COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A visit to a Texas A&M football practice is musically akin to a trip to a swanky hip-hop club in downtown Houston or a hot spot on Miami’s South Beach.

The Aggies opened fall practice with the rapper Drake’s dis of his fellow rapper Meek Mill, “Back to Back,” as a prelude to several other tunes on the cutting edge of rap.

In the middle of the bobbing heads of more than 100 young men in their late teens and early 20s was Kevin Sumlin, who, at 51, just might be the coolest coach in college football.

Just to be clear, Sumlin did not party with the rapper Rick Ross and the Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel during the weekend of the 2013 national championship game. But the fact that Sumlin had to debunk such a story speaks to his place within the hierarchy of college football coolness.