re: Finally off the Sumlin bandwagon (Shameless TA repost)

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I'm confident we can hire a better football coach.

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I don't know about that. Sumlin is a pretty good gameday coach, and until now he recruited well above our average. I mean, he has gone to a bowl every year in the SEC. I promise in our lifetimes we will have some coach that doesn't hit that standard unfortunately. "Relative to his salary" is irrelevant when we pay the salary for what he already gives us.

Plus the coach is not just the coach, but the staff too as they would leave with him. Even if you think Sumlin is an incompetent drunk that has had no success by himself, you have to look at the whole staff.

Could we get a better OC if Sumlin left? Maybe, probably. A better DC? No chance in hell. A better OL coach? No chance in hell. Especially when you consider the fact that the next coach would have a limited assistant budget because of the AD having to handle Sumlin's buyout (aka what happened to Sumlin at first). We would downgrade at a few places.

Are there head coaches that we could hire that could be better than Sumlin, and hire a better staff in total than Sumlin has? Yes, probably. My issue is that we are just as likely to do worse overall, especially because we seem to lack luck when it comes to hiring coaches.

I am not saying we need to keep Sumlin forever, just that I don't see replacing him as a slam dunk. In fact personally I am glad we didn't do it last offseason because I expect to field a decent team this year even if 2017 is looking like a disaster due to Sumlin's mistakes. Maybe by the end of the 2017 season there will be a more obvious choice for a replacement on the market that would make the concept of an upgrade be more certain.

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We're going to end up arguing one day that 2012 was actually terrible for our program in the long run.

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Nah, that was our best year since 1956. Even if it guaranteed 6 years of Sumlin there is no certainty that we would have made better choice had Sumlin failed within 3 years.

We are a take what we can get program. There is no sense regretting the few great years, even if we mishandle the aftermath.

waiting for the season to start then we will see. It sure as hell can't get here soon enough for everyone.

I caught the last two years of Fran and first 3 of Sherman as a student.

A few ups, a lot more downs

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Sumlin is a pretty good gameday coach

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In what sense is Sumlin any kind of gameday coach? He doesn't call plays

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And never forget that a percentage of our fanbase absolutely embraces mediocrity

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Truer words...


Id love to to make a play for fat Bert. As much as I hate him as an opposing coach, I'd love for his fat arse to come to Aggieland and just absolutely get under the skin of the sips, and all the other in state schools. Plus, I think he would obviously have a much easier time recruiting the talent he needs to win the sec in Texas than Arkansas. Retain chief. Have a solid fricking defense and a solid fricking offense controlling both lines, and hurt the pigz while doing it.

You gotta look at the trajectory. Sumlin inherited a pretty stacked team from Sherman; he may not have been much of a gameday coach but the man could recruit.

Bert inherited the JohnL dumpster fire, which came after Petrino who is famous for being a great playcaller and a shite recruiter.

I don't think it's coincidental that things started to come together for Bielema halfway through year 3, especially since that's where the wheels started falling off for Sumlin

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Bert @ Arky 3-9 7-6 8-5 18-20 Total

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And... better every year. The opposite of Sumlin.

But I'm a Chad Morris guy. If he can just get SMU bowl eligible this year, then he has worked a miracle and should be hired by A&M to replace Sumlin, who we should fire. But that won't happen because we embrace mediocrity.

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I like the staff we have assembled finally. I do not want to see it broken up to start over yet again.

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This is how I feel. I wanted Sumlin fired after the qb fiasco and two underachieving years (though I never thought it would happen with his contract). However, through luck or whatever, Sumlin has ended up with a good enough staff that I now think the best approach is to sit tight unless recruiting completely falls apart. Chavis is a great DC. Mazzone at OC isn't anything special, but he's at least competent, which, paired with a rockstar OL coach, should = a pretty good offense (plus Mazzone knows how to get a lot out of true fish QBs, which is an important trait at our school).

I think if we let them do their jobs for a year or two, this team will turn around and we can improve to consistently winning 9-10 games per year. Or at least I think rolling with the coaches we've got now gives us a higher chance than jumping onto the coaching carousel again. That is, these are known commodities who've done pretty well over their careers. Chad Morris and Herman are promising young coaches, but they're total unknowns at this point.