With Tulane in College Football Playoff, new Florida coach Jon Sumrall juggling two jobs at once

NEW ORLEANS, La. — Jon Sumrall bursts into his office, out of breath and hustling toward his refrigerator.

This is a daily routine of his: a two-mile walk with wife Ginny — the one thing, he half-jokingly says, that preserves his marriage — followed by homemade smoothies for both of them.

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Out of the fridge comes an assortment of items: vegan protein powder, creatine, frozen bananas and strawberries, milk, peanut butter, a jar of honey and wilted spinach.

“Are these OK to use?” he asks a shrugging Ginny, as he sprinkles the leafy greens into a whirling blender.

Sumrall, a 43-year-old Texas-born country boy raised in Alabama with his deepest football roots in Kentucky, is soon heading permanently to Florida. For now, he’s juggling two head coaching jobs, the one here in Louisiana, as he prepares the Tulane Green Wave (10-2) to play against Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff on Saturday, and the one 600 miles away in Gainesville.

How he’s managing to do both is simple to explain.

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“Not a lot of sleep,” he says.

Four hours of sleep a night, to be exact. It hasn’t slowed him down.

Just because he has two jobs doesn’t mean Sumrall stops his routines, like that two-mile walk, or his 5 a.m. morning runs and weight-lifting. In between, he finds himself in the midst of a College Football Playoff trip while preserving the Green Wave’s signing class and retaining current players on the roster, all while signing new players at Florida and hiring a coaching staff in Gainesville.

In a snapshot of this juggling act, on a recent Monday, Sumrall led practice in the morning in New Orleans, flew to Gainesville for his introductory news conference (he watched Tulane practice film on the flight) and then flew back Monday evening to be there for another practice Tuesday morning.

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If it sounds like a lot, it’s because it is.

“I drink SPARK [energy drink] in the morning and coffee in the afternoon,” he explains.

He’s not the only one doing this. In fact, as it turned out, his opponent in the American championship game, North Texas, had a coach, Eric Morris, who had already accepted the Oklahoma State job.

Sumrall had a plan prior to the American title game, win or lose.

“During our walk, that’s what we talked about,” he says. “Win, win or win. If the other alternative happens, here’s what we probably will do. I’ve spent more time on the win options. That’s what we want to do.”

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But why keep a coach around who’s leaving?

“We believe it’s the right thing to do for our student-athletes and it gives us the best opportunity to win those games,” athletic director David Harris says.

In his agreement in accepting the Florida job, Sumrall was clear with Florida AD Scott Stricklin: I’m coaching my team the rest of the way.

North Texas agreed to the same despite Morris heading to Oklahoma State. The same goes for James Madison, where Bob Chesney — UCLA’s new coach — will continue coaching the Dukes in the playoff.

So, yes, two playoff-bound teams are coached by men who have accepted power league jobs. Another, Ole Miss, will be led by a coach in his first month, Pete Golding, after the departure of Lane Kiffin to LSU.

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In fact, earlier this week as Sumrall discussed his big move, the televisions in his office played clips of Kiffin’s introductory news conference at LSU. Sumrall smiles and points to the screen when asked about this year’s coaching carousel.

“There’s always timing. Not to name names,” he says with a chuckle.

Kiffin’s decision to leave Ole Miss — and the Rebels promoting Golding — stopped many other dominoes falling. Last Sunday, the American conference coaching moves to the SEC fell nicely in place: Alex Golesh (USF to Auburn); Sumrall (Tulane to Florida); Ryan Silverfield (Memphis to Arkansas).

But just 10 days ago, that’s not how many expected those hires to go.

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In fact, most believed that Golesh was bound for Arkansas, Sumrall to Auburn and Florida had its sights on Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz or Washington’s Jedd Fisch if it didn’t snag Kiffin.

What happened? Florida drew the interest of Sumrall, then deep in negotiations with Auburn.

Asked about his choice, Sumrall said, “A lot of it for me was, ‘Do they believe in my vision?’ You want to do the job at a place that wants you to do the job your way.”

Sumrall’s way is tough, hard-nosed, fearless. He’s a former Kentucky linebacker and longtime defensive assistant and coordinator mostly in the South.

Sumrall took the Tulane job two years ago for a reason, he says. He wanted his next job to be one of the jobs.

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“I wanted a dream job,” he says. “Those are Florida, LSU, Texas, whatever, to me. The journey has been crazy. Knowing that I was going to go to Florida … I didn’t think about that ’til Sunday morning. Woke up Sunday morning and I was going to tell my team that day. My wife looked at me, ‘You’re going to be the head coach at the University of Florida.’ I’m like, ‘I know, it’s crazy.’”

At Florida, Sumrall will be the fifth coach in the last 13 years. The Gators have fired the last four — each of them having not lasted beyond Year 4.

Does this frighten him?

“I’m not scared. There’s not a lot that scares me. Maybe rattlesnakes,” Sumrall says. “I’m unapologetically myself. I’m going to be who I am. That job won’t change me.”

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Sumrall’s toughness comes from a tough mentor, Rich Brooks, his coach at Kentucky and the man who hired him as a graduate assistant. His organization skills? Those come from Neal Brown, the former West Virginia coach hired recently at North Texas who he worked with on the Kentucky staff.

They’ve prepared him, along with Mark Stoops, another Kentucky mentor, for this big gig.

“I worked my whole career to get this point,” he says. “It’s like a celebration but it’s the start of something special — it’s not the end. It’s a cool opportunity. I look forward to all of it — even the hard parts.”

It’s been quite a climb.

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He’s in his fourth season as a head coach — first two at Troy and last two at Tulane — and he’s lost a total of 11 games and won 43. His Troy teams won the Sun Belt in both 2022 and 2023, and his first Tulane team last year lost in the American championship game. This year, the Green Wave beat North Texas 34-21 for the conference title.

The winning has turned profitable for him and his family of six (he and Ginny have boy-girl twins and two more girls). He’ll more than double his contract at Florida at more than $7 million annual salary.

But that pales in comparison to the job itself. For instance, on Tuesday, Sumrall’s phone rang.

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It was Tim Tebow.

“He’s like, ‘You know why you’re at [the Florida] job? Your culture. You built your culture on toughness. When we were good under Urban, we were tough,’” Sumrall says. “‘We’ve watched you. You build it on toughness.’”

Tough? Like juggling two head coaching jobs while attempting to lead one team into the College Football Playoff while assembling a staff and recruiting for another?

After the Green Wave’s win over North Texas on Dec. 5, Sumrall returned to Gainesville for a few days and then flew back to New Orleans for mid-week practice in preparation for Tulane’s first-round game on Saturday.

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However, the entire Sumrall family isn’t moving to Florida until after Mardi Gras.

Why? Because the Sumralls rent a condo with other families on the parade route. The Florida coach will be back in Louisiana, at least for a few days for the annual festivities.

“I’m coming back for Mardi Gras,” he says laughing. “That’s selfish. That’s for me.”