Jon Sumrall on receiving comparisons to Billy Napier amid hiring at Florida: ‘I’m not real smart, but I’m not real stupid either’

When former Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall was hired at Florida this offseason, it marked the second-straight coaching hire by the school to come from a G5 program. Previously, Florida brought on former Louisiana head coach Billy Napier ahead of the 2022 season. During his tenure in Gainesville, Napier led the Gators to an underwhelming 22-23 (12-16) record across 45 games prior to being fired seven games into the 2025 season. During SEC Network’s ‘New Era’ special Friday night, Sumrall revealed he didn’t believe he was getting the Florida job due to the comparisons to Napier. He revealed bluntly that he could see the comparisons, which he believed would lead to him not getting hired. He claimed that he’s ‘not real smart, but not real stupid either,’ when it comes to not having blinders on. “We did the Zoom, but I really kind of went into it like… I told my wife ‘there’s no way I’m getting the Florida job. This isn’t happening. I’m like ‘I’m not getting the job, but I’ll do the Zoom.’ There was probably enough similarities with me and Billy (Napier) with our backgrounds resume wise. I’m not real smart, but I’m not real stupid either. “I can go, ‘hey, he was a G5 coach most recently at a school in Louisiana.’ I was most recently a G5 coach most recently in the state of Louisiana. Hey, I had coached in the Sun Belt previously. He came here from the Sun Belt. There was enough similarities where I was like, they may not feel comfortable making me the guy. Now, I’m my own person. I don’t try to be anybody else. But, I have enough awareness to think that might optically might not be the sell they want to try and make.” Jon Sumrall feels blessed to be the head coach at Florida Across his four seasons as a head coach, Sumrall is 43-12 (two seasons at Troy, two seasons at Tulane). He won a conference crown in three of those four seasons, and even led the Green Wave to the College Football Playoff last season. A former Kentucky linebacker, the SEC isn’t foreign to someone like Sumrall. While not taking a direct shot at Lane Kiffin for leaving Ole Miss high and dry ahead of last season’s CFP, Sumrall made his feelings clear on his career timeline during last week’s SEC Media Days. “How you walk into a place says a lot about you and how you leave says even more,” Sumrall said Wednesday. Sumrall clarified that he and Kiffin are friends and their decisions to move to Florida and LSU were different. Funny enough, Florida was also in pursuit of Kiffin as their top candidate. “Well, I’d say no two decisions are alike. You know, like Lane and I are friends, and Lane and I talked several times through the process of October, November about what it was looking like for both of our schedules of how things were going to unfold,” Sumrall said. “Lane and I talked as we were going through it. He’s like, ‘you and I are going through the same thing in November.’ I’m like, ‘no, Lane, we’re not. If you leave, you’re leaving an SEC school to go to SEC school. It’s a little different. I’m leaving Tulane.’ It was challenging to do it. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I may have on the front end of taking this job, maybe not been at my best every second for Florida because I wanted to make sure I left Tulane the right way. If any university had told me I couldn’t coach in the playoff game, I don’t think I’d have taken the job just because I couldn’t leave the team I had coached all year. That’s one of the issues.” On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this article.