Woodward makes clear Sumlin’s status in peril
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M athletic director Scott Woodward, typically more behind the scenes than a movie director, picked a heck of a time to talk tough concerning the university’s highest-paid employee.
“Coach knows he has to win and win this year, and we have to do better than we’ve done in the past,” Woodward told SEC Network host Paul Finebaum this week during the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla.
That coach is Kevin Sumlin, whose program has finished 8-5 the last three years. Sumlin, 52, has three seasons remaining on a contract paying $5 million annually, and his buyout will be $10 million following this season.
Sumlin might break that 8-5 cycle this season, but not how Aggies hope. This year’s schedule shapes up as perhaps
the toughest since A&M joined the SEC five years ago, and eight wins might be hard to come by.
Especially as they break in a new starting quarterback and try to replace two playmaking defensive ends in Myles Garrett (the top pick in the NFL draft) and Daeshon Hall. Even with Garrett, the Aggies never came close to an SEC West crown.
They will open this season Sept. 3 at UCLA, and it took A&M overtime to defeat the Bruins last year at Kyle Field. The Aggies’ SEC East foe (other than cross-division rival South Carolina) is twotime defending division champion Florida, and A&M will play in Gainesville, Fla., for the first time since 1962.
So what did Woodward mean by Sumlin “has to win and win this year?” His stance is open to more interpretation than hieroglyphics — even he admitted as much in the same interview with Finebaum.
“It doesn’t come up to objective data reading of wins and losses — that’s not going to be the way I look at it,” Woodward said. “It’s going to be a lot of subjectivity brought into it — how we win, what we do, how we do it — for me to make a decision. I have all the confidence that coach is going to get it done, and he’s going to get it done in a very convincing way.”
Swoon in November
Each of the 8-5 finishes has featured a November to remember — for all the wrong reasons — with collapses in each. A&M then lost to Kansas State last December in the Texas Bowl in NRG Stadium, an embarrassment for Aggies considering they’ve enjoyed poking so much fun at the Big 12, the league they left behind in 2012.
Woodward, an LSU graduate hired from the University of Washington in January 2016 to replace the deposed Eric Hyman, also said last year that 8-5 isn’t good enough at A&M, so this isn’t a revelation.
For his part, Sumlin believes he’s addressed the late-season craters with the offseason firing of longtime strength coach Larry Jackson and the hiring of Mark Hocke, a former Alabama assistant strength coach and former Georgia strength coach.
“We made some changes that we needed to make,” Sumlin said.
The Aggies, 44-21 over Sumlin’s five prior seasons, open camp Aug. 1 and then take on the Bruins in prime time on a Sunday night in early September. A&M’s faithful should have a decent idea what the season holds by the morning of Sept. 4, based on the Aggies facing ballyhooed UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen right out of the gate.
“With what we have coming back and what we should do and playing like we did at the beginning of the ’16 season, I just think there’s a lot of optimism and a lot of good opportunity,” Woodward told Finebaum. “As far as wins and losses, you know … you’ll never pin me to that.”
In the end, Woodward isn’t the one who will determine Sumlin’s fate by October or November. It has been evident for years that chancellor John Sharp is running the show at A&M, and he has brought onboard A&M president Michael K. Young (also from Washington) and Woodward, along with a handful of others more in line with Sharp’s authority.
Sharp, an A&M graduate, in turn answers to the largest financial donors to A&M athletics, just as then-university president Robert Gates did in 2002 when he was given no choice but to fire longtime coach R.C. Slocum following a 6-6 season. Slocum never had a losing season over 14 years at A&M, and Sumlin hasn’t come close to one in his five seasons in College Station.
But Sharp and others have made it clear “never had a losing season” isn’t good enough at A&M, especially after Sharp spearheaded a nearly halfbillion dollar renovation of Kyle Field completed two years ago. There are expensive seats to fill, and middling-to-worse finishes in the SEC West won’t do the trick long term.
One tall task
Sumlin has contended he righted the program after inheriting a 7-6 team from Mike Sherman in 2011, but Sherman was 16-10 over his last two seasons. Sherman’s predecessor, Dennis Franchione, also was 16-10 over his last two seasons (2006 and ’07).
Sumlin is 16-10 over his last two seasons, and he’ll need to finish 8-5 again this year, just to maintain that pedestrian pace. Woodward vowed Sumlin must “do better than we’ve done in the past.”
Based on what the Aggies have coming back along with a rugged schedule, that appears to be one tall task — one leaving Sumlin in a no-win situation.