Bianchi: Jon Sumrall chose Florida over Auburn and now we know why!

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AUBURN, Ala. — Maybe the most important thing Jon Sumrall did Saturday night wasn’t beating Auburn.

Maybe it was to remind everybody what Florida football is supposed to look like.

Tough. Confident. Unintimidated.

And, most importantly, relevant.

In a sold-out Jordan-Hare Stadium that was loud enough to rattle the fillings in your teeth, Sumrall walked into his first SEC game as Florida’s head coach and walked out with the sort of victory Gator fans have spent far too many Saturday nights waiting for.

Florida 44, Auburn 39.

Auburn was so fired up for this game that fireworks were shot off before kickoff, but it was beastly running back Jadan Baugh and the Gators who provided the pyrotechnics for the rest of the night and sent the sellout crowd of 88,043 heading for the exits well before the game ended

It was only one game, and the Gators did allow Auburn to score a couple of last-ditch, fourth-quarter touchdowns to make the game closer than it should have been. But when you’re trying to resurrect a program that has spent most of the past decade tripping over its own history, one victory can feel like something bigger.

Especially this game.

Especially here.

Especially against this coach.

Because Alex Golesh is the guy who helped blow up the old Florida football regime.

Jon Sumrall is the guy hired to build the new one.

And Round 1 went to Sumrall.

You remember Golesh, don’t you?

Of course you do.

He’s the Gator killer.

Last season, he brought USF into The Swamp and stunned Florida 18-16, the kind of loss that didn’t immediately get Billy Napier fired but certainly helped send his tenure careening toward the cliff. Six weeks later, Napier was gone.

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Now here was Golesh again Saturday night, this time wearing Auburn orange and blue, trying to spoil the SEC debut of Napier’s successor.

Not this time.

Not against Sumrall.

Not in Alabama, where Sumrall grew up and where he idolized the college football coaches in the state – legends like former Auburn coach Pat Dye and former Alabama coaches Bear Bryant and Gene Stallings.

“I watched those guys my whole life,” Sumrall said. “Bear Bryant died basically when I was born, but I’ve always idolized the great coaches in this state. For us to get our first SEC win with me as the head coach at Pat Dye Field, I can’t tell you what that means to me personally. One of of my most prized possessions is a picture I have in my office of Pat Dye and Bear Bryant hunting rabbits together in Moundville, Alabama.”

Well, Sumrall, came to Auburn hunting Tigers and he bagged a big one Saturday. Even though the Gators committed 16 penalties, they still took total control of the game coming out of halftime when Florida’s new starting quarterback Aaron Philo, in his first road start and his first start against a Power Four opponent, lofted a 37-yard pass to Vernell Brown III. Then, two plays later Baugh burst through the line and outran everybody for a 33-yard TD and 27-17 lead.

Then, on the very next series, Philo coolly dropped back on third-and-11 – with the crowd going bonkers – and fired a 20-yard TD strike to Dallas Wilson. The Gators led 34-17 and the game was essentially over.

But Baugh was far from done. At the outset of the fourth quarter, on a fourth-and-1 from UF’s own 47, Baugh busted through the line again for a 53-yard touchdown. He finished with 162 yards and three touchdowns on 26 carries.

Of course, there is a delicious layer of irony to all of this. Sumrall, you see, almost ended up coaching Auburn. He grew up in Huntsville. He won conference championships at nearby Troy. His wife, Ginny, is an Auburn graduate. And when Auburn fired Hugh Freeze last season, Sumrall emerged as one of the Tigers’ prime candidates.

The courtship supposedly got serious. But Sumrall had one non-negotiable demand: He was going to finish the job at Tulane and coach the Green Wave through its College Football Playoff run. It’s been reported that Florida agreed and Auburn reportedly wanted him splitting time between jobs.

Sumrall’s response to Auburn’s idea was likely something he said before the season when he was asked if he would have taken a big-time SEC job if it meant he couldn’t coach Tulane in the playoffs. Replied Sumrall: “The answer would not only have been no; it would have been hell no!”

When I asked Sumrall on Saturday night if he had mixed emotions about this game because because he interviewed at Auburn but chose Florida, he replied: “Who said I interviewed (at Auburn)? What are you talking about? They didn’t want me and I didn’t want them.”

Sumrall was likely just being coy because, ultimately, when Sumrall had to decide whether to take the Gators job, he consulted the Auburn graduate in the family.

“You’ve got to take the Florida job,” Ginny told him, according to FloridaGators.com.

On Saturday night, her husband made that advice look pretty good.

Auburn eventually hired Golesh, and somewhere in the great multiverse of college football coaching searches, you can imagine the whole thing reversed.

Sumrall coaching Auburn.

Golesh coaching Florida.

It really wasn’t that far-fetched.

Instead, two coaches making almost identical money were standing on opposite sidelines Saturday night trying to revive two programs with almost identical problems.

Florida is on its fourth head coach in nine years.

Auburn is on its fourth head coach in seven.

There was a time when that would have sounded preposterous.

There was a time when Florida-Auburn was one of the games that defined the SEC.

They played every year from 1945 through 2002. Steve Spurrier played against Auburn. Bo Jackson played against Florida. Championships and Heisman Trophy campaigns and entire seasons swung on this rivalry.

Now they barely play at all. And while they’ve been busy firing coaches, paying buyouts and conducting searches for the next savior, programs they once considered beneath them have come roaring past.

Ole Miss became a national player.

Missouri became a contender.

And Vanderbilt – Vanderbilt! – became good enough that nobody circles the Commodores as cupcake homecoming opponents anymore.

Florida and Auburn?

They became fallen aristocracy – two old-money football programs pawning the silverware and promising everybody that prosperity is just around the corner.

That’s why Saturday night mattered.

Not because one September game tells us conclusively whether Florida hired the right coach or Auburn hired the wrong one.

It doesn’t.

But somebody had to take the first step back toward being what these programs used to be.

Saturday night, it was Florida.

There will be harder nights ahead for Sumrall. There will be losses. There will be recruiting battles and NIL headaches and portal defections and angry message boards and all the other insanity that comes with coaching at a place where fans consider 9-3 an average record rather than an accomplishment.

But you have to start somewhere.

And for a Florida program that has spent too many years talking about restoring standards, rebuilding culture and getting back to where it belongs, perhaps the most refreshing thing Saturday night was that nobody had to talk about it.

The Gators actually went out and did something. They went into Jordan-Hare. They won an SEC football game. They beat a coach who helped usher out the previous Florida regime. And their new coach beat the school that wanted to hired him.

It’s September, so nobody should be printing playoff tickets or erecting a Sumrall statue outside The Swamp. But after years of false starts, failed rebuilds and expensive coaching changes, Florida finally got the sort of Saturday it has been waiting for.

A big game.

A hostile stadium.

A meaningful victory.

And maybe – just maybe – the first hint that the Florida Gators are starting to look like the Florida Gators again.

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my radio show “Game On” every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen.

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