For a time, it seemed the Auburn Tigers were on a collision course to hire Tulane Green Wave head coach Jon Sumrall. Right before the Iron Bowl, Sumrall turned the opportunity down and pivoted to the Florida Gators. On the Sunday after the Tigers lost a 27-20 heartbreaker to the Alabama Crimson Tide at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn moved quickly to hire Alex Golesh away from the USF Bulls.
Though AU hired someone who had never made the College Football Playoff, they didn't hire the coach who owns the dubious distinction of being seen as the worst of the 64 teams to ever make the CFP field since its inception in 2014.
ESPN's Bill Connelly believes the Green Wave's losing to the UTSA Roadrunners and Ole Miss Rebels, the latter of whom Tulane will be playing in the CFP's first round, proves Sumrall's squad has the lowest ceiling in the field.
"Jon Sumrall's final Tulane team is adaptable and resilient and certainly clears a physicality bar that not every awesome Group of 5 team might. But the Green Wave's two losses -- 45-10 against first-round opponent Ole Miss, 48-26 at UTSA -- were a sign that when things go awry, the ceiling is much, much lower than what we might expect from a playoff team," Connelly wrote.
Auburn may have dodged a bullet with Jon Sumrall
It's not totally true that Sumrall turned down Auburn. The truth is that the Tigers turned down the thing that would've sealed the deal with Sumrall: program autonomy.
As Golesh learned, keeping DJ Durkin was always going to be the administration's call, not the new head coach. Sumrall is a defensive mind who wanted it his way. Golesh is an offensive guy who had no problem letting Durkin continue his stellar work on the other side of the ball.
Sumrall just hired someone Golesh got rid of, Marcus Davis, who recruited well but couldn't get up-to-snuff results on the field from some of the most talented receivers in the sport (Cam Coleman, Eric Singleton Jr.).
If anything, Sumrall would've allowed more of the same on the offensive side of the ball on the Plains, while potentially coaching a worse defense than Durkin's. At least Golesh is a change of pace offensively and is collaborating with what has been working.