Florida’s rough night against Missouri puts the spotlight on what comes next, and Jon Sumrall’s track record after losses offers a pretty clear pattern: his teams usually answer.
That matters now, because Florida has South Carolina and Texas sitting right in front of it. Split those games, and the conversation changes fast. Drop the South Carolina game, and everything gets dragged back into doubt.
Looking back at Sumrall’s stops at Troy and Tulane, the bounce-back results have ranged from routine to eye-opening.
At Troy in 2022, the loss to Ole Miss ended 28-10, and the next week brought a 38-17 win over Alabama A&M. That was a respectable showing against Ole Miss, with Troy keeping Jaxson Dart in check, though the follow-up win over an FCS team that went 4-7 in 2022 was probably the less impressive of the two results.
The other 2022 Troy loss came against Appalachian State, 32-28, when Troy gave up a Hail Mary at the buzzer. Sumrall has brought that game up repeatedly over the offseason, and he has also pointed to the response: a 16-7 win over Marshall, which finished 9-4 in 2022.
The 2023 Troy season was tougher. After a 42-13 loss to Kansas State, Troy lost again the following week, 16-14 to James Madison.
Coming off a strong 2022 and carrying big expectations into that season, Troy never really found its footing in those first two setbacks. But after that second James Madison loss, Troy steadied itself with a 27-24 win over Western Kentucky and then rolled into a winning streak that carried through the rest of the regular season.
Tulane’s 2024 season showed a similar pattern, though the losses were harder to nitpick. A 34-27 loss to Kansas State was followed by a 34-19 loss to Oklahoma, and both games pushed Power Four opponents.
The next week, Tulane beat Louisiana 41-33 even though Darian Mensah was held to 83 passing yards. The Green Wave still scored 41 points, and after Louisiana cut the lead to 38-33 in the fourth quarter, Tulane answered with a 7-minute, 35-second drive that ended in a field goal.
That kind of sequence is one of the reasons Sumrall has been described as someone who can get conservative late and lean on the clock.
The end of that Tulane season went sideways. A 34-24 loss to Memphis was followed by a 35-14 loss to Army, and Tulane went from being a possible Group of Five playoff representative to not even winning the conference after a blowout in the American Conference title game.
The final Tulane loss of that stretch, a 33-8 bowl loss to Florida, doesn’t really belong on Sumrall’s ledger in the same way. Tulane was missing a number of players by then, including Mensah, who had opted out of the bowl game.
In 2025, Tulane opened with a blowout loss to Ole Miss that probably should have been closer, then handled Tulsa in a win that was fine considering Tulsa went 4-8 last year. After a bad loss to UTSA, Tulane’s win over Memphis stood out as the biggest of Sumrall’s career to that point, keeping the Green Wave at the front of the American Conference race and preserving their playoff hopes.
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Florida Faces Immediate Heat As SEC Picks Turn To South Carolina
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Browns recruitment is still very much open, with Texas also on his schedule, but Floridas interest speaks to how much the staff values his upside. For a program trying to build toward a more dynamic future attack, landing a receiver with his profile would be a meaningful statement, even if the race to get him to flip is only beginning. [Read more 🡒]
Aaron Philo Suddenly Faces Early Pressure Florida Fans Can Feel
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South Carolina is next, and the timing adds another layer to the conversation around Floridas offense. The Gators do not have much time to sort through what went wrong or to make sure Philo and the rest of the unit are better prepared for another SEC test, which is why this week carries a little extra weight for a team looking to rebound quickly. [Read more 🡒]