Mike Bianchi: Florida misses Lane Train and now hopes their new Jon Boat doesn’t sink

ORLANDO, Fla.— Two decades ago, Urban Meyer chose Florida over Notre Dame because he believed the Gators were the surest path to national championships. On Sunday, Lane Kiffin chose LSU over Florida — a blunt-force reminder that the landscape has shifted under Gainesville’s feet like a sinkhole in mid-summer.

Call it what you want — evolution, erosion, whatever — but the reality is this: Florida isn’t who Florida thinks it is anymore.

And that’s why the Jon Sumrall era begins not with trumpets, but with therapy.

Let’s get the uncomfortable truths out first — the ones Gator fans whisper but don’t want printed.

Florida didn’t just fire Billy Napier. They fired the idea that hiring the hottest Group of Five coach from Louisiana guarantees SEC success. They fired the notion that the Gators could wait out Napier’s mistakes because “this is Florida, recruits will come.” They fired the fantasy that the program could simply buy its way back to superiority after a $60 million tab in buyouts over the past decade.

And when the Gators reached for Lane Kiffin — the swaggering, trolling, visor-wearing, algorithm-breaking coach who felt like the perfect antidote to a fan base drowning in pessimism — he looked at Florida … and said no.

He chose LSU’s clown show over the Gators. He chose the governor of Louisiana essentially moonlighting as a general manager. He chose a circus-tent job where politics, ego and NIL dollars flow like the Mississippi River.

Which brings us, finally, to Jon Sumrall — a coach whose résumé demands more respect than the fan reaction has given him.

Half the fan base heard Sumrall’s name and immediately opened a new browser tab: FireScottStricklin.com — because apparently some inane Gator fans now organize rallies to protest athletic directors faster than Tennessee fans light couches on fire.

But when you strip away the hysteria, Sumrall is not Napier 2.0 despite the fact that he, too, comes from a Group of Five program in Louisiana.

Unlike Napier, Sumrall has won big at two different places — Troy and Tulane. Different leagues. Different cultures. Same results. Four seasons, four conference title games. This is not a flash-in-the-pan. This is a pattern.

Unlike Napier, Sumrall will reportedly hire a staff at UF with real coordinators, not in-over-their-head assistants trying to learn on the job in the toughest conference in college football.

And, unlike Napier, Sumrall has won despite the chaos of the modern game — the NIL churn, the transfer portal merry-go-round, the calendar that punishes anyone trying to rebuild the right way.

When Napier arrived in Gainesville, pay-for-play was just starting and Florida’s NIL collective was so dysfunctional it accidentally catfished itself into offering and then reneging on a $13 million deal for a high school quarterback named Jaden Rashada (now a backup at Sacramento State — his fourth different college). Sumrall will not walk into that kind of circus. Florida’s NIL landscape, while still flawed, is no longer a burning trash can on wheels.

And let’s be very clear: Even though Florida wanted to board the Lane Train; it’s not like they “settled” on this Jon Boat. Auburn wanted Sumrall. Arkansas wanted him. Ole Miss wanted him if Kiffin left. LSU wanted him if Kiffin stayed.

Hiring Sumrall doesn’t show weakness.

Needing him to be Kiffin does.

But here’s the problem with Gator Nation — and it’s not new: Florida’s chronic obsession with “splash hires” eventually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.

Ron Zook once walked into his introductory news conference already fired by his own fan base. Napier was branded “uninspiring” before he unpacked a single moving box. You can’t demand patience while simultaneously carrying pitchforks to the Swamp.

Meyer won a national title with 21 of 22 Zook recruits. Sometimes the coach you hate plants seeds you can’t see yet.

Sometimes the best hires aren’t the ones that sell headlines.

Indiana took its shot on James Madison’s head coach, Curt Cignetti, and the college football world now calls it genius. Ole Miss hired Kiffin from Florida Atlantic, not from Ohio State or USC. The sport is littered with unlikely stars.

Why not Sumrall?

This is where the hope begins.

Kiffin’s rejection — painful as it was — may be the cosmic reset Florida needed. There’s nothing stable about Kiffin. Nothing predictable. Nothing guaranteed. You don’t just hire Lane; you hire the drama and the storm system that follows him.

Maybe losing him will make Gator Nation finally accept the reality of the situation:

There are very few great coaches available. Even fewer who want to inherit a fan base ready to melt down by Week 2.

Sumrall didn’t run from that. He ran toward it.

And if Gator Nation lets him breathe — just breathe — he might give Florida what it’s been desperately searching for since Meyer left:

Identity.

Toughness.

Direction.

Relevance.

Championships.

If Gator fans embrace him, maybe Sumrall has a chance to build something real.

If they don’t, and the noxious negativity continues, the Muschamp-McElwain-Mullen-Napier cycle will rinse and repeat.

Who knows, maybe — just maybe — Lane Kiffin rejecting Florida wasn’t a curse after all. Maybe it was that unanswered prayer Garth Brooks sang about.

The one you only understand in hindsight — when the better blessing finally arrives.

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