The worst case scenario for Texas A&M Football in 2017

Worst Case Scenario No. 5

Kevin Sumlin gets fired

Aggies are torn on there long-term feelings about Kevin Sumlin. He’s won some of the biggest games in program history, but he’s also repetitively crashed and burned. Regardless of how you feel, firing your coach is not a good way to end a season. A fired coach means something didn’t go right, and more likely than not, that same something has been going wrong for a long while.

And what happens if the Aggies don’t start 5-0? Their schedule sets up relatively favorably. After opening with UCLA they get home games against Nicholls State, Louisiana-Lafayette, a neutral site game against Arkansas and one home contest against South Carolina. They don’t play Alabama until Week Six.

It’s not unfathomable to envision losses against UCLA and Arkansas. South Carolina continues to improve. If Texas A&M starts the year 2-3 and gets pounded by Alabama, could the administration decide to make a change in the middle of the season? It’s possible.

Last season Gus Malzahn and Les Miles met in what turned out to be a “winner-take-all” early season contest. The margin was razor-thin. Miles lost and received his walking papers. The results will be the same if Sumlin makes it through the course of the full season only to be sent away in December.

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The recruiting classes that Kevin Sumlin has built will be impacted. Texas A&M will have to start, in many respects, from square one. Change for the sake of change is a sign that your program is not being successful. Firing a head coach that never had a losing record in his tenure doesn’t make it any easier for the next guy. However, if everything goes wrong, Kevin Sumlin is gone. And while that might turn out fortuitous down the road, it would make 2017 a disaster.