A hefty contract can secure a coach’s future on paper, but it cannot guarantee the backing of the people in the stands. Week 6 made that clear for Jon Sumrall during Florida’s game against South Carolina. As frustration boiled over in the stadium, the comparisons to former Florida coach Billy Napier started to emerge. Could history be repeating itself?

“Fans should absolutely be booing CoachJonSumrall,” former SEC analyst Derek Tyson posted on X on October 10. “This is exactly the stuff Billy Napier did. The same stuff. Minute and a half with 3 timeouts. This is embarrassing, by Sumrall. There was plenty of time, and at least try for FG.”

After the Gators crushed Ole Miss 52–28 at the Swamp, the fans were celebrating Sumrall for taking the team 4-0. After their consecutive wins, their former head coach, Napier, was being criticized for wasting a perfectly good roster.

The approach the new head coach adopted was paying off until more SEC games came along. The high from the Ole Miss win got crushed a week later when the Gators crumbled against Missouri, losing 17-45. But in Week 6, Sumrall and his team had a chance at redemption. A home game at the Swamp presented a perfect setting for restoring some order.

Moreover, they were hosting a South Carolina team that snatched a defeat from the jaws of a victory a week earlier against Kentucky at home. The Gamecocks’ head coach, Shane Beamer, was under immense pressure to deliver a win to save his job.

In the end, it was the Gamecocks that saved the day for their head coach. On the other side, Sumrall and his team were left to earn the wrath of the home fans, who didn’t like what they were seeing from the Gators.

The first half started with both teams failing to score until Gators QB Aaron Philo broke the deadlock with his 59-yard touchdown pass to Bailey Stockton. But South Carolina covered the lead in the 1st quarter itself after quarterback LaNorris Sellers’ touchdown.

During the second quarter, the game started slipping from the Gators’ hands. After taking the score to 10-10, the Gamecocks’ defense was charged up as DE Vicari Swain intercepted a pass. South Carolina capitalized on the turnover, and Sellers went for his second touchdown of the day. Florida went into halftime trailing 17–10.

In the second half, for a brief second, everyone thought the Gators would fight back when they got a field goal. However, it was answered by another touchdown by Sellers. Gamecocks QB turned into lightning McQueen in the second half. He tore apart the Gators’ defense with three touchdowns, while his offensive line finally protected him.

For the home fans at the Swamp, this game felt like a deja vu from when Napier was the Florida head coach. He coached for 4 years, and the Gators were 22-23 when he left.

Napier’s teams used to look lost under pressure, a sight that was similar to today’s game. Florida was 5-17 against unranked teams under Napier. Now Sumrall has also added 0-1 to his record. But more than the losses, the nature of the games was always puzzling to the fans. That includes bizarre in-game calls.

Sumrall had his Napier moment during a 4th-and-goal call. Instead of going for a touchdown, the head coach chose to kick a field goal, which wasn’t appreciated by the fans. After the game, Sumrall said that the deluge was a factor in the 50/50 decision.

“A lot of times, when it could be a rain game, I feel like taking the points. At that time, it was a lower-scoring game too, so it wasn’t a high-scoring affair at that point,” he said.

Florida alum Tim Tebow was recovering from the Gators’ loss to Missouri; it just added to the disappointment.

“Missouri surprised a lot of folks last week. I tell you, they surprised me a lot. I did not see an L coming for Florida that was going to look like that, and I think the first thing I go to is in this game in college football, but especially in the SEC, you can never negotiate or evaluate when you’re going to show up with effort. It cannot happen,” Tim Tebow said.

“You can’t be on the top of the mountain and then think the next week all of a sudden we’re just gonna repeat it, and it’s going to be easy for us again. That doesn’t happen.”

With the loss, Florida may go unranked in the next AP Poll despite its impressive win over Ole Miss.