Jon Sumrall hit the ground running at Tulane and led the Green Wave to an American Conference championship in 2025 four days after being named Florida's head coach. (Photo: Courtesy of Tulane University Athletics)
Jon Sumrall Series, Part VII: Another Stop, Another Step On Way To Florida
Friday, September 4, 2026 | Football, Scott Carter
Share:
By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
Editor's note: This is the seventh and final installment in a series that tells the journey of Gators head coach Jon Sumrall, from his birth in Texarkana, Texas, to his formative years in Huntsville, Alabama, to his time playing and suffering a career-ending injury at the University of Kentucky. From there, the series discusses the birth of his coaching career in Lexington and San Diego. Finally, his multiple stops at Troy and Tulane paved the way for him to the University of Florida.
NEW ORLEANS — As rain trickled off the moss-draped live oak trees across the Tulane campus on an early July morning, students hurried to class under umbrellas.
Seven months earlier on a cold Friday night at Yulman Stadium, raindrops chilled the crowd as the Tulane football team faced North Texas in the American Conference Championship Game. The night ended in celebratory fashion as the Green Wave, in head coach Jon Sumrall's final home game, beat the Mean Green to earn the program's first berth in the College Football Playoff.
Sumrall had been introduced as Florida's new head coach four days prior, adding to the emotions of the night. His parents, Sandy and George Sumrall — George passed away two weeks later — beamed as Sumrall raised the championship trophy into the wet sky. His wife, Ginny, and the couple's four kids navigated the hectic scene, cutting through the fans who rushed the field to join Sumrall in the roped-off trophy-presentation area. Jon Sumrall with his parents on the night Tulane won the 2025 American Conference Championship Game. (Photo: Courtesy of the Sumrall family)
The Green Wave still had a game to play, a loss at Ole Miss in the CFB Playoff, but the job was finished. Sumrall delivered Tulane a championship in his second season.
"Guys play hard for him,'' said former Tulane offensive lineman Michael Parenton, who is now vice president of pro personnel for the New Orleans Saints. "He's got total control and command of what he's doing. He's just a ball coach who loves his players and loves coaching football, and he's going to do the best he can every single day."
As he had at Troy, Sumrall quickly won over the people around his new program in New Orleans.
Tulane introduced Sumrall on Dec. 11, 2023, three days after announcing that he would replace Willie Fritz, who left after eight seasons to become head coach at the University of Houston.
As part of his job, Jason Corriher, Tulane's associate athletic director for strategic communications, works closely with the head football coach and local media covering the team. Corriher crammed like a Tulane student pulling an all-nighter trying to learn as much as he could about Sumrall before the introductory press conference.
"I remember reading one of the many stories,'' Corriher said. "Somebody said there are coaches who just have it, and whatever that it is, Jon Sumrall has it."
Before long, Corriher understood firsthand what he had read.
"He's one of the most impressive people I've come across, no matter what sport or part of the business that they're in,'' Corriher said. "He earns trust easily. He understands transparency with regard to relationship building. You want to meet his standard because of how he invests in you."
Sumrall inherited a program in better shape than he had at Troy. After a 31-43 record in his first six seasons, Fritz went 23-4 in his final two at Tulane, winning the American Conference title in 2022, the program's first conference championship since Tommy Bowden's team went 12-0 in 1998. Sumrall's mission wasn't just to maintain, but to build and continue to position the Green Wave for success in the ever-changing NIL and transfer-portal era of college football.
Jon Sumrall is firing up his team before a game at Tulane. (Photo: Courtesy of Tulane University Athletics)
He won his debut, and after back-to-back losses to No. 17 Kansas State and No. 15 Oklahoma, Tulane reeled off eight consecutive victories before losing to Memphis in the regular-season finale. Tulane faced Army for the American Conference title and lost on the road.
The Green Wave entered the Gasparilla Bowl with a roster affected by the transfer portal, including the departure of starting quarterback Darian Mensah to Duke, and lost to the Gators to end Sumrall's first season.
