Jon Sumrall is looking increasingly like the Auburn Tigers' next head football coach.
In the wake of Sumrall's canceled meetings with the University of Florida's brain trust, Hail Florida Hail's Benjamin Henderson revealed several possible options for what happened. Several of them pointed to Auburn's involvement.
One of Henderson's theories centers around Sumrall using the idea of meeting with UF as leverage to get a bigger offer from AU.
"Florida is not the only school taking a look at Sumrall. Auburn has him very high on their list, and he is considered one of their top targets," Henderson prefaced before saying, "It's also possible that Sumrall's camp let the original story leak to put pressure on Auburn and drive his price up with them."
Another of Henderson's theories is that Auburn leaked the story just in case the Ole Miss Rebels come for Sumrall if/when Lane Kiffin decides to go to the LSU Tigers.
"If you really want to go down a crazy road, Ole Miss itself at least needs to get some vetting done on coaches in case Kiffin does leave for either Florida or LSU," Henderson prefaced before saying, "The Rebels would probably look at Sumrall as a candidate if Kiffin were to leave."
"So if Auburn feels like Ole Miss might try to swoop in, the Tigers might be trying to leverage themselves to wrap up Sumrall before he even gets a chance with Ole Miss."
Honestly, both sound pretty plausible. Either way, though, it speaks volumes that news on Sumrall and the Gators centers around how it relates to the Tigers' pursuit of the Tulane Green Wave head football coach.
Florida folks see Sumrall to the Plains as a foregone conclusion. With LSU never emerging as a serious suitor for him, since their boosters wouldn't spend big on a Group of 5 hiring, Auburn was always the likeliest option.
It's a popular hire among a fanbase that needs positivity after five years of having negative coaches who produced negative results.