If you’re a college football coach, you never want to get the dreaded “vote of confidence” from your athletic director. A vote of confidence might sound nice, but it generally means you’re about to get fired. So Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin should be extra worried now, as athletic director Scott Woodward gave him a vote of confidence with an added sense of urgency.
.@12thMan AD Scott Woodward is LIVE!
"Coach Sumlin knows he has to win & he has to win this year. I have confidence he'll get it done" pic.twitter.com/y6Fg8r1jfW
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) May 30, 2017
See, if you were actually confident, Scott, you wouldn’t have to say that.
Saying “win this year or else” is fairly counterproductive, even though actual (half) honesty is appreciated from athletic directors, who are usually tight-lipped. For one, it really hurts Texas A&M in recruiting, because nobody is going to want to sign with a coach who is probably going to be fired soon. So even if Sumlin does win this year, he might have trouble winning in coming years.
The other issue is that Sumlin probably isn’t going to win this year.
It’s unclear how much he has to win, but we’ll assume he needs more than the eight wins he got last season. Let’s take a look at the schedule: The Aggies have three likely wins (Nicholls State, UL Lafayette and New Mexico) and two likely losses (Alabama and at LSU). That leaves seven toss-ups-or-worse (at UCLA, at Arkansas, South Carolina, at Florida, Mississippi State, Auburn, at Ole Miss). So assuming losses to Alabama and LSU, Sumlin needs to go 6-1 in those games to finish with a better record than last year.
Even if A&M goes 9-3, is that enough if the Aggies aren’t competitive against Alabama or LSU?
It’s pretty clear that change is coming at Texas A&M, and Tuesday’s vote of confidence all but confirms it.
