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The Florida Gators are in an interesting position.
On one hand, they’re the Gators. They’re one of the iconic brands in all of sports, not just in college football, and they’ve got a young head coach in Jon Sumrall, who is bringing the energy.
That will pay off for the Gators on the recruiting trail and in the transfer portal, though such things take time to materialize.
The flip side of the coin is that Sumrall is a first-time SEC head coach and he’s taking over a program that went 4-8 last season and also lost its starting quarterback, DJ Lagway, to the transfer portal.
That’s usually not a recipe for success, but Florida can come out of the gates swinging if Sumrall gets the starting quarterback position right.
Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo (a redshirt sophomore) and redshirt freshman Tramell Jones Jr. are the two options for Sumrall. Jones is a former four-star recruit, and Philo has amassed some good experience in two seasons.
In 2024, he threw for 565 yards and five touchdowns in five games while taking over for injured Georgia Tech starter Haynes King. He didn’t play as much this past season, but he did get his first career start in Week 2 against Gardner-Webb, and he threw for 373 yards and a touchdown with an interception.
Sumrall has two good options, but he doesn’t need either quarterback to be anything more than that just now. Good is good enough for the Gators at this juncture.
“None of them need to be Tim Tebow,” Sumrall said on Wednesday, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN. “They need to be somebody that just manages a game and operates the right way at the line scrimmage and doesn’t turn the football over. We’ve got decent skill players around the quarterback position with Jadan Baugh and the receiver group.”
Jon Sumrall could play two quarterbacks at Florida in 2026
Philo is the perceived front-runner in this quarterback competition because he came over from Georgia Tech with new Florida offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner. He knows the scheme, and that may give him a leg up.
With that said, Sumrall did say that Jones Jr. brings a lot to the table as he’s figuring out life as a college quarterback. He didn’t necessarily give a ringing endorsement of the former four-star, though.
“Tramell did some really good things, though, in the spring at times,” Sumrall said. “His highs were like, ‘Whoa.’ The problem, at times, was the lows. You’re like, ‘Hey, we can’t do that. That’ll lose the game.'”
Ultimately, Sumrall may choose to give both players a shot. They’ll compete this fall, but no matter who is named the starter, both could end up getting opportunities when the games count — at least early on.
“I could see a scenario, for a lot of different reasons, where we’re going to need both of them to perform like a starter,” Sumrall explained.
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