"He had a little adversity in his first year at Tulane because they had a really, really good team,'' said beat writer Guerry Smith, who covers the program for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "And then Mensah started telling people he was leaving before the end of the year, and the team went into the tank."
Sumrall went back to work, rebuilt the team through recruiting and the transfer portal, and while most observers considered his first Tulane team more talented, the 2025 Green Wave went 11-3 and beat Mensah's Duke team at home in the third game of the season. Mensah's replacement, BYU transfer Jake Retzlaff, passed for 245 yards and rushed for 111 yards and four touchdowns.
As the Green Wave won five in a row before losing to Ole Miss – one of those wins was against Florida Atlantic, Florida's opponent in Sumrall's UF debut on Saturday night – Sumrall's name began to surface once more for openings at larger programs.
Success breeds opportunity, and for Sumrall, Tulane will always hold a special place because it's where he first moved up the ladder when he left FCS program San Diego after the 2011 season to become co-defensive coordinator at Tulane. Ginny and Jon Sumrall during their time at Tulane. (Photo: Courtesy of New Orleans magazine)
"Tulane was sort of one of those career breaks,'' he said. "I got a chance to be a FBS full-time position coach and co-coordinator. I'm not even 30. You look back, that's what jump-started my career path or acceleration."
Sumrall finished 20-8 in his two seasons leading the Green Wave, taking Tulane to the conference championship game in both seasons the way he did at Troy. He has won three conference titles in his four seasons as a head coach.
Each stop prepared Sumrall for the next. At Tulane, he proved his formula could work in a different environment, with different challenges.
Ginny Sumrall joined her husband's coaching journey when they were married in 2011, his final season at San Diego. The sport has changed drastically over the past 15 years.
Sumrall has learned something at every stop, perhaps nowhere more than his time as Tulane's head coach.
"Tulane was on board with revenue sharing,'' Ginny said. "Getting to experience that was important. He had a formula that worked at Troy, so taking that to Tulane and being successful again really builds confidence because it's a completely different group of kids, some new coaches, you're adding more new people.
"I will say that one conference championship loss — that was a hard year. He took all of that and turned it around for the next year. I mean, it was awesome. He made those players buy in through the end."
His impact extended beyond his own locker room.
"Jon has this great presence,'' Parenton said. "We hit it off. I've been to practices. I've been to team meetings. I've been to games. I've been to staff cookouts. There's like zero schtick to him."
Joe Sumrall (left) and Jon Sumrall(right) with their mother before Jon's final game as Tulane coach at Ole Miss. (Photo: Courtesy of the Sumrall family)
Sumrall has made the same first impression at Florida as he did at Troy and Tulane. Joe Sumrall, his older brother, has seen this movie before.
He follows his brother's teams as closely as possible; his phone calls are always supportive, whether after a win or a loss. He knows diehard fans often have much hotter takes.
But if they ask Joe, they'll be convinced his little brother is going to get the job done.
"He won at Troy. He won at Tulane. He's won everywhere he's been," Joe Sumrall said. "I'm excited for him because this is a great opportunity at a great institution. You gotta win. He knows that. I think he has taken the tradition of Florida and just run with it."
What about Smith, the reporter? He covered Sumrall's entire run at Tulane. A New Orleans native who spent two decades covering the Gators before returning home in 2008, Smith understands Florida and the expectations.
He was around for Steve Spurrier's heyday, Ron Zook's roller coaster, and Urban Meyer's madness.
Few people who watched Sumrall at Tulane understand the Florida program better than Smith.
"From all I've seen, he should be able to handle it,'' Smith said. "He just hasn't been in that situation before. I've covered some NFL, too. And Jon Sumrall is absolutely – in terms of dealing with – the number one guy. Obviously, that's a media perspective.
"But he's also one of the best coaches I've covered, too."
