-cracking Kiffin seemed like a perfect match for Florida, so any coach athletic director Scott Stricklin introduced Monday was destined to feel like an uninspired Plan B after Kiffin picked LSU. But Sumrall’s resume presents another challenge.

On paper, he looks a lot like the coach (Billy Napier) whom Stricklin fired in October. There’s a reason “Billy Napier 2.0” was trending in some corners of social media this weekend.

When Florida hired Napier four years ago, he was a 42-year-old from a Group of 5 team in Louisiana (the Ragin’ Cajuns) with four years as a head coach in the Southeast and a reputation as a strong program builder. He was a decorated former SEC assistant who was courted by other SEC programs (like Auburn) and had a 39-12 career record going into a conference title game.

Sumrall is a 43-year-old from a Group of 5 team in Louisiana with four years as a head coach in the Southeast and a reputation as a strong program builder. He’s a decorated former SEC assistant who was courted by other SEC programs (like Auburn) and has a career record of 42-11 going into Friday’s American Conference title game.

“You’re not going to eliminate a pool of candidates just because they fit a certain narrative that coincidentally lined up with somebody else,” Stricklin said. “You just listen to him.”

What Stricklin heard is a coach with significant differences from the one who went 22-23 at Florida.

Napier had a strong head coaching start at one school, Louisiana; Sumrall did it at Troy (two Sun Belt titles in two years) and again at Tulane. Stricklin put a lot of stock in that fact, comparing it to how Urban Meyer won big immediately at both Bowling Green and Utah … then won a pair of national championships at Florida.

Sumrall also met expectations in a way Napier didn’t. Although Napier’s 16-3 record in one-score games at Louisiana looked nice, his Ragin’ Cajuns were favored by at least a dozen points in 11 of those contests (not including a tight win over FCS Nicholls State). By that measure, Napier’s teams underachieved by turning what could have been comfortable wins into nailbiters — especially considering the fact that Louisiana had bigger budgets than most of its Sun Belt peers. When Napier faced future Power 4 head coaches in his first two Sun Belt title games, he lost to Appalachian State (led by Scott Satterfield and Eliah Drinkwitz).

Sumrall has also benefited from working at Troy and Tulane, which are among the most resourced programs in the Sun Belt and American. But it’s harder to poke holes in a resume that includes a 28-4 conference record, a trip to the American’s title game last year and a College Football Playoff appearance (if his Green Wave beat North Texas on Friday). He’s 15-4 in one-possession games, but his team was favored by more than a dozen points in only two of those victories. He won at the level he should have.

Jon Sumrall honed in on retaining talent as a goal for the Gators. (Alan Youngblood / USA Today Network)

Of Napier’s 40 wins at Louisiana, 34 were started by a standout quarterback (Levi Lewis) he inherited. Napier deserves credit for developing Lewis into the No. 2 passer in program history, but Sumrall hasn’t had that luxury. Darian Mensah starred last year at Tulane before transferring to Duke as one of the highest-paid players in the portal. Sumrall replaced him over the summer with BYU transfer Jake Retzlaff and beat Mensah’s Blue Devils in September.

The timing of both hires is also significant. When Napier first established himself as a head coach, neither the transfer portal nor name, image and likeness existed. Roster building/management were drastically different than what he had to do at Florida, where, as he liked to say, the Gators had to build the plane as they flew it.

While Napier stressed the importance of recruiting in his introductory news conference, Sumrall said talent retention is the top priority. That’s a reflection of the fact his entire head coaching tenure has been in the NIL/portal era. Mensah was one of 18 starters Tulane lost from last season’s 9-5 team; Sumrall shrugged off that attrition and added another regular-season win.

Some of the other key points have yet to play out. Gators legend Danny Wuerffel, who participated in every coaching interview, said Sumrall will bring different coordinators to Florida. That’d be a contrast from Napier, who brought much of his Louisiana staff with him and was exposed accordingly.

Even if Sumrall does have similarities with his predecessor, the situation he took over is drastically different. The $85 million building he entered Monday didn’t exist when Napier started, and Sumrall will benefit from the support staff, infrastructure and roster depth Napier created. The Gators are also “reimagining” their front office by hiring former Jaguars general manager David Caldwell as their GM. Stricklin said Florida considered a similar move last year but didn’t go all in.

“Oklahoma did,” Stricklin said. “They reaped some immediate benefits.”

We don’t know whether Sumrall and the Gators will follow the Sooners and quickly compete for the CFP. The roster isn’t set. The early signing period starts Wednesday, and Sumrall still has at least one more game to coach at Tulane.

But Sumrall said everything Monday that a Florida coach should say. He name-dropped Meyer, Steve Spurrier and Tim Tebow while bringing up the Gators’ commitment to all sports and the need to light up scoreboards with high-scoring offenses. No, he didn’t wear a visor like Spurrier or Kiffin. But that doesn’t mean he’s Billy Napier 2.0, either.

“Judge me for who I am,” Sumrall said. “I’m a winner, and we’re gonna win. Just give me a shot.”