Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Jon Sumrall era of Troy University Football has officially come to an end as Tulane University announced on Dec. 8 the hiring of Sumrall to lead the Green Wave.

The announcement comes after days of speculation about Sumrall’s future.

“I can’t thank President Fitts and David Harris enough for this opportunity,” said Sumrall. “Having spent some of the early part of my career here, I came to know, first-hand, what it means to be a Tulanian and got to meet so many wonderful people at Tulane. Ginny and I are beyond grateful for the chance to experience that again and I can’t wait to get back to work with the Wave!”

Sumrall is a Huntsville native that played college football at Kentucky. He started his coaching career at his alma mater as a graduate assistant before becoming a defensive line coach at San Diego from 2007 until 2009 when he became co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach there. He made his first stop at Tulane as defensive line coach, linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator from 2012 until 2014.

Sumrall served as linebackers and special teams coach at Troy under Neal Brown from 2015 until 2017 and then moved on to Ole Miss as a linebackers coach in 2018. He served as inside linebackers coach at Kentucky from 2019 until 2020 and was the school’s co-defensive coordinator in 2021.

Sumrall took over a Troy program that had suffered three straight losing seasons and turned the program into a power in the Sun Belt, leading the team to a 23-4 record with two Sun Belt Championships and a Cure Bowl Championship. Troy will become the first Sun Belt team to play a Power 5 school in a bowl game when the Trojans meet Duke on Dec. 23 in the Birmingham Bowl.

Sumrall will be officially introduced as the new Tulane head coach at an introductory press conference on Monday. According to Pete Thamell, Troy made a “significant push” to retain Sumrall, which included a new nearly $1.4 million contract that also would have included more money for staff positions. Sumrall’s Tulane contract is reportedly for six years.