Head Coaching Candidates 2025 (Here we go again!)

[Escambia94]

Here is a final look at the coaching candidates that were vetted by UF official directly or through a firm called Turnkey. If you do not see a name here, then they were never really a candidate.

Some takeaways:
- Lane Kiffin emerged as the top candidate once Dan Lanning and Curt Cignetti announced contract extensions at their schools. It is unclear as to whether or not UF directly contacted them for vetting prior to them receiving contract extensions.
- Clark Lea was among the first to be contacted by Turnkey, but he elected to remain with his alma mater.
- Just about any candidate Florida wants is managed by Jimmy Sexton, which meant that Florida had zero leverage on the contract structure.
- My impression is that Jon Sumrall emerged as a candidate when Florida got fed up dealing with Jimmy Sexton and his push for $15M x 10-year plus 85% buyout.
- The chart below has the candidate ranked by my proprietary metric that values power conference championships (0 candidates), experience in power conferences, and OC/DC with high statistical rankings.

Name	Exp	W-L%	Team	OC	Off Rk	DC	Def Rk	Agent
Lane Kiffin​	16​	64.00%​	Ole Miss​	Charlie Weis Jr​	3​	Pete Golding​	29​	Jimmy Sexton​
Jedd Fisch​	4​	43.80%​	Washington​	John McNulty​	35​	Steve Belichik​	31​	Doug Hendrickson​
Eli Drinkwitz​	6​	67.50%​	Missouri​	Kirby Moore​	8​	Ryan Smith​	14​	Jimmy Sexton​
Jeff Brohm​	11​	62.60%​	Louisville​	Brian Brohm​	22​	Ron English​	10​	Shawn Freibert​
Brent Key​	3​	60.98%​	Georgia Tech​	Buster Faulkner​	47​	Tyler Santucci​	64​	Jimmy Sexton​
Jon Sumrall​	4​	78.90%​	Tulane​	Joe Craddock​	62​	Brandon Turner​	14​	unk​
Alex Golesh​	3​	57.14%​	USF​	Alex Golesh​	65​	Brian Blackmon​	47​	Jimmy Sexton​
Clark Lea​	5​	43.30%​	Vanderbilt​	Tim Beck​	102​	Steve Gregory​	28​	Jimmy Sexton​

 

[DRU2012]

I cannot BELIEVE we are about to voluntarily saddle ourselves with a virtual CLONE of our LAST failed Head Coach!
SUMRALL is another small time Louisiana-level mediocrity snatched from a sandlot league and showered with cash while he presumably somehow “gets on-the-job training” while flailing uselessly among the “BIG BOYS” here in the SEC!
Sound familiar?
And we are expected to be the ignorant dumbasses who spend OUR hard-earned cash supporting the move and cheering them on as they complete the steady dismantling and ultimate destruction of a once-great old program-of-champions.
Let’s see…
It’ll take at LEAST 2 or 3 years (depending on latest anticipated moronic buyout clause) as THIS STIFF predictably flounders here, even against a schedule dramatically reduced in difficulty, the eventual (and none-to-SOON) ouster of AD Boah-con-Stricklin himself before (for the first time in maybe FIFTEEN YEARS and FOUR PREVIOUSLY DOOMED SCENARIOS) a PROPER search by qualified individuals who truly CARE ABOUT THE TEAM AND PROGRAM is finally enacted.
We can only HOPE THAT there will be a fitting candidate available, one with the skills to meet the challenge and expectations involved in leading this team and program when that opportunity comes round again…We thought we HAD “HIM” NOW—in fact probably DID…late LAST season!
I won’t even bother TRYING to figure or explain whatever happened THIS time. These people have thoroughly bolluxed THIS one, much like their last few coaching choices have damn near destroyed the whole program!
What a complete and utter MESS…and worst part is we are not even THROUGH it yet: We the FANS must sit helplessly watching as the next few seemingly inevitable “resulting disasters” play out in slow motion over the next few years!
If only they’d at least bring in an imaginatively exciting “outlier/gambler”-type, someone “out of the blue” with new ideas who’d at least make CHANGES and keep things interesting. I’m not even sure who that would BE—we’ve lost some the last few years (Leach passing suddenly, Ed O. probably a poor fit at UF, NONE of them anywhere NEAR the “Call List” belonging to the people currently in charge of OUR near blind, “throw-a-dart” search).
They have REMOVED US from pursuit of the very few that fit the bill (the main one AND the supposed “2nd Choice”, anyway). No WONDER I have long since found myself sliding into hopelessness over the ensuing
weeks—It was NOT just due to what we were seeing ON THE FIELD!
The one opportunity for hope and potential salvation (one that WOULD have resulted in widespread CELEBRATION throughout Gator Nation) fumbled away: LOST, to a mainly inept rival-with-deep-pockets!
SURE, I’m angry! DISGUSTED.
Right at this moment, I can see little but more (and seeming ENDLESS) struggle and continued failure ahead for this program…AND IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.
When will it be FUN again??!

