After season ending losses of the variety we have seen the last few years it’s understandable that the hiss-birds would be out in full force calling for a change at the head coaching position and "accountability" from the program. It’s only natural to lash out at your leaders or the leaders of a program when the results you expect aren’t fulfilled.

This is certainly true in college football and has ultimately led to the creation of the coaching carousel season that is now prevalent in the sport. A&M is no different in this aspect of college football, however, as a program that does have a proud history in the sport and one that boasts some of the most knowledgeable fans and best traditions, not only should we expect more from our program but our program should expect more from its fans.

So rather than banging pots and pans and demanding better from the program let’s take some time to evaluate what has really taken place over the last five years and give the program and those who have built it their due before we decide if a change is in fact needed.

A re-evaluation of expectations:

A quick word on the pre-Sumlin era because you can’t honestly assess the current state of the program without recognizing the history that led to its arrival. After the disaster that was the Fran Era, Mike Sherman came in and turned the program around with a handful of Big XII caliber recruiting classes which resulted in shared Conference Championship in 2010 followed by what may be the most disappointing 6-6 season ever in 2011. That season featured numerous late game collapses and ultimately cost Sherman his job. When Sumlin came in for 2012 the talent from that 2010 team was still largely intact and even though there was not significant depth beyond the starting 22 the team was loaded with senior leadership and survived the season remarkably healthy. Couple that with Arkansas and Auburn suffering some of their worst seasons in school history, Mizzou being a walking mash unit at the end of the season and Ole Miss coming off a combined 1-15 record in conference play over 2010 and 2011 you have all the ingredients in place for a special season. Which is exactly what happened in 2012. However, what is A&M’s record in 2012 if DaMontre Moore is banged up for 2/3rds of the season and has to miss two games, or if Deshazor Everette misses the last 3 games of the season or the vaunted O-line sufferers through nagging injuries all year? The answer is that 10-2 regular season looks more like 8-4 or 7-5 if that 2012 team suffers through even half the injuries we’ve seen over the 2015 and 16 seasons.

That’s the vacuum of seasonal expectations which we’ve allowed ourselves to get caught up in. We look at the final season record from one year to the next and assume that if the record is getting better than the team must be getting better as well and if not then the program is obviously in worse shape. This is a false equivalence which should have been proven by the 2013 season. A season in which we had roughly the same team, minus a few key defensive seniors, but also significantly more injuries, including lingering injuries to Manziel which clearly effected his ability to compete against LSU and Mizzou at the end of the season. The 2013 team wasn’t really two losses worse than the 2012 team, it was just less healthy.

Now you can make the argument that 2014 was a significantly worse team than both 2012 and 13 as turnover within the starting 22 was at its peak and the depth of the program was made up of either remaining Big XII recruits or very young SEC recruits. In fact heading into the season most people picked the team to finish at 4-8 or 6-6. Instead we ran off 5 straight to start the season and then post Arkansas the lack of depth, inexperience in the starting 22 and mounting injuries to frontline starters began to take its toll which lead to another slow finish. In reality we very easily could have finished 2014 at 5-7 and if not for a few fortunate turnovers by Auburn we should have been 6-6. The injuries for 2014 weren’t nearly the issue they were for 2013, 2015 or 2016 but youth and an overall lack of SEC caliber talent were absolutely an issue. This was by and large expected in year three which was why 8-5, while disappointing wasn’t looked at as disastrous.

2015 was an overall better team than 2014 and until the game against Alabama looked to be significantly better. Injuries and lack of depth struck again as Kyle Allen was clearly hurt during the Alabama game and severely limited during the Ole Miss game, and while Sumlin did miss handle the QB situation throughout 2015, the quarterbacks themselves are as much to blame as Sumlin since they are ultimately the ones responsible for their own actions on and off the field. We also saw virtually every linebacker in the starting rotation go down for significant time due to injuries with absolutely zero depth behind them. So again, youth and immaturity at a key position coupled with lack of depth leads to the appearance of a team that is regressing.

As for 2016 it’s exceptionally easy to trace our resulting record back to mass injuries to the starting 22 and lack of quality depth to cover for those injuries which began against Arkansas and hit with full force against Miss St and Ole Miss. What looks like regression over the course of the season is again the same issue that has hindered this team for the past few years, lack of quality depth which can be relied on when better and more experienced players get injured.

A reason for poor depth:

So if it’s injuries over the course of the season and a general lack of depth that are leading to this apparent regression why do we have a string of first round draft picks and why hasn’t Sumlin addressed the overarching issue yet? I mean surely he should be able to develop the guys he recruits right?

