re: Check in if you're ready for sumlin to go

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In fact what worries me is the idea that Sumlin maybe has hit the ceiling of our program without lucky lightening-in-a-bottles like JFF (and even then all it takes is a single misstep and all that momentum is gone). We thought that a SEC rebrand, and fancy new buildings, and all the money we could find would overcome our repulsive (to the demographic that is good at football) brand and our stench of decades of mediocrity, but it turns out it is harder to run from our past than we thought.

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You are not going to get many people here and even less on TA to agree with this, but in the back of most of our minds, I tend to think this is a fear we all have. Even a legitimate, almost unanimously agreed-upon current top 10 defensive coordinator has actually regressed year over year with the talent we have. There's just no depth. If it was only Sumlin who has had this problem, we could point to his recruiting and say he neglected defense, but the truth is we had no defensive depth under Sherman or Fran and little at the end of RC's tenure either. We seem to be able to land one or two NFL starters almost at all times, but we don't have talent across the D, have 0 at linebacker and haven't really for 16 years if you don't count Von who was a hybrid, and never have a second string that's worth a darn. It just doesn't seem that A&M is capable of getting enough good defenders, especially the front 7 or so guys, to compete with the big boys. 9 wins or so plus maybe a bowl win may actually be our ceiling without a once in a lifetime guy like Johnny.