Florida looks a lot different one month into the 2026 season, and Jon Sumrall has the Gators trending in the right direction. That’s the easy part. The more interesting part is what happened to the coaches who were around Florida in 2025 after they moved on.
Some landed on their feet. Some did not. And a few are stuck in situations that look familiar to anyone who watched the mess in Gainesville last year.
The former head coach - referred to here as “The Man in the Black Polo” - is now at James Madison, where he has opened 4-0. Billy Gonzales, who tried to steady Florida before the program fully went under, is at Texas as a football analyst. The Longhorns are also 4-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country, though the offense has not been especially explosive.
Ron Roberts took over as Arkansas’ defensive coordinator, and that stop has not gone smoothly. Arkansas fans are already fed up, and the Razorbacks are 102nd in scoring defense. Russ Callaway, who was part of the chaos in Gainesville, is the offensive coordinator at Tulane, where the offense sits 127th in scoring.
Jabbar Juluke moved to Texas as associate head coach on offense and running backs coach. Texas is unbeaten, but the ground game has been ordinary, with the Longhorns 117th in yards per carry. Robert Bala, who coached inside linebackers at Florida, is now the defensive coordinator at James Madison, and the Dukes are 11th in points against per game.
Vinnie Sunseri is at Georgia Tech as defensive backs coach. The Yellow Jackets have struggled overall, but their secondary has held up reasonably well, ranking 52nd in passing yards allowed per game. Rob Sale, another piece of Florida’s failed two-offensive-line-coach setup, is also at James Madison, where the line has been steady and is 36th in sacks allowed.
Gerald Chatman is the lone assistant retained by Sumrall on the Florida staff as assistant head coach and defensive line coach. The Gators’ pass rush has been productive enough to rank 16th in sacks, though there is still a sense that the number may be deceiving from play to play. Mike Peterson was also retained, though in a non-coaching role as director of alumni relations.
Jonathan Decoster, the other half of that offensive line experiment, is back in the NFL with the New England Patriots as offensive line assistant. According to PFF, the Patriots are top five in pass blocking and bottom 10 in run blocking, though that comes with the usual caveat about how much stock to put in the numbers.
Joe Houston is at LSU as special teams coordinator. The Tigers are middle of the pack in punt returns and kickoff returns, near the bottom in yards per punt, and have missed two field goals.
Ryan O’Hara, who was charged with developing DJ Lagway and later handled play-calling duties after the head coach was fired, is now offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Henderson State in Arkansas. The move feels straight out of Last Chance U, but Henderson State is 4-0. And as for Arkansas’ defense, the pass defense has actually been decent - though that may have something to do with opponents running the ball more after building big leads.
In Other News...
Jon Sumrall Just Made Floridas Secondary Concern Even Bigger
Floridas defense left the Missouri game with more questions than answers, and the secondary is right at the center of it. The Gators gave up five touchdowns on drives that began with a punt or kickoff, a jarring jump for a unit that was supposed to have enough talent in the back end to hold up better than that. Instead, explosive plays kept putting the defense in bad spots, and the overall result made the problems look bigger than a single busted coverage or one rough quarter.
Jon Sumrall did not try to dress it up afterward, saying there are multiple issues in the secondary and no simple fix waiting to clean them up. His message was blunt enough to make the concern feel even more real: Florida needs players to win their one-on-one battles. For a defense built with highly rated talent, that is a tough place to be, and it leaves the Gators staring at a problem that goes beyond scheme and into execution. [Read more 🡒]
Floridas Ranking Hit Looks Bad But One Result May Save Them
Floridas latest result did enough damage to raise questions about where the Gators land in the next AP Top 25, especially with several ranked teams around the country also stumbling. The poll is expected to shift only modestly after a weekend in which just three teams in the rankings lost, but Floridas own situation stands out because a rough outing can look worse when the rest of the field largely holds serve.
There is still a chance the Gators avoid a deeper slide, though, because the committee of voters has a few other results to weigh, including Pittsburgh staying unbeaten and teams such as UCLA, Kentucky and Boise State adding their own wrinkles to the picture. Mississippi State and Alabama are part of the same crowded conversation too, which is what makes Floridas place in the next poll so uncertain until the new rankings are revealed. [Read more 🡒]
Jon Sumrall Just Challenged Florida's Maturity After Its First Loss
Floridas first loss of the 2026 season landed hard, and Jon Sumrall did not soften the blow afterward. The No. 8 Gators were thumped by No. 25 Missouri, 45-17, in a game that exposed problems on both sides of the ball, with the head coach pointing directly to defensive breakdowns and an offense that never got its ground game going.
Sumralls criticism went beyond scheme and execution, getting at the bigger-picture issue of maturity after a defeat that had been building for the wrong reasons. With South Carolina, Texas and Georgia next on the schedule, Florida does not have much time to let the sting linger, and the response in the coming weeks will say plenty about how this team handles its first real setback. [Read more 🡒]