Wuerffel Pumped After Eye-Opening Experience That Led to Hiring of Jon Sumrall

Wuerffel, Danny and Sumrall, Jon (Dec. 1, 2025)

Former Gators quarterback Danny Wuerffel greets new UF head football coach Jon Sumrall on Monday when Sumrall arrived in Gainesville. (Photo: Maddie Washburn/UAA Communications)

Wuerffel Pumped After Eye-Opening Experience That Led to Hiring of Jon Sumrall

Thursday, December 4, 2025 | Football, Scott Carter

By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When he was slinging touchdown passes and leading the Gators to Southeastern Conference championships and the 1996 national championship, quarterback Danny Wuerffel could do no wrong in the eyes of Florida fans.

Wuerffel was so beloved that he acquired the nickname "Danny Wonderful."

Thirty years later, nothing has changed. Wuerffel remains one of the most exalted players and respected ambassadors in program history. But we've seen a different side of the unpretentious and low-key Wuerffel in the past few days.

We've seen him as a guest on several podcasts discussing his role in the coaching search that led to Tulane's Jon Sumrall being hired. Wuerffel joined athletic director Scott Stricklin and Duke Werner, UF's executive associate athletics director/director of sport, on the committee to find Florida's new head coach.

More specifically, we've seen Wuerffel push back against several narratives that had Florida fans on the edge of the window ledge in recent weeks.

How did Wuerffel even get involved? That is the first question many want to know.

"Right around the time when they made the coaching change in October, I actually went to [Scott] and said, 'I'd love to help in any way. I care about the program,' " Wuerffel said. "At the time, I kind of thought I could help to communicate with some of our current players, just to encourage them not to leave in their minds before they met the new coach."

Stricklin, Scott (Dec. 1, 2025) — UF athletic director **Scott Stricklin** at Monday's press conference to introduce new football coach **Jon Sumrall**. (Photo: **Madilyn Gemme**/UAA Communications)

Wuerffel's outreach sparked another idea in Stricklin's mind. Why not have a former player who is around the program regularly, one as well-respected as the 1996 Heisman Trophy winner, part of the process?

Wuerffel was honored at the interest. He said yes, uncertain of what it would entail or of how much of the next six weeks he would spend away from his family and their Atlanta home.

"I've never done that before, and obviously I have great respect for Danny as well as a lot of our guys," Stricklin told reporters following Sumrall's introductory press conference on Monday. "Danny had a couple of, in addition to being well-aware of our program, he had been around the last few years through the GatorMade program, so he had a lot of knowledge about our current roster.

"He had availability in his personal life to offer some time to us, and then I just thought he would provide a level of credibility that would help us identify a good coach, and then vice versa, then feel like we're serious because we're bringing someone to the table, to the conversation, that they're going to recognize."

The search remained under the radar for the first several weeks as the committee spoke with more than 10 coaches and vetted them with the assistance of TurnkeyZRG, a firm specializing in talent/executive recruitment in the sports and entertainment sector.

Meanwhile, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin surfaced as a primary candidate. Wuerffel does not dispute that fact.

According to Wuerffel, what has been distorted in the media and on social media is how the process played out. Reports suggested Kiffin and Stricklin did not mesh, that Kiffin did not have confidence in Florida's plans for an NFL-type general manager structure, and that the Gators' contingent dropped the ball, leading Kiffin to choose LSU instead.

The 51-year-old Wuerffel was part of hundreds of text messages, Zoom calls, and an in-person meeting. He emphatically refutes the public narratives presented by various parties, which are self-serving.

"A lot of the reporting around what happened with Lane Kiffin is simply not true," Wuerffel said. "There was so much misinformation. He's certainly a high, high-tier graded coach, and we made a very, very strong effort to pursue him, and for whatever reason – I've got some thoughts – he chose something else. But I'd say this, from where I'm standing now, and from all the things I've seen the last two weeks, I couldn't be more pleased that the process led us to Jon Sumrall."

As much as Wuerffel has to say about Florida's search and the way Stricklin conducted it, he wants to make sure fans understand this: he is ecstatic that the Gators landed Sumrall, who has spent the past two seasons at Tulane.

Sumrall made a strong first impression that resonated with Wuerffel as much as any candidate the committee interviewed.

"I'm as excited as I've been in a long time about Gators football," Wuerffel said.

Meanwhile, as reports about Kiffin's future dominated the college football world last week, Wuerffel continued to see stories from reputable sources totally miss the truth meter.

One of the most glaring was that USC coach Lincoln Riley had tried to reach out about the Florida job through his agent, Trace Armstrong, but never received a callback. Wuerffel points out a couple of facts: first, Armstrong is not Riley's agent. Wuerffel is correct. Second, the Gators reached out several times to gauge whether Riley might have interest. He never responded.

"It was so shocking to me," Wuerffel said. "If I were a casual fan and saw that, I'd be furious. I would be like, 'What are we doing?' I mean, if you play quarterback for him, you have a 50% chance to win the Heisman. I was getting ready to drive a golf cart out there to talk to him. I've learned not necessarily to trust agents in this process. But this is a different game. I understand."

And then there were reports that Stricklin had mismanaged the search so much that TurnkeyZRG cut ties with UF. Wuerffel laughs at this one perhaps more than any other, considering that the Gators hired TurnkeyZRG to provide a service and that the firm's representative, Chad Chatlos, whom Wuerffel knew previously from the search for a Heisman Trophy Trust CEO, remained a strong ally throughout the process.

"He was great to work with from beginning to end," Wuerffel told Ali Peek of the "Peek Inside Gators Football" podcast this week. "That was one of the crazy things I saw online, how somehow something went sideways there. That was a great relationship all the way through. He provided great data, great insights."

With the search over and Wuerffel having time to reflect, he understands much of the uproar from Florida fans over the past two weeks. If all the reports had been accurate, he would have been first in line wanting answers and accountability.

But Wuerffel was there. He was at the interviews, on the Zoom calls and part of the text threads. He talked to the candidates, listened to their visions for the Gators, and asked questions to see how they would respond.

He is at total peace with the way Stricklin conducted the search and is full of confidence in Sumrall.

"I'm a little surprised and honored that Scott asked me to be that involved. I mean, I don't work for Scott. I don't get paid by the university. I have my own opinions, and he took a risk there. What if he picked a coach I didn't like, and I was upset about? There were no guardrails for me to go into the world and say what I think.

"We got our guy. If [Kiffin] wanted to be at Florida, he had every opportunity to be here. He chose something else, and that's his choice. Where I'm sitting right now, I'm glad he did. I'm so fired up."