Mid-Major Issues: What History Suggests About Jon Sumrall Hire
After Indiana’s 16-0 season, Florida’s hiring of former Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall raises less skepticism than it would’ve in November. But Florida isn’t new to non-power conference coaches, as Sumrall will now make three out of the program’s last four head coaches hired from non-power conference teams.
Billy Napier was the last instance of a non-power conference hire in Gainesville, and the name “Sun Belt Billy” still rings clear after a disappointing 4-8 season.
Last year, Tulane found success under Sumrall, going 11-3 with a AAC Conference championship to earn a spot in the College Football Playoff. But the Green Wave lost 41-11 in the first round to an Ole Miss team missing its head coach, Lane Kiffin.
Sumrall touted a 78.2% winning percentage, turning programs such as Troy from a consistent five-game winner from 2019-2021 into a 12-2 team in his first year.
When Sumrall initially took the job at Tulane, however, he had growing pains as he moved from the Sun Belt to the American Conference. Sumrall went 9-5 in his first year, finishing the season with a Gasparilla Bowl loss to a Florida team led by DJ Lagway, who left the Gators in December after Sumrall was hired.
Willie Fritz, Tulane’s head coach before Sumrall and now the head coach at Houston, found the transition from a non-power conference difficult, as he started his tenure with the Cougars 4-8 in 2024. In 2025, however, he turned the program around, coaching it to a 10-3 record with a Texas Bowl win against LSU.
“I know Houston had some 10-win seasons in the past, but I look at it, and 1990 was the last time Houston had 10 wins in a power conference,” Fritz said to Sports Illustrated. “To do it every single week in the Big 12 is difficult, and then to play an SEC opponent in a bowl game, every week you have to be ready to play.”
Mike Norvell showed the highs and lows when moving from a non-power conference to a Power Four school. Under Norvell, Memphis was 38-16 across four seasons. That tenure earned him a job at Florida State, where it took him a few years to get settled before he eventually coached the Seminoles to a 13-0 regular season and ACC Championship in 2023. The sky seemed to be the limit for Norvell and the Seminoles before two consecutive disappointing seasons, including 2-10 in 2024 and a midseason collapse in 2025.
Another coach worth noting is Kalen DeBoer, who was a winner at Fresno State, then immediately soared at Washington, earning a national championship appearance. His stint with the Huskies led to being handed over the six championship-winning keys left by Nick Saban at Alabama.
Curt Cignetti is the most recent and only example in the last 25 years of a non-power-conference coach winning a national championship with a Power Four team. He shifted the culture at James Madison, which had just made the jump to FBS, and then did the same at Indiana, coaching a team primarily composed of three-star recruits and transfers to a national championship win against Miami.
However, Cignetti is an outlier, and history tells a different story than that of a non-power-conference coach instantly turning a program around into a national champion.
Sumrall joins Alex Golesh (Auburn), Eric Morris (Oklahoma State), Ryan Silverfield (Arkansas) and Bob Chesney (UCLA) as Group of Five coaches making the switch to Power Four this upcoming season.
Sumrall will make his regular-season debut as Florida’s coach Sept. 5 against the visiting FAU Owls.
Category: Feature Sports News, Football, Gators Football