 

[Escambia94]

Welcome to the Gator Nation, Jon Sumrall!

 

[DRU2012]

Like others, I am only NOW getting missing info on exactly how we ended up in this mess.
Of course, that “missing info” was no doubt INTENTIONAL on the part of Stricklin, Gary Condron, and the rest of the back room cabal of “GATOR TRAITORS” who were intent on operating “under the radar…”
So it was that even as THEY “moved on from Lane” (NOT the other way around) based supposedly on KIFFEN’s “erratic behavior” convincing them HE had moved on (the suspicion being that Kiffen was NEVER big on having to go after Lane, who demanded so much of what Stricklin considered HIS territory)…
But it all went further than that: Suddenly surfacing last day or so has been the sly little rumor about Lincoln Riley’s supposed Gator interview having “gone poorly”…only to be followed a day later (now) that there WASN’T any actual “interview” as such—and this was more a hatchet job from those among the same aforementioned group who for their own reasons (who knows?) as with Lane didn’t want him in the first place.
All the more reason: I don’t trust ANY of them, their claims OR motives, in ANY WAY.
All in all, of course we hope for the best…I will TRY MY BEST NOT to bring my cynical pessimism directly to how I feel about Sumrall, BUT:
I cannot help my strong feeling that we have been forced, AGAINST OUR WILL AND CHOICE, into at least 3 or 4 more YEARS of underwhelming mediocrity with this hire…
And I just will not TAKE it calmly, smoothly as it proceeds in that direction, should it indeed DO so.
Unfortunately, that bafflingly indefensible extension of Stricklin’s contract offered and signed before this season makes soon firing him that much more difficult and unlikely. Put THAT together with this hire, and you see before us a potential roadblock on the road to any possible proper “future adjustment”—a chance to “clear the way” by CLEANING OUT the various villains clogging any path to real improvement and success.

 

[Escambia94]

Florida lost the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes, but may have avoided a drama filled tenure. Kiffin will no doubt transform LSU football into a mercenary squad that will win 10 games a season with lots of drama built in. Sumrall coupled with the new GM Caldwell could stabilize the Gator program as something in between an NFL program and a college team. Hard to say without seeing the complete coaching staff.

 

[DRU2012]

Florida lost the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes, but may have avoided a drama filled tenure. Kiffin will no doubt transform LSU football into a mercenary squad that will win 10 games a season with lots of drama built in. Sumrall coupled with the new GM Caldwell could stabilize the Gator program as something in between an NFL program and a college team. Hard to say without seeing the complete coaching staff.

Exactly—It will all greatly depend upon who is hired to fill out the staff…and then how much of the talented underclassmen (especially the top playmakers on BOTH sides of the ball) AND current recruiting classes we retain.
Meanwhile, details are emerging regarding what REALLY may have occurred in the course of this “failed pursuit” of our much-vaunted “Dream Hire”:
It seems Lane really MAY have “pulled back”, clouding what had BEEN (up til THEN) a “mutually agreeable negotiation” upon his figuring out he just DIDN’T LIKE SCOTT STRICKLIN!
That, along with advice from both Nick Saban AND Pete Carrol, when asked, that he take the LSU job, leading to his looking for reasons to lean in that direction at the very same moment that Stricklin and Co., who we know NEVER wanted Lane and DESPISED having been forced into the position of having to at least LOOK AND ACT LIKE they were single-mindedly pursuing him, at that very moment found and seized on this “sensing erratic behavior” as a reason to “move on”—essentially “surrendering the field” at the key moment.
It was much the same with Lincoln Riley, it seems:
Stricklin never wanted him, had no interest and intended to ignore him, so when he arose as the consensus ”Plan B”, almost immediately “reports surfaced” of some (what turned out to be non-EXISTENT) “interview” that was said to have “gone poorly”—when in truth it had never happened at ALL.
Do y’all begin to see how this guy operates?
We have GOT to RID ourselves of his very PRESENCE in our midst, in the very center of the day-to-day decisions affecting program operations!
For now, we can only try and make the best of where we are NOW and who we’ve got to make it happen—Then hope for the BEST.
I think LANE made a big mistake as well—listened to the wrong people (though considering how it all played out, I do understand how and WHY—It’s in his very psychological AND spiritual make-up).
He WILL win his share of games over there—but he was doing that already where he WAS.
I believe he just STEPPED AWAY FROM any real chance of “breaking through” to that “legendary status” he so obviously craves—he MAY even by some confluence of fortune, at SOME point before his career is over manage to grab a Championship of SOME kind, SEC or even CFB Playoff (looks like those’ll be more or less “FOR SALE” from now on—but he will NEVER be “legendary” for ANYTHING besides “shit disturbing”, and certainly not “beloved” to any fan base from here on out, no matter what.
I have a whole lot more I could say on all of this, but perhaps better that we ALL now step back, take a deep breath, begin to collect our thoughts: Prepare to “settle down and BACK”, look to ourselves, our immediate needs, and plans for our OWN team’s future moves.