It’s a busy time of the year for football coaches and media members alike. Kevin Sumlin and other SEC coaches are preparing their rosters for the upcoming season, and the media is getting its first true look at what their respective teams might look like come September.
On Tuesday, ESPN hosted a “car wash” and gave fans and writers a chance to hear from coaches around the SEC all day long. Kevin Sumlin was one of the coaches present, and was asked about issues pertaining to his life both on and off the football field. From being “the life of the party” (according to rapper Stalley) to A&M’s quarterback situation, Sumlin heard it all on Tuesday.
Sumlin spoke on various ESPN programs, including “SportsCenter”, “His & Hers”, the “Paul Finebaum Show”, along with a few others.
A question brought up to Sumlin on “SportsCenter” concerned the media’s opinion on where the Aggies stack up in the SEC. At SEC Media Days, the week of July 13, members of the press voted the Aggies to finish sixth in the SEC West.
“I don’t know any time in the last three years that we have been in the conference that the media has been right with any of their picks,” Sumlin said. “You look at Mississippi State, who was No. 1 in the country for a few weeks, they picked them last in the league. It’s a great league and we have expectations inside our program. Always have…but we do think we are a lot better than sixth.”
The opinions of the media gives the 2015 squad a lot to prove, but his group seems to thrive on that fact.
An even bigger offseason question has been the quarterback situation. In a weeks time, A&M’s QB situation went from shaky to solid with commitments from Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year Kyler Murray (Allen, TX) and JUCO transfer Jake Hubernak (Blinn). Typically, having multiple quarterbacks in a system doesn’t work, but Sumlin does not subscribe to that way of thinking. He sees it as an advantage.
“The old saying, ‘If you’ve got two quarterbacks, you don’t have one…’ — that’s not the case at Texas A&M,” Sumlin said on “His & Hers”.
Kyle Allen is projected to be the starting QB when September 5 rolls around against Arizona State. As tough as last year was, the downfall of Kenny “Trill” benefited Allen, and a young team got a chance to gel together on the field. While they suffered some tough losses, the 8-5 record helped the team gain confidence.
“We’ve got a young team that took some lumps last year,” Sumlin said. “In the end, it wasn’t what we wanted, but 8-5 really wasn’t all that bad. We had the same record as Auburn and LSU and won our bowl game.”
When asked about being called “the life of the party” by Rap artist Stalley in 2013 after allegedly attending a Rick Ross party, Sumlin said the story was false.
“What’s his name, he made that up,” Sumlin told ESPN2. “He made it up. That didn’t happen. Now, I may have gone … but it wasn’t a party. It was a concert. You guys know I’ve been to different concerts, here and there, and there have been pictures taken. I had an opportunity to see Rick Ross at the national championship game, right after the game. There were a lot of people there. It’s like everything else … everything gets lumped into something. Yeah, I like to go to concerts. I’ve been to a few, you know that.
