The 2025 Auburn football season turned into a disaster. The Tigers had talent, but could not finish games, and the offense was a disaster. The result was Hugh Freeze getting fired. The Tigers were one of the many schools that entered the crowded coaching carousel. Jon Sumrall at Tulane was one of the hottest names out there and supposedly wanted Auburn, but the Tigers fumbled it.

College football insider and analyst Josh Pate said on the latest episode of “Bussin' With The Boys,” that Sumrall was interested in Auburn, but was put off by the fact that D.J. Durkin was almost being forced on him by the Athletic Director, John Cohen. In that instance, it takes some of the power away from Sumrall as head coach, which does not work well for coaching dynamics.

“They had Jon, Jon wanted the Auburn job,” Pate said. “I don’t want to gloss over that. In coaching searches these days sometimes it’s just let’s go get the guy we thinks best for the job and he’s going to take our job because it’s the next step. Jon Sumrall wanted the Auburn job because he wanted to be the Auburn Tigers head coach.

“They had him locked up. There was also the DJ Durkin side, who was the interim head coach there. And I think John Cohen, the AD, had really become attached to the idea of DJ. He’s a phenomenal defensive mind. They wanted to keep him there.”

Article Continues Below

Pate said that Sumrall initially wanted the Auburn job, even over Florida, but the meddling by Cohen, trying to force Sumrall to keep Durkin on staff, turned him off from the Tigers.

“You maybe gauge Jon Sumrall during your negotiations and say, ‘ What do you think about Durkin?’ and maybe Sumrall is receptive to it,” Pate said. “Maybe he says, ‘I like DJ a lot, you know maybe I’ll have a place for him on my staff.’ That’s okay. What’s not okay is than taking that at Auburn to mean alright lets go ahead and extend DJ and lets sign him to a new deal and lets call Jon Sumrall and say, ‘alright he’s going to be on your staff.’ that can’t happen.”
Sumrall was hired by the Florida football program instead of Auburn, and the Tigers went with South Florida head coach Alex Golesh. It ended up working out for both schools, but things could have been different if the Auburn administration had not meddled.