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Kevin Sumlin, The People’s Choice, Plans To Bring A Championship Mentality, To The Arizona Wildcats Football Program, And That’s A Fact!!!!!
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“I am humbled and honored to join the Arizona family,” Sumlin said in a statement. “We will win championships. We will will graduate our players and they will contribute to the university in many ways while they are here. We will represent Arizona with class and pride.”
After a whirlwind weekend that had Arizona supporters furiously refreshing their devices to keep up with all the twists and turns, the UA delivered the man they wanted from the start.
Kevin Sumlin is the new coach of the Wildcats, first-year athletic director Dave Heeke announced Sunday evening. Sumlin will be introduced to Tucson on Tuesday morning.
Sumlin, 53, comes to Arizona after a mostly successful six-year run at Texas A&M. Sumlin compiled a 51-26 record and coached a Heisman Trophy winner but was fired in late November after a fourth consecutive five-loss season. Each of his Aggies teams played in a bowl game.
After firing Rich Rodriguez on Jan. 2 — and citing concerns over the “direction and climate” of the football program — Heeke placed a big emphasis on character in the search for Rodriguez’s successor. In a news release, Heeke described Sumlin as “a proven winner who will have an immediate impact on not only our football program but also on our department and university.”
Sumlin averaged more than eight wins per season at Texas A&M despite playing in the rugged SEC West. His first Aggies team finished 11-2 and featured quarterback Johnny Manziel, who became the first redshirt freshman to win the Heisman.
At Arizona, Sumlin inherits quarterback Khalil Tate, who burst into the national consciousness last season as a true sophomore. Under Sumlin’s guidance, the uber-talented Tate has the potential to be Johnny Football 2.0.
Sumlin said in a statement that he is “humbled and honored” to become a Wildcat and feels that Arizona already has a “strong foundation” in place. The UA finished 7-6 last season after going 3-9 in 2016. The defense featured five freshman starters.
“We will work quickly to assemble an elite coaching staff and immediately begin the work of establishing our culture, recruiting future Wildcats and connecting with Wildcats past and present,” Sumlin said. “We will win championships. We will graduate our players, and they will contribute to the university in many ways while they are here. We will represent Arizona with class and pride.”
Sumlin will keep Marcel Yates on his staff as defensive coordinator, the Star has confirmed. Yates has been the Wildcats’ DC the past two seasons, and he served as their interim coach after Rodriguez was let go.
Bruce Feldman of Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports reported that Sumlin will hire Noel Mazzone as offensive coordinator and Clarence McKinney as running backs coach. Mazzone spent the past two seasons as Texas A&M’s offensive coordinator after serving in the same capacity for Arizona State (2010-11) and UCLA (2012-15). Mazzone coached future NFL quarterbacks Brock Osweiler and Brett Hundley at those stops.
The hiring of Sumlin drew praise from former Wildcats — and even their ex-coach.
Former Wildcats quarterback B.J. Denker tweeted that it was “a great day to be a Wildcat” and predicted Sumlin would take the program to “the next level.” Denker worked as a graduate assistant under Sumlin in 2015 and ’16 before becoming a staff analyst at Arizona last year.
Rodriguez tweeted a congratulatory message to Sumlin and the university. “I am sure he will have great success with the most remarkable group of football student-athletes in the country,” Rodriguez wrote.
Arizona opens next season against BYU before visiting Houston, where Sumlin got his first shot as a head coach. Sumlin guided the Cougars to a 35-17 record from 2008-11, including 12-1 in his final season.
Sumlin’s starting quarterback for most of that time was Case Keenum, who threw the winning touchdown pass for the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC divisional playoffs Sunday. Keenum passed for 16,958 yards and 141 touchdowns in 44 games for Sumlin-coached teams.
Sumlin left A&M with a buyout of more than $10 million, money he gets to keep despite taking the Arizona job.If there’s one thing Kevin Sumlin knew how to do well during his six seasons at Texas A&M, it was getting his passing games going.
Despite working with nine different starting quarterbacks between 2012 and 2017, all of Sumlin’s passing offenses ranked fourth or better in the SEC, including ranking first from 2012-2014. Every single one of those offenses averaged at least 251 yards per game and had at least 22 touchdowns in a season.
Outside of the days of Johnny Manziel, who won theHeisman Trophy as a redshirt freshman in Sumlin’s first season with the Aggies, it’s been a revolving door at quarterback for Sumlin. But as he embarks on his new journey with the Arizona Wildcats, he’ll do so with a young, exciting quarterback in sophomore Khalil Tate.
Other than Manziel, Sumlin hasn’t worked with a quarterback as athletic or electrifying as Tate. He might not be Manziel with his improvisational running and passing skills, but Tate’s zig-zagging style is very similar to Manziel, which has to have Sumlin giddy.
For as much as Tate’s athleticism will help Sumlin try and get his groove back after being fired at Texas A&M, Sumlin’s attention to quarterbacking detail will be enormous for Tate, who still has a ways to go as a passer behind center.
Sumlin’s mind for the quarterback position will help Tate and the Wildcats’ offense become more balanced in 2018 because he’s going to poke and prod every little detail of Tate’s game. Sumlin will dissect every little mechanical error in order to make him a more well-rounded player.
