Texas A&M Football: Firing Kevin Sumlin wasn’t the right move

4. The program is growing

On a lighter note, another reason I thought the firing was a bit premature is the program is in a better place. Does anyone remember 2011? That team was preseason ranked No. 8. They would finish with six losses which included a last second loss to Texas.

Yes, the Aggies were switching conferences but did anyone believe success would come right away. Sumlin won 51 games in six years. Including Slocum’s last year to when Sumlin took the job spanned 10 years. During that time, A&M won 74 games. Those 10 years included four losing seasons, two seasons at 7-6, one at 6-6 and another at 7-5 which included a blowout loss in the bowl game.

Franchione and Sherman each won nine games in a season once. Both of the season’s ended with a very disappointing showing in the bowl game. Franchione led the Aggies to three bowl games, all ended in losses.

Sherman led them to three bowl games only coaching in two of them since he was fired before the Northwestern game. In the two games he coached, they were both losses.

The Aggies did win the Northwestern game, their first bowl win since 2001. You can say Sumlin has been apart of the five bowl wins this century. One as an assistant, one as the head coach in waiting and three as the head coach.

So when you add up the wins, the Manziel era, program footprint and the Sumlin flamboyance the Aggie program has not had this amount of enthusiasm since the early 1990’s. Hopefully the new coaching staff will keep the momentum going.