Tulane fans may not want to hear this, but Jon Sumrall’s name is likely to come up during some Power Four coaching searches in the near future. In fact, that’s already happened.
Sumrall is in his first season as the head coach of Tulane, but the Green Wave are 9-2 overall with a 7-0 mark in AAC play. They will face Army in the conference championship and have a shot to make it to the College Football Playoff.
Before this, he was the head coach at Troy for only two years and he led the Trojans to Sun Belt championships in both of those seasons.
Sumrall, who played football at Kentucky and is from Huntsville, Alabama, led Troy to a 23-4 overall record.
He was Tulane’s co-defensive coordinator from 2012-14, but he does have experience as an assistant at P4 programs. He was Kentucky’s co-defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach before becoming the head coach at Troy. He was also a linebackers coach at Ole Miss (2018), an assistant head coach and linebackers coach at Troy (2015-17), and an assistant at San Diego (2007-11).
Here are some P4 schools which might consider hiring Sumrall.
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North Carolina
Mack Brown was the first head coach at a Power Four school to be fired this season, and plenty of coaches across the country will surely be interested in the job.
Sumrall, according to several media outlets, is a name that sticks out. He has the P4 experience in that region of the country and now has been successful as a head coach at multiple G5 schools. That could be enough to make him an appealing candidate for a job like this.
West Virginia
Neal Brown has been the head coach of West Virginia since 2019. The Mountaineers have enjoyed just two winning seasons since then, though one of them was last year when they went 9-4 overall with a victory in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. WVU is 6-5 so far this year, so maybe Brown is no longer on the hot seat.
But if West Virginia needs a new head coach, Sumrall wouldn’t be a bad option. He’s shown he can lead a program to conference title contention in little time.
Arkansas
Going from the AAC to the SEC might be a considerable leap for some coaches. But Sumrall has been an assistant for multiple SEC teams, so he would likely know how to handle a job like this.
Sam Pittman is the head coach at Arkansas right now. The Razorbacks are 6-5 overall but went 4-8 a season ago, leading some to believe he was on the hot seat. Right now, it doesn’t seem Arkansas will make a coaching change this offseason. But if that were to change for any reason, Sumrall would be good for the job.