The answer to these questions is multi-fold yet actually surprisingly simple if you’ve follow recruiting on a regular basis. To deal with the collapses of 2013-2014 all you really have to do is look at the recruiting classes of 2010-2012. Sure the 2010 class ended up as being perhaps the greatest class of O-Linemen in history and we managed to hit on DaMontre Moore who was a moderate talent coming out of high school, but overall it was a class that ranked 19th in the country and consisted of primarily average recruits who should have been relied upon to provide depth as redshirt Seniors rather than being asked to carry a team going into its first two years of the SEC. From that 2010 class you also had starting RB (Ben Malena), WR (Malcolm Kennedy) and converted linebacker (Nate Askew) and while I have great memories of each of these guys none of them were recruited by Alabama or LSU and yet at least two of them were key pieces of the 2012 and 2013 teams. The 2011 class hit on Manziel, Evans and to a lesser degree Matthews, Raven Jr, Everett and Jenkins but again that’s pretty much it as there is hardly a recognizable name among the remaining 16 recruits.

2010 -2011 where entirely Sherman’s and 2012 was a class Sherman started and Sumlin had to finish. And finish he did with two Five Star recruits (Trey Williams & Thomas Johnson) and then a handful of four star recruits who have had varying degrees of success in DeVante Harris, Germain Ifedi, Mike Matthews, Ed Pope, Matt Davis and Jordan Richmond. We all know what happened with Johnson and Davis, and Jordan Richmond was arrested and suspended for marijuana possession before transferring to UNT. The rest of the 2012 class followed the upper tier as a rather mixed bag with guys like Obioha and Alonzo Williams contributing regularly while others like Sabian Holmes and Derel Walker were only occasionally seen on the field and then there were the unpredictable roster hits like Michael Richardson suffering a career ending neck injury and Polo Manukainiu passing in a car crash before ever getting a chance to play a snap. Ultimately, this team played well above its talent in 2013 and 2014 thanks in large part to a handful of starters and despite virtually no experienced depth.

The last two seasons have begun to see our overall depth increase some but we have been decimated by the 2013 class which was astounding in the # of misses due to legal troubles and transfers. To whit of the top 15 recruits from that class the only remaining recruits are Seals Jones (5 Star) Daeshon Hall (4 Star), Noel Ellis (4 Star) Hardreck Walker (4 Star) and James White (4 Star). The list of guys that are gone from the top 15 is simply astounding: Justin Manning DT (4 Star) Isaiah Golden DT (4 Star) Sebastian LaRue WR (4 Star), Kameron Miles S (4 Star) LaQuiviante Gonzalez WR (4 Star) Kohl Stewart QB (4 Star) JaQuay Williams WR (4 Star) Ishmail Wilson OT (4 Star) Kenny Hill QB (4 Star) Kyrion Parker WR (4 Star) Darian Claiborne OLB (3 Star) etc.

If you want to know why there is no depth on the D-line or at the Linebacker spot look at some of the names and positions of the guys who are no longer part of the program. In total Three DT’s and 4 LB’s were recruited in 2013 and are no longer a part of the program. Perhaps some of that is Sumlin’s fault but again it’s ultimately up to the players to stay out of legal trouble or be patient enough to wait their turn to start. If the 2013 class had stayed intact you would be looking at an additional 10 four star athletes playing their senior season for the Aggies this year. How much different does this team look if guys like Manning, Golden, Claiborne and Mastro had panned out and are provided quality depth up the middle of the Defense. And that’s just on the defensive side of the ball. In addition to Ish Wilson we also lost two Guards from that class who could have provided much needed depth to a young interior line which was clearly getting beat up by the time we got to the Mississippi schools.

A reason for optimism to stay the course:

By and large the last three classes have not had near the level of attrition that the 2011-2013 classes did. In addition, the caliber of athlete that makes up the 2014-2017 classes is much closer to those put together by Alabama and LSU. As the strength of the recruiting classes have been more consistent Sumlin’s ability to redshirt freshman has increased and as more guys are redshirted our overall program depth begins to increase. As depth begins to increase three game losing streaks of 2014 become 2 game losing streaks of 2015 and 16 become 2-4 losses total in 2017 become 1-2 total losses in 2018 and our ability to truly compete for championships begins in earnest.

In 2017 our defense will be littered with seniors and juniors at every level to provide quality depth and allow last year’s class of true and redshirt freshman to grow into their roles. It will also provide Sumlin an opportunity to redshirt most of the next incoming freshman class again. On the O-line the freshman that struggled late this year will be Sophomore’s next year and the best O-lineman from the 2016 class (Kellen Deisch) was able to redshirt this year thanks to Gennesy and Elumenour staying healthy and performing for much of the season. We’ll still be loaded at wideout and tailback with the likely return of everyone but Reynolds and QB will be either Hubenak, redshirt freshman Nick Starkel, 4 Star 2017 recruit Kellen Mond or former 2015 4 Star Recruit and Baylor transfer Jarrett Stidham. All in all a top end group of offensive skill players.

Next year’s team may not have the explosiveness of a player like Garrett or a quarterback with the experience of a QB like Knight but it will be a deeper team across the board which should translate to fewer opportunities for late season collapses and more consistency in football fundamentals from start to finish. Based on what’s taken place over the last five years changing head coaches isn’t going to do much to alter the future of this program in the near term and could potentially risk our ability to compete longer term if we fail to develop the continuity required to compete on a regular basis in this conference.