{"id":313656,"date":"2025-11-25T23:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T23:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/313656\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T23:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T23:19:07","slug":"auburn-coaching-search-greg-mcelroy-names-favorite-candidate-for-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/313656\/","title":{"rendered":"Auburn coaching search: Greg McElroy names favorite candidate for job"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Tuesday\u2019s news that Oklahoma State<\/a> was hiring North Texas<\/a>\u2018 Eric Morris<\/a> as the Cowboys\u2019 next head football coach, courtesy of On3\u2019s Pete Nakos and Brett McMurphy<\/a>, the number of open Power Four coaching opportunities officially dropped to eight. <\/p>\n

And while there are more prominent and newsworthy searches at Florida<\/a> and LSU<\/a>, especially given their unabashed interest in Ole Miss<\/a> coach Lane Kiffin<\/a>, Greg McElroy<\/a> sees only one clear-cut option at Auburn<\/a> \u2014 Tulane<\/a>\u2018s Jon Sumrall<\/a>. The Tigers fired third-year head coach Hugh Freeze<\/a> on Nov. 2, one day after their disappointing 10-3 home loss to Kentucky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During Tuesday\u2019s episode of his Always College Football podcast<\/a>, McElroy detailed what makes Sumrall the perfect fit at Auburn (5-6, 1-6 SEC), which is facing a fifth consecutive losing season, something that hasn\u2019t happened on the Plains since before legendary coach Ralph \u201cShug\u201d Jordan\u2018s tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at Auburn, it\u2019s always been very intriguing, the appeal of this job, because if you have the right guy, you can win a ton of games. \u2026 I think it\u2019s very clear where this coaching search should have started, and I think it\u2019s very clear where this coaching search is likely to end, and that\u2019s with the hiring of Jon Sumrall from Tulane,\u201d McElroy said Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cThis is a guy that fits the (Auburn) archetype perfectly. He\u2019s a disciplinarian, he has great organizational control, he\u2019s got deep ties to the region. He\u2019s coached at Tulane, he\u2019s coached at Troy<\/a>, he\u2019s spent time in the SEC, and has put together a track record of punching above his weight class at both of his previous stops. I (like) how organized he is, I think as a program builder, it makes me a real believer in him being able to get things done and get Auburn going in the\u00a0 right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old Sumrall has the 24th-ranked Green Wave (9-2, 6-1 American) on the verge of accomplishing something Auburn has yet to achieve \u2014 a potential College Football Playoff berth. That would obviously require Tulane winning the American championship in two weeks and finishing the regular season as the highest-ranked Group of Five champion.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, McElroy raised a couple of questions that could complicate the Tigers\u2019 pursuit of Sumrall, namely if there will be any staffing requirements placed upon him, as well as the timing of his eventual hiring. If Auburn drags its feet ay, McElroy suggested the Tigers might lose its bargaining power, especially once other prominent jobs begin to fill their openings.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, what will he be asked to do when it comes to putting together a staff? Will he be expected to retain (defensive coordinator) DJ Durkin<\/a>, who is currently serving in the interim role? I don\u2019t know that just yet. But I think Jon Sumrall is absolutely where this search should start, and I think it\u2019d be wise for Auburn to lock this down sooner than later,\u201d McElroy added. \u201cBecause the second round \u2014 in the event Lane Kiffin leaves (for Florida or LSU), in the event that there\u2019s movement at other places \u2013 Jon Sumrall is going to start receiving a bunch of phone calls, and his price tag is going to go up. And there is an appeal for Jon Sumrall, he\u2019s from the (Huntsville) area, his wife, I believe, is an Auburn graduate. So there\u2019s a lot of appeal for him to go to Auburn. But you\u2019re going to cost yourself more money if you don\u2019t get this thing done, and get it done sooner than later.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Tuesday\u2019s news that Oklahoma State was hiring North Texas\u2018 Eric Morris as the Cowboys\u2019 next head football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,78563,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-313656","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\/313656","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=313656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}