TAMPA, Fla. — College football’s calendar compromised Tulane and Ole Miss’s first round playoff matchup.
Lane Kiffin bolted for LSU, and Jon Sumrall had accepted the job at Florida while sticking with Tulane. That meant recruiting for the Gators and coaching the Green Wave for a couple of weeks.
Sumrall and Kiffin stayed in touch.
“Lane and I talked as we were going through,” Sumrall said. “He was like, you and I are going through the same thing in November. I was like, ‘No, Lane, we’re not. If you leave, you’re leaving an SEC school to go to another SEC school. It’s a little different. I’m leaving Tulane.'”
Sumrall is celebrated in New Orleans after two great seasons with the Green Wave including a conference title and a playoff berth. Kiffin has been vilified in Oxford despite his success.
Sumrall sees the differences.
“I would say no two decisions are alike,” Sumrall said. “Lane and I are friends and we 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.”
The results were no different. Kiffin’s Rebels blasted Tulane 45-10 in September and 41-10 post-Kiffin in the CFP.
It didn’t matter who was leading the Rebels. The SEC talent level dwarfed Tulane’s American Conference championship roster. Sumrall still doesn’t have any regrets.
“I wouldn’t have done it any other way,” Sumrall said. “I may have on the front end 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 told me I couldn’t coach in the playoff game, I don’t think I would’ve taken the job just because I couldn’t leave the team I had coached all year.”
Kiffin tried to stick around, but the tension in Oxford became untenable. It boiled over the day following Ole Miss’s Egg Bowl win over Mississippi State and created the chaos of Thanksgiving weekend that resulted in Kiffin being introduced at LSU.
“So, the calendar we have in college football right now going from being a one-semester sport essentially to now we are playing our championship game in late January, it doesn’t match up with the movement of coaches and players very well, so it’s cumbersome to say the least,” Sumrall said. “I did not envy Lane’s situation at all. When we would talk, I felt awful for what he was going through and everybody involved because it wasn’t fair to anyone.”
