Texas A&M’s UCLA collapse was a microcosm of every Kevin Sumlin season

Three months before Texas A&M’s 34-point collapse against UCLA, topped in college football history only by 2006 Northwestern’s 35-pointer against Michigan State, Kevin Sumlin’s athletic director put him on blast.

“Coach knows he has to win and he has to win this year,” A&M athletic director Scott Woodward said while live on the SEC Network. “Last year was extremely disappointing. We were as highly ranked as four and got up there and played very competitive games and fell off, like we’ve been doing.”

“I, like him, am very disappointed in what’s happening with these late-season swoons and we have to figure it out. We have to get it right,” Woodward had also said, earlier in 2017.

Shooting up the rankings and then crashing back down has become the Aggie trademark in the Sumlin era. Three straight years, A&M has cracked the AP top 10 only to finish unranked; in 2016, the Aggies debuted as the Playoff committee’s No. 4, then left that top 25 three weeks later.

During A&M’s 2016 loss to LSU, ESPN put up this graphic, and it’d need two more 2016 losses to be complete:

So watching the Aggies on Sunday, going from dominating potential first-round QB Josh Rosen ...

... and stunting on the sideline with the drum major’s mace ...

... to falling prey to the Dan Marino fake spike at the end of the massive comeback ...

... was like seeing an entire Sumlin A&M season all at once. The highs and the lows, compressed into 60 minutes.

Shortly after the game, a Texas A&M regent announced on Facebook that he wants Sumlin fired:

I’ve been on the Board of Regents for the A&M System for almost seven years. During that time, I’ve not once commented on Kevin Sumlin and his performance during his tenure at our school. I never said a word when he and his agent manipulated a much bigger and longer contract. I said nothing about his arrogance and his mishandling of multiple player controversies. I said nothing when we had multiple awesome recruiting classes, only to see key players leave our school or underperform. But tonight I am very disappointed and I have to say this. Kevin Sumlin was out-coached tonight, which isn’t new. He recruits well, but can’t coach the big games, or the close games. Our players were better tonight. Our players were more talented tonight. But our coaches were dominated on national TV, yet again. I’m only one vote on the Board of Regents but when the time comes my vote will be that Kevin Sumlin needs to GO. In my view he should go now.

The SEC West is brutal. Every coach who enters it eventually leaves under heinous circumstances.

The Aggies caught lightning in a bottle by hitting a yet-to-modernize Nick Saban with Big 12 madness and Johnny Manziel, which feels like a thousand years ago, right? Sumlin’s won at least eight games in five straight seasons, despite SEC media acting like he wouldn’t survive even one.

But unless A&M goes on a tear and actually sustains it this time, which would require weathering a schedule that includes Alabama, Florida, and Auburn in the course of four weeks, it’s hard to imagine Sumlin getting a chance to complete six of those seasons.