Florida football coach Jon Sumrall weighs in on NCAA eligibility chaos

The hot-topic debate over former professional players returning to college rages on, but the issue has yet to make its way into college football.  

At the center of the debate has been Alabama basketball’s center, Charles Bediako, who has challenged the NCAA’s eligibility rules in court. The Florida‘s basketball program recently faced Bediako head-on after the power of a temporary restraining order from a local circuit court.

Florida football coach Jon Sumrall was asked to weigh in on the controversy during a press conference.

“I wasn’t planning on sharing this today, but we’re going to file a temporary restraining order and see if Tim Tebow can play short yardage and goal line, quarterback,” said a joking Sumrall in a press conference on Feb. 4. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with all that. Like, I don’t understand it. I’m not smart enough to figure it out. I’m not going to make any statements that’s going to be bulletin board other than Tebow probably here because I’m not smart enough to understand all this legal stuff.

Sumrall sat courtside in the Gators’ matchup against Bediako on the hardwood, as Florida was undeterred and defeated the Crimson Tide.

“To me, you’re either in college or you’re pro; which one are you?” Sumrall said. “We’re going to coach who they let us coach and recruit who they let us recruit. But the problem is I think that’s such a moving target that you don’t know who’s allowed to play, and the rule may change tonight or tomorrow or whatever.

“I don’t know. But yeah, we’ll see if Tebow gets his years I want back.”

Since the Gators’ basketball game, former Charlotte Hornets player Amari Bailey is preparing a legal battle to return to college, while Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar has been granted a temporary restraining order against NCAA eligibility rules by a Knoxville judge. Aguilar, 24, has spent seven years in college football, but now seeks an eighth.

“I think we’ve gotten to where it’s like, hey, you can appeal to a JUCO year, a COVID year, a sixth year, a ninth year, how many years — the model has been five years to play four,” Sumrall said. “The conversation around some people with five for five (years), I don’t think is going very far because of litigation is what it sounds like to me.”

For Sumrall, one of the answers for the issue at hand was moving up the college football season by one to two weeks.

“I would love for us to move the season up a week or two, like week zero,” Sumrall said. “I think it’s asinine that — I get it, it’s all for TV and all that money, but the college football championship game, I believe, next year is January 24th. That’s absurd to me. That means the midpoint of the football season, if you play in that game, is like mid to late November.”

The issues with the calendar, transfer portal, and eligibility has directly impacted signing day for high school players.

“The other part — we could talk for an hour on this, there are some parts of this, too, we moved up the high school signing date to early December,” Sumrall said. “Well, we did that to protect the high school kids from losing their spots to transfers.

“But then right after we did that, what did we do? We moved the transfer portal back, so then it’s like, why did we move the high school signing day from the middle of December to the beginning? It’s like we fix a problem, and then we change the other part of it, and it just seems a little bit scattered.”

Sumrall, who advocated for the transfer portal, believes there needs to be a further assessment of the playoff model and calendar.

“I do think there’s still this thing called school,” Sumrall said. “Like these guys have to go to class, allegedly. The academic calendar and the football season are really not matched like it used to, which I think for us archaic football coaches and how we think is a little bit messy and a little bit unclean.

“But I think move the season up. I think start the playoffs earlier, end the playoffs earlier, make it match a little bit more closer to the old January 1st National Championship game. Maybe not the 1st, maybe it’s the 4th or whatever. But I think that would be awesome.”

Reach Florida Gators writer Andrew Abadie at AAbadie@usatodayco.com or on X (formerly Twitter) at @AndrewAbadie. You can also find him on Facebook at Andrew Abadie Sports Reporter or on Instagram @andrewabadie_sports.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida coach Jon Sumrall on NCAA eligibility, calendar change and transfer portal