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Marler Monday: Florida may have won the SEC coaching carousel war

Dec 8, 2025 | 1:27 PM
Jon Sumrall

Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

By Chris Marler

Florida fans have become used to being the butt of the joke. A program that used to run this conference for nearly two decades under Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer has fallen off while some of their biggest rivals have thrived. 

Just like wearing a pair of jeans that go past the knee, that hasn’t sat well with Gators fans. 

Watching the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes turned into a depressing saga for Florida. Not only did you miss out on your number one choice, but the confidence many around the program had that it was a done deal made the optics look worse. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, one of your biggest rivals ended up landing him a week later. 

The immediate aftermath from fans wasn’t great. After they signed Jon Sumrall from Tulane, many were still furious with the move. 

I understood the reaction, even if it was misplaced. It stung their ego after what felt like another public hit to the program’s relevancy with the entire college football world watching.

Next came the irrational takes about why Sumrall was a terrible hire. Most of that sentiment was rooted in the fact that he was yet another G5 head coach from the state of Louisiana and he wasn’t their first choice. The thought of Billy Napier 2.0 is enough to make anyone in Gainesville go off the deep end. But don’t let Billy Napier PTSD cloud your judgment. 

Jon Sumrall was a great hire, and after hiring Buster Faulkner as their offensive coordinator, there’s a legitimate case to be made that they are the leaders in the clubhouse after this historic SEC coaching carousel.

First of all, the lazy narrative comparing Sumrall to Napier is tired. It’s wrong, predictable, and exactly the kind of take you expect from low hanging fruit social media and fired up fans. The funniest part? Before Lane Kiffin’s name ever entered the chat, Jon Sumrall was the hottest coaching candidate in the country.

Auburn wanted him, LSU would have definitely considered it as an option if Kiffin fell through, and there’s a reason why his name was immediately linked to Ole Miss after Kiffin left. Losing Lane Kiffin sucks, but getting a guy that was the frontrunner at three to four other jobs in your league is a huge win. 

That was the extent of my feelings on Sumrall at the time. I haven’t watched a lot of Tulane football, and I couldn’t tell you his offensive or defensive identity or schematic approach. It was a popular name landing at the second best job available – done and done. 

Then, he made his first hire. It doesn’t feel like enough people are talking about how big of a home run Florida and Sumrall hit by hiring Faulkner. Not only has he overseen some of the best, most creative and most efficient offenses in the country in the last five years, but few people have done more with less at that position. There’s a reason why Football Scoop just named him the 2025 Offensive Coordinator of the Year, and Georgia fans were clamoring for him to return to Athens and replace Mike Bobo after last season. 

We talk about how great a head coach is based on wins and losses, top 25 wins or how many trophies they’ve put on the shelf. We often discredit how good a coach can be if they have a loaded roster and elite talent everywhere. That whole Jimmies and the Joes not X’s and O’s cliche isn’t wrong. But, arguably the most important part of a head coach’s success is who he hires on his staff, especially at the coordinator position. 

Think about the Nick Saban teams with Kirby Smart and Lane Kiffin versus Tommy Rees and Kevin Steele. Think about Gene Chizik’s 2010 year with Gus Malzahn calling plays. Or, Ed Orgeron refusing a raise before making sure he could make Dave Aranda the highest paid defensive coordinator in football at the time. 

It’s one of the reasons why Lane Kiffin retaining Blake Baker felt almost essential. In terms of Kiffin and Baker, or even Kiffin and Pete Golding, you had an elite offensive play caller and a good defensive coordinator. With Orgeron, you had a guy who was the worst coach in Ole Miss history win a national title because of who he surrounded himself with at the coordinator position. That’s not to compare this hire or upcoming Florida teams to 2019 LSU or the Bama dynasty days. 

But, having Faulkner puts you in a position where you can afford to have even just an average defense and still feel confident that you can win almost every game you play. 

One of the biggest failures of the Billy Napier era was the offense and its regression year after year. It’s one of the reasons the disdain for Napier continued to grow as he refused to give up playcalling. There aren’t any national championship winners in the last decade that have had a head coach calling plays. Steve Sarkisian is a perfect example of how difficult it can be. So, seeing Sumrall hand the keys to an OC and get out of his way is a huge breath of fresh air. 

While there may be some hesitation on whether or not Faulkner will succeed in this league with the talent at Florida, the track record should put those worries to rest. 

Faulkner spent three years as the OC at Georgia Tech. Prior to that, he was the QB coach at Georgia. While at Georgia, he helped turn a former two-star recruit into a Heisman trophy finalist in Stetson Bennett and Georgia QBs ranked No. 4 in the FBS in passer rating during his two years. 

When he got to Georgia Tech, the Jackets were a disaster offensively. The year before his hire (2022) they ranked 125th in scoring, 113th in yards per game and 115th in yards per play. They ranked in the top 43 nationally in all three categories in year one under Faulkner, while averaging 14 more ppg, 100 more ypg and 1.5 more yards per play than the previous season. In his three years Tech ranked in the top 40 in FBS in yards per game and yards per play. This season, the Jackets were 25th in scoring, 12th in yards per game and seventh in yards per play. 

Under Napier, Florida’s offense got statistically worse every single year in points scored and yards gained. His first team in 2022 ranked 38th in total yards, 20th in yards per play and 57th in scoring. By the end of his tenure, they were ranked 104th, 91st and 110th, respectively in the same categories. 

It’s harder than ever to win in the SEC, and next year the conference will move to a nine game conference schedule making it worse. There are plenty of factors that will ultimately determine Sumrall’s success in Gainesville, but in just two weeks he’s already stopped the Gators from being the punchline, and he might end up being every bit as strong a hire as the coach they originally wanted.

Chris Marler

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