There are bound to be defenders of Jon Sumrall out there who will point out that coaches like Nick Saban and Kirby Smart struggled in their first season at Alabama and Georgia, respectively. It took Dabo Swinney three years to get things rolling at Clemson; more recently, it took Mario Cristobal three years to get things rolling at Miami.
So there is a pathway one can accept that nights like Saturday night in The Swamp are just growing pains, and Sumrall still has a pathway to get a machine rolling in Gainesville. But after getting stomped by Oklahoma to fall to 5-4 on the season, our level of confidence that’s going to happen is far less than it was six weeks ago.