Myrick Minute: The arranged marriage of Alex Golesh and Jon Sumrall

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Alex Golesh and Jon Sumrall are two coaches forever linked at the hip, coming into their first year in the SEC at historic football programs.

It is no secret that Auburn was considering then-Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall to come in as the new head coach of the Tigers' football program. The Tigers joined the search for the new head man after a 10-3 loss to Kentucky at home, which led to the firing of head coach Hugh Freeze. A tenure that the majority of Auburn fans were ready to move on from weeks, maybe even a year, before the firing.

Sumrall is married to an Auburn graduate, and I'm sure that will be mentioned at nauseam on the broadcast Saturday night between Auburn and Florida. The thing you should know from this is that yes, it did seem like a perfect marriage of Sumrall and Auburn football. A man with family ties to the program, and a man who coached a team that is two hours down the road from Auburn. He led the Troy football program from 2022-2023 and in those two years claimed two Sun Belt Championships.

Instead, the Tigers hired then South Florida head coach Alex Golesh. It was announced on Sunday, November 30, 2025, that Golesh would become the 33rd head coach of the Auburn football program. Golesh had been the head coach at South Florida, leading them to three winning seasons after taking over that program that had only one win the year before his arrival. Now he is tasked with turning around a ship at Auburn that is coming off five straight losing seasons.

A look at the Gators in Gainesville, Florida: they have four losing seasons in their last five. The last winning season was 2024 that saw the Gators go 8-5 under Billy Napier. Instead of a loss, it was a 23-21 win over Mississippi State that led to the Gators putting an end to Napier's time in the Swamp. Their program and fans chased the bell of the ball of the 2025 coaching search, Lane Kiffin. A situation that really was the Gators being used to increase that number on Kiffin's contract with his eventual landing spot in LSU.

Florida pulled the trigger on Jon Sumrall, the same day as the Golesh was announced to come in for the Tigers. A conversation around how close the Tigers are to getting Sumrall will always be speculation until the true answer is said via an interview or documentary. Both of these coaches are coming from the American, taking over a program trying to get their feet under them. SEC coordinator experience, with Alex Golesh being the offensive coordinator at Tennessee and Jon Sumrall the defensive coordinator at Kentucky.

An off-season full of back-and-forth between Auburn and Florida fans has sparked this rivalry back up. So many are arguing about who got the man they wanted. Now these two coaches are entering their first SEC game 2-0. The clash will take place in Jordan-Hare Saturday night as the Florida Gators visit the Plains. One of these coaches will walk away a winner and the other a loser with questions and disappointment. It's unfortunate because I do believe both of these coaches to be successful at this level of coaching.

Due to the coaching cycle of 2025 in the SEC, Golesh and Sumrall's careers will be compared forever. If one is successful and the other flounders, then it will be the "we should have gotten this guy" in every fan message board for the rest of time.

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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Myrick Minute: The arranged marriage of Alex Golesh and Jon Sumrall

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