Whoever hires Jon Sumrall as their coach is going to win the 2025 SEC Coaching Sweepstakes.
Will that team be Auburn?
Could LSU step in and grab him instead?
What about Arkansas or another school once the hiring dominoes begin to fall?
Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss is the headline name in this cycle, and he is widely expected to end up at Florida, but I am not convinced he is the best candidate overall. My choice is Sumrall, and if Auburn athletics director John Cohen can bring him in, the Tigers will become the toughest and most physical team in the SEC next season. Best of luck to Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer.
Do not just take my opinion. Listen to someone who has seen it up close.
This week I found the perfect person to explain what Sumrall brings. Before going to Tulane, Sumrall spent two seasons at Troy.
Former Troy standout linebacker Carlton Martial remains one of my favorite players in the sport’s history. He arrived as a walk-on at Troy in 2017 when Sumrall was the linebackers coach. Martial later became a senior leader when Sumrall returned as head coach.
Martial began his career with Sumrall as his position coach and finished with him as the head coach. Who better to understand why Sumrall’s teams start winning right away?
Martial, now a high school coach in the Panama City, Florida, area, was undersized when he first joined the Trojans. By the time he left, he had become the all-time leader in college football tackles. He still holds the FBS record with 578.
In 2022, Martial’s senior year, he watched a program change dramatically.
“That season, we matured in a way like I have never seen,” Martial said.
For Martial, Sumrall’s first season leading the program was defined by an emphasis on details. Tayler Polk coached linebackers that year. Polk is now Sumrall’s co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Tulane, and if Auburn hires Sumrall, it is likely Polk would handle linebackers there as well.
“He doesn’t leave a stone unturned,” Martial said. “It is every single detail. My senior year at Troy, we were an old team, and after our junior year we thought we had it figured out. When Coach Polk came, he made us that one percent better every day.”
During games, that attention showed up clearly. In Martial’s senior season, Troy held eight of fourteen opponents scoreless in the fourth quarter and allowed only 3.6 points on average in the final period.
Auburn repeatedly failed to close games under former coach Hugh Freeze. With Sumrall, that would not continue.
Sumrall, age forty three, brings to mind former UAB coach Bill Clark if Clark had begun his college career earlier. Sumrall is an intense, defensive driven leader who obsesses over preparation and succeeds wherever he works.
Troy finished 5-7 in 2021, a disappointing mark by its own expectations. Chip Lindsay was dismissed after three seasons.
Then Sumrall arrived from the SEC. He had coached linebackers at Ole Miss in 2018, then moved to Kentucky to coach inside linebackers under Mark Stoops starting in 2019. He was promoted to co-defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach in 2021.
Once Sumrall took over at Troy, the Trojans immediately jumped to a 12-2 record, captured their first Sun Belt title and won a bowl game against UTSA. The program earned its first rankings in both the AP and Coaches polls and finished nineteenth in the College Football Playoff rankings, another first.
Troy did not need a total overhaul. The roster simply needed someone who knew how to unlock what was already there.
Sumrall instantly changed the energy, Martial said, “because of course everyone knows we had some down years.”