I remember thinking that Sherman was a bit of an uninspiring hire back in 2008. Since Pete Carroll launched USC into the stratosphere back in 2002, a lot of schools have tried the "retread NFL coach" thing with varying degrees of success, and I guess Texas A&M thought they might have the same luck.
Amazing how closely Sherman's tenure at A&M mirrored Mike Shula's at Alabama:
- Both were former NFL coaches brought in immediately following the Dennis Franchione regime (although Shula followed four months of Mike Price).
- Both followed almost identical trajectories at their respective schools: a losing season, a break-even season with a middling bowl game, a break-through season with a Cotton Bowl berth, and then a regression back to break-even.
- Sherman was 25-25 at Texas A&M, while Shula was 26-23 at Alabama.
There are obvious differences between the two: Sherman is older with a much more accomplished resume, and for the most part he had prolific offensive teams impaired by a porous defense at A&M. Shula had the opposite problem - great defenses hampered by sluggish offenses. I have heard that Sherman is a true class act, and I hope he lands on his feet somewhere. I think he'd make an excellent FBS offensive coordinator.
As for Sherman's replacement, there's been a lot of discussion about Sumlin. I don't think he'd be a bad hire, but I would approach it cautiously. Bear this in mind: Case Keenum has been the starting quarterback for the entirety of Sumlin's tenure at UH, and the one year where Keenum was injured they regressed to 5-7. I like the offensive system Sumlin runs, which is a modified version of Leach's Air Raid run at a quicker pace. But I'm not sure how successful it could be on a consistent basis in the SEC. If they hire Sumlin, he needs a darn good defensive coordinator and he needs to recruit lights-out.