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Did Texas A&M Football Trade One Mediocre Coach for Another?

By Graham Harmon

Nov 4, 2017; College Station, TX, USA; Texas A&M Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin on the sidelines against the Auburn Tigers at Kyle Field. Mandatory Credit: Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 4, 2017; College Station, TX, USA; Texas A&M Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin on the sidelines against the Auburn Tigers at Kyle Field. Mandatory Credit: Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports /
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Contextualizing the records for each Texas A&M football coach

So far, we’ve been over each coach’s record as a favorite and an underdog, as well as covered the biggest wins each coach had. I also think it’s relevant, though, to examine how tough the opponents have been in wins and losses for each coach, to try and see if we can filter out some of the noise here. Obviously, if one guy filled up his record with wins against subpar teams, that would change how you evaluate his overall record.

Against teams that finished in the top 50 in the final SP+ rankings, Sumlin was 21-24 and Jimbo is 18-21 (this includes current rankings as of Week 7 in 2023). Against teams that finished in the top 25 in the final SP+ rankings, Sumlin was 8-21 and Jimbo is 8-19. Against teams that finished in the top 10 in the final SP+ rankings, Sumlin was 3-13, and Jimbo is 3-10. Here’s a detailed breakdown:

  • Against teams finishing ranked 41-50: Sumlin 6-1, Jimbo 5-0
  • Against teams finishing ranked 31-40: Sumlin 5-1, Jimbo 3-2
  • Against teams finishing ranked 21-30: Sumlin 4-4, Jimbo 4-2
  • Against teams finishing ranked 11-20: Sumlin 3-5, Jimbo 3-7
  • Against teams finishing ranked 1-10: Sumlin 3-13, Jimbo 3-10

Of Sumlin’s 21 wins against top-50 opponents per SP+, only 5 of them came at Kyle Field (2016 Tennessee, 2015 MSU, 2013 MSU, 2017 South Carolina, and 2016 UCLA). Of his 24 losses to top-50 opponents, 12 of them were at home. Of Jimbo’s 18 wins against top-50 opponents per SP+, 11 were at home; of his 21 losses to top-50 opponents, 7 were at Kyle. Jimbo’s penchant for winning high-stakes games at home is one of the huge differentiators between he and Sumlin—though, again, that home dominance has faded a bit over the last two years.

Implied in these numbers is this: against teams ranked outside the top-50, Sumlin was 30-2 and Jimbo is 25-3. By far the worst loss that Sumlin sustained was the game on the road against Mississippi State, fresh off of landing at #4 in the initial CFP rankings. That Bulldog team ended the year at 56th overall in the SP+ rankings. Jimbo’s two worst losses came within three games of each other: the final game of 2021 against LSU (who finished 65th in SP+) and the second game of 2022 against App State (who finished 66th last year). The next-worst team that Fisher lost to was 51st-ranked Auburn in 2022. Sumlin also lost to a 51st-ranked team in the UCLA debacle.

Is it fair to call these outliers? The average rank of teams Jimbo lost to as a favorite is 31.89, while for Sumlin it’s 25.50. In two of Jimbo’s three such losses, he was starting a backup quarterback, while Sumlin had his original starter for both games (though Trevor Knight did exit midway through the Mississippi State game).

There’s a lot of similarities in these records. More than I thought there would be, honestly. Breaking these down by date helps show how concentrated the uglier results have been in the last two years for Jimbo, and how diffused they were for Sumlin over a longer period.

I’ve said a lot here about the SP+ rankings of the teams that each Texas A&M football coach faced; how about the rankings of the teams they rolled out?