MIRAMAR BEACH − Florida football coach Jon Sumrall joked that trying to balance his new job at UF last December while coaching Tulane through the postseason was “the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Still, Sumrall has no regrets about the decision.
The 43-year-old Sumrall took on the task of coaching Tulane through the American Conference championship game and College Football Playoff while keeping the 2026 Florida Gators recruiting class together during National Signing Day on December 3.
“I had two phones, two hours of sleep, two lives,” Sumrall said. “I don’t know if I made some good decisions in there because the phone would ring and it would be like, is this one for Florida? is this one for Tulane? Is it my wife to tell me what to bring home from the store?”
Florida gave Sumrall permission to still coach the Green Wave through the postseason after he took the UF job last Nov. 30.
But what if UF didn’t?
“I would have stayed at Tulane and not taken any other job,” Sumrall said. “I was not going to leave a team playing for a championship to go coach another team. That’s not in my DNA. I ain’t built like that. Couldn’t do it. That’s not a shot at anybody. Honestly, it’s not.”
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin left his team behind to accept the LSU job last December, only under slightly different circumstances. Kiffin wanted to coach Ole Miss through the College Football Playoffs but wasn’t given permission by the Rebels to do so. Under interim coach Pete Golding, Ole Miss made a run to the CFP semifinals before falling to Miami in the Fiesta Bowl.
Sumrall said some changes could be made to the college football calendar to make it less hectic for coaches going through December transitions, including ending the regular season earlier and moving National Signing Day back to later in December.
“The NFL has a really cool model where they play the season, the season ends, and then coaches take jobs,” Sumrall said. “Then they do roster turnovers. Then they have some practices. Then they played the season again.”
Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida football coach Jon Sumrall talks coaching Tulane through postseason