For Tate, his evolution will come with more attention to detail and reading defenses better. Mastering the ability to see the field better and knowing what’s coming from the defense will come with more time learning with Sumlin and diving deeper into his new playbook.
Tate burst onto the scene in 2017 with his legs more than his arm. He was the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week four consecutive weeks (first time in conference history) and a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award and the Davey O’Brien Award because he was a nimble, feet-first quarterback who rushed for 1,411 yards (second in the Pac-12) to just 1,591 passing yards (10th in the Pac-12).
In Tate’s first six games as a starter — which didn’t come until October — he averaged 201.2 rushing yards per game, including setting the FBS rushing record for a quarterback with 327 against Colorado in his very first start.
When Tate’s legs got going, he and Arizona were nearly unstoppable, as the Wildcats went 5-1 during Tate’s first six starts. However, he ended the season 0-3 because defenses took his legs away, holding him to less than 60 rushing yards in each game.
In the first two games of that three-game slide, Tate threw just one touchdown with two interceptions. He shattered his season average with 302 passing yards and five touchdowns in the bowl loss to Purdue, but it was clear that without his usually balanced rushing and passing attack, Tate just wasn’t as efficient of a player.
Now, Tate gets to be molded and mentored by Sumlin, who will put extra attention into everything involving Tate’s passing ability. From footwork and reading defenses to how Tate holds and releases the ball, Sumlin will be all over his new quarterback.
Look at what happened when Sumlin was able to work with Manziel for two seasons. Manziel won the Heisman by leading the SEC in passing (3,702) and rushing (1,410) and accumulating 47 touchdowns in 2012, but in Year 2 with Sumlin, Manziel evolved as more of a downfield passer. He again led the SEC in passing yards (4,114), but he also threw a league-high 37 touchdown passes, compared to 26 the season before, and completed 69.9 percent of his passes, up from 68 in 2012.
Manziel ran the ball 57 fewer times in 2013, rushing for 759 yards and just nine touchdowns, as Sumlin helped him have more pocket presence and control games with his arm, then his feet.
We don’t know how much Sumlin will dial down Tate’s running, but there’s no question that Sumlin has had much more success with more mobile quarterbacks. The Aggies won 20 games and averaged 548.5 yards and 44.3 points in the two seasons with Manziel.
They later started the season 7-1 in 2016 behind Trevor Knight, who ended up missing two games late because of an injury, but finished the season with 102 carries for 614 yards.
Sumlin doesn’t need his quarterbacks to be run-first threats, but his offenses are much more explosive when the quarterback is able to create more plays with his legs, and now he’s going to work with a quarterback in Tate who saw just three other quarterbacks rush for more yards than he did in 2017.
Tate will also benefit from having a solid cast of offensive weapons to work with. What helped make Manziel so good was that the Aggies were stacked with talent around him, especially with star wide receiver Mike Evans. Tate doesn’t have someone as elite as Evans to work with, but 800-yard back J.J. Taylor and 500-yard receivers Shun Brown and Tony Ellison should flourish in Sumlin’s high-tempo, spread approach.
As far as the intangibles that go with being a big-time quarterback, Sumlin will help Tate there, too. He’s managed all sorts of personalities and styles behind center, and he’ll be able to teach Tate not how to win the job of being the quarterback but how to be the face of the program. He’ll be able to teach him the discipline that comes with being a Power 5 quarterback, while making sure Tate soaks up Sumlin’s own swagger and confidence to add a little edge to his game.
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Kevin Sumlin playing linebacker at Purdue. Credit Texas A&M sports information
On paper, this looks like a match made in heaven, and what’s scary is that Tate has barely scratched the surface with his potential. That should all change with Sumlin coming to town.
Kevin Warren Sumlin was born in Brewton, Alabama, on August 3, 1964. He later attended Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, where he played football, basketball, and hockey.
Following his prep career, Sumlin attended Purdue University and was a starting linebacker for his entire college career. He was a member of the 1984 Peach Bowl team and finished in the top ten in total tackles (375) (191 solo, 184 assisted) and in the Top Twenty (191) in solo tackles. He led the team in tackles his freshman season (1983) with 91 total tackles, (50 solo and 41 assisted). He was a teammate of players such as Jim Everett, Hall of Famer Rod Woodson, fellow linebacker Fred Strickland and long-time NFL players Mel Gray and Cris Dishman.
In his final year with the Sooners, Sumlin’s offense was one of the best in the country, averaging 44 points per game. In December 2009, it was announced that Sumlin was a finalist for the Paul “Bear” Bryant Award. In 2011, Sumlin coached Houston to a 12–0 start before losing the Conference USA Championship Game to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.
On December 10, 2011, Sumlin told his players that he was leaving Houston, effective immediately, in order to accept a job at another school. KRIV in Houston and ESPN‘s Joe Schad both reported that Sumlin was to become the new coach at Texas A&M. Special teams coordinator Tony Levine coached Houston in the 2012 TicketCity Bowl.
On November 30, 2013, Sumlin agreed to a new six-year contract as head coach at Texas A&M. The contract, valued at $30 million over six years, is guaranteed. If Texas A&M had fired him after the 2015 and 2016 seasons the buyout amounts ($20 million and $15 million respectively) would have had to be paid out within 60 days of termination.
