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Shermie: The guy that looks like our crazy uncle A day after Mike Leach and Urban Meyer were hired by Washington State and Ohio State, respectively, and just before the Aggies begin their time as an SEC program, they fire their head coach.
After a most disappointing 6-6 season, Mike Sherman is no more. Well, he's alive. Just not a head coach in college football.
At first glance, I was mildly shocked only because the Aggies are moving to the SEC and after all the grandstanding, threats, hemming, hawing and bad mouthing, Texas A&M is making its big splash after firing their head coach.
However, I sat down, read all the stories, looked at all the stats and realized that it makes total and complete sense.
By the numbers:
4
Seasons of Aggie football with Sherman. Unlike Turner Gill at Kansas, Sherman had a full four years to turn this program around after Dennis Franchione spared everyone to high holy hell. That's four years of recruits (and there have been some dandies) and four years to implement your system with your guys. This season was the year. The Aggies went 9-4 and won the Big XII South (beat Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Nebraska to end the year) and they were a top 10 pre-season pick. They were -- clutch the pearls! -- a national championship contender. Not so much.
5
In this championship season, the Aggies lost five games by a touchdown or less. They coughed -- gagged -- up five fourth-quarter leads, three of which against ranked opponents (Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Kansas State) and lost two overtime games (Missouri, Kansas State). That is almost impossible to do without trying. If the Aggies had any ability to close out a game -- considering that run game -- they'd be the top-ranked team in the nation (considering they'd have wins against five ranked teams in addition to Missouri, Iowa State and SMU, all of whom are going to bowl games). This was a remarkable season of failure.
1
Win against Texas, which includes two blowouts (2008, 2009) and an insane loss against a Texas team that garnered, like, 100 yards of offense (uh, last week). Don't beat Texas, you don't keep your job.
25-25
You want the face of mediocrity, this is Mike Sherman's Aggies. In four seasons, the Aggies went 25-25 overall and 15-18 in conference. That means you were not only losing to the good teams, but you were losing 45 percent of the time against bad teams.
0
Bowl wins. Most notable is that they lost the two games (the 2009 Independence Bowl, the 2010 Cotton Bowl) by a combined score of 85-41. Who were their opponents? Georgia and LSU, the two SEC teams that will play Saturday in the SEC title game and two of the opponents that A&M will face in the next, oh, 35 years or so.
Fact is, no matter what you think of the guy or Aggies football, he just had to go after a historically awful season and a total lack of ability in beating a good team.
As to who the Aggies are attempting to get, that might be another reason Sherman is out now. The hot name is the Houston Cougars' Kevin Sumlin. He'd not have to move far, he's black (don't think that's not alluring in this day and age) and many of his recruits, willing to follow him, wouldn't need to go too far to transfer. His presence in the Houston area -- recruiting and otherwise -- is already established, which would be a huge boon for the program.
The other names thrown aroun are Alabama's defensive coordinator Kirby Smart and Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora.
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