{"id":505283,"date":"2026-03-05T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/505283\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T13:22:08","slug":"jon-sumrall-explains-lane-kiffin-press-conference-joke-reveals-real-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/505283\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Sumrall explains Lane Kiffin press conference joke, reveals real conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Six SEC programs hauled in new head coaches for the 2026 season. Two of those coaches, Florida<\/a>\u2018s Jon Sumrall<\/a> and LSU<\/a>\u2018s Lane Kiffin<\/a>, come from programs that made the College Football Playoff last season (Tulane<\/a> and Ole Miss<\/a>). Sumrall and Kiffin have had a strong relationship for years, which culminated in Sumrall making a joke about the former Ole Miss head coach at his introductory press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I do want to be very direct on one thing\u2026 Lane Kiffin and I have been going through the same thing and we\u2019ve talked a lot. We were both in agreement that I was the right man for this job,\u201d Sumrall joked. \u201cSo, he co-signed on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sumrall joined On3\u2019s JD PicKell on the latest edition of \u2018The Hard Count with JD PicKell\u2019, where he discussed that joke and dove into his relationship with Lane Kiffin and his late father, Monty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t agree that I should take this job, but we did talk,\u201d Sumrall said. \u201cLane and I have a good relationship. Lots of respect for Lane. He\u2019s had great success, most recently at Ole Miss. He and I have had an open-line of communication for a while. In my first game as a head coach (Troy<\/a> in 2022), we played at Ole Miss. Monty, postgame, came over and spent some time with me in our locker room and that connection was real for me. I\u2019ve got a ton of respect for Monty\u2019s career, and some of the things he told me that day as a first time head coach made a tremendous impact on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon Sumrall and Lane Kiffin will embark on first season with new programs<\/p>\n

Jon Sumrall emerged as a strong candidate at Florida due to his strong resume. In four seasons as a college football head coach (two seasons at Troy and two seasons at Tulane), he\u2019s led his teams to a 43-12 record with a College Football Playoff appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonty came over and said, \u2018look man, you\u2019re doing things the right way. Your team plays with an edge and a toughness. You\u2019ve got something going here,\u2019 Sumrall continued. \u201cWell, that team started 0-1, won our next game against an FCS team, and then lost on a Hail Mary to App State<\/a>. We started the year 1-2, then won our next 11 games and finished 12-2 ranked 19th in the country at the end of the year. It was the first time Troy finished the year ranked in school history as an FBS team, so that relationship started there.<\/p>\n

\u201cLane and I have a good relationship and an open-line of communication. We talked a handful of times in November. He called me one time and we were just BSing with each other, because we were kind of going through the same thing. Then I was like, wait, no we\u2019re not. You\u2019re at Ole Miss and I\u2019m at Tulane. It\u2019s a little different. But, I have a lot of respect for him and he\u2019s a great football coach. He\u2019s a great dude and has a good sense of humor. I like interacting with him. We did have some discussions. We didn\u2019t decide who should go where. I knew Florida was going to be an opportunity for me, and I decided I want to come here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although both coaches will be embarking on their first season with new programs, they will not face each other in 2026. LSU and Florida will not clash on the gridiron until the 2027 season<\/a> in Gainesville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six SEC programs hauled in new head coaches for the 2026 season. Two of those coaches, Florida\u2018s Jon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,78563,96466,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-505283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-jon-sumrall","tag-lane-kiffin-94-jefferson","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505283","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=505283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}