With report after report swirling around after the Aggies 42-27 loss to Auburn, the A&M faithful is only left to wonder how many days they have left with Kevin Sumlin as their head football coach. One can only assume that the days of Sumlin in College Station are numbered and getting shorter by the week.
With all the coaching vacancies in the SEC that will be there the end of the season, it seems no one will be safe. We’re all still wondering why Tennessee hasn’t let go of Butch Jones yet. Or why Arkansas has kept Bret Bielema, but you can bet there will be a lot of empty offices in the SEC. One of those will be in College Station where Kevin Sumlin is on his way out. We have known this since mid-summer when A&M athletic director Scott Woodward sealed Sumlin’s fate by saying “Coach Sumlin knows he has to win. He has to win this year. He has to do better than he has done in the past.” So far, not so good for the Aggies, they are off to an 5-4 start and this is one of the Aggies’ worst years under Sumlin.
With a 49-25 record overall what more could the Ags want?
After leaving the Big 12 conference and joining the SEC West, that isn’t so bad. But it is mediocre and that is not what A&M wants to be. They’re going to let go of Sumlin as soon as the season is up, possibly even before if the Ags can’t find a way to win out (they still have Ole Miss and LSU left to play in conference. Not easy wins). Sumlin will be gone before Christmas.
This leaves us with asking what is next for A&M. In my opinion, it is time for Sumlin to go, for his sake. A&M will be left to deal with replacing a coach when the market is not very hot. Gainesville is an easier sell than College Station and you can’t forget that Knoxville and Fayetteville will have openings, too. So who will be the Ags new coach? Will the Aggies be better for letting Sumlin go? Not at all, they will continue to live under the shadow of the SEC’s bigger programs.
Either way, Coach Sumlin will be laughing all the way to the bank if and when he is fired. A&M owes him a lot of money. Maybe Sumlin will take the Charlie Strong route and find a non power 5 to coach. Maybe he will take a year off and wait until LSU fires Orgeron. All we know is Kevin Sumlin is out, but Texas A&M is still going to have problems no matter who is leading the Aggies out on the field in 2018.