{"id":262322,"date":"2025-10-31T06:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/262322\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T06:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T06:34:10","slug":"jon-sumrall-addresses-being-linked-to-lsu-other-coaching-openings-theres-no-distractions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/262322\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Sumrall addresses being linked to LSU, other coaching openings: ‘There’s no distractions’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Sumrall<\/a> is one of the bigger candidates for this offseason\u2019s coaching carousel<\/a>, as he has already been linked to several openings in the Power Four<\/a>. However, Sumrall is completely and totally focused on his own team and their season rather than anything else regarding him elsewhere in college football<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Tulane<\/a> vs. UTSA<\/a> on Thursday night in San Antonio, \u2018SportsCenter\u2019 was on site, and ESPN\u2019s Matt Barrie was able to ask Sumrall about these rumors in a conversation on Wednesday. He said he couldn\u2019t be any less distracted by his name coming up like it is, with his mind still currently all-in on the season for the Green Wave.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no distractions with me. I addressed it in the summer with our team. I said, \u2018Hey, we have success, we\u2019re going to talk about where maybe some coaches should go or, when a player has success, they\u2019re going to talk about where that player should transfer<\/a>,\u2019 A la Darian Mensah<\/a>, our quarterback last year. Had success, and people wanted to pay him more money<\/a> than we could pay him,\u201d Sumrall said. \u201cThere\u2019s no distractions. Like, I\u2019m all-in to Tulane. I\u2019m so focused on this team. The only team I\u2019m coaching is Tulane, and I could not be more blessed to do it. I do it with great people, at a great place and a place I love to live, and I\u2019m excited about what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This comes after, earlier yesterday, Sumrall addressed his candidacy for other jobs more fully while with the local media<\/a>, namely after this past week with another job opening just up the road in the Southeastern Conference with LSU<\/a> firing Brian Kelly<\/a>. He understood the job that they all had to do in asking those questions about his future, but he just provided similar answers in his own focus on only Tulane.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the elephant in the room?\u201d Sumrall jokingly said ahead of the first question on the matter. \u201cI\u2019m kidding. Yeah.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019ll say this \u2013 and, Jeff, I love you. I love all y\u2019all for being here. Y\u2019all cover our program<\/a> and I\u2019m grateful for it. You got a job to do. You got to ask that question. I got a job to do. It\u2019s to coach the Tulane football team. I\u2019ve dealt with it every year as a head coach. I understand it comes with the territory. I get those questions because we\u2019re having success. That\u2019s about our players. The coaching carousel, to me, is not even a thought because we\u2019re in the midseason phase. So, whatever else somebody wants to do, another program wants to do, what people want to speculate? They\u2019re free to do that\u2026And so, whatever is going on out there in that world? That\u2019s great for people to speculate. Man, just like you got a job to do to ask me that question? I got a job to do, and that\u2019s coach this football team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, this isn\u2019t anything new either for Sumrall. He has had to address storylines like these ever since becoming a collegiate head coach in December of 2021, having a current overall record of 38-10 (.792) with two seasons apiece so far at Troy and Tulane. He led the Trojans to a record of 23-4 (.582) and a pair of championships in the Sun Belt before now having the Green Wave at 15-6 (.714), with an appearance last year in the American Championship and having them right back in contention this year, both in the American<\/a> and potentially even for the CFP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, because he had handled it before, Sumrall decided to change his method in addressing this sort of thing before this season ever kicked off. He told his team that everyone in their program, including himself, should be completely bought into what they\u2019re doing until whatever the last game of the season is for them, and that\u2019s where his mind is still locked in \u2013 even as of this very moment in prepping for the Roadrunners.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the summer, we did a speaker series\u2026At the end of July, the guest speaker was me. I talked to our team, and I said, \u2018Hey guys, here\u2019s the deal.\u2019 I didn\u2019t address distractions that come up in the season last year very well. I think we had maybe some players that were distracted. I\u2019m never distracted. Like, I mean, I\u2019m so freakin\u2019 micro-focused on how do we just get a little bit better every day. But I pulled back the curtain for our team and I said, \u2018Guys, there\u2019s coach movement, there\u2019s player movement.\u2019 Our players have got agents now, you know, right? Like, we\u2019re the NFL<\/a>. So, we got more player movement now than the NFL does. <\/p>\n

Sumrall probably couldn\u2019t have put it much plainer as far as being a candidate to be the head coach of several other programs. He\u2019s looking only at the rest of their season, continuing tonight for Tulane against Texas-San Antonio, and that\u2019s that for someone who\u2019s still the coach of the Green Wave.<\/p>\n

\u201cUTSA has my 100% focus,\u201d Sumrall said. \u201cOur team playing the best it can has my 100% focus. We haven\u2019t played our best yet. I\u2019m a little bit, like, urgent and nauseous in fear-complacency because we haven\u2019t played very good yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to address this stuff with our team in the season very much, so my way of addressing it is looking them in the eye and going, hey, no distractions, everybody good? Good. Let\u2019s freakin\u2019 get ready for practice. I\u2019m not distracted by any of it. I\u2019m trying to go 1-0 on Thursday night. That\u2019s it\u2026That\u2019s got my focus \u2013 fully.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Sumrall is one of the bigger candidates for this offseason\u2019s coaching carousel, as he has already been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,78563,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-262322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jon-sumrall","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}