Report is coming out of Houston that Kevin Sumlin is heading to College Station:
CBS Houston is reporting that Houston head coach Kevin Sumlin will be named Texas A&M head coach within 24 hours. #UHCougars
That was a tweet from Jefferson Powell of CougarsDen.com . Sumlin has been the Aggies top target since they fired Mike Sherman few days ago. From other reports (previously linked in our coaching hot stove threads) ASU backed off Sumlin because they didn't have the firepower to match Texas A&M's offer.
All of this is just fine with us. We have never been all crazy about Sumlin for number of reasons already exhaustively discussed in recent days. Despite number of red flags around Sumlin Chianti Dan from what we are hearing is obsessed with Sumlin. There are many other worthy candidates compared to Sumlin. We saw one of them - Larry Fedora - rip Sumlin's team to shreds on Cougars' home turf this afternoon.
We will have lot more on the coaching search soon. At this point, we'd suggest UCLA alums move on from Chris Petersen. His pursuit has been a total epic fail on the part of Dan Guerrero, and crystallized the problems with his questionable leadership (we are being charitable here) that has come into focus in recent years. UCLA would not have found itself in this kind of situation if Guerrero had the testicular fortitude to take a decisive action right after the Arizona debacle and put UCLA's search process in motion.
All that said, I remain optimistic about our future. I still think Bruins are going to end up with a solid coach despite the ridiculous potshots and snickers coming from the predictable corners of traditional media. More after the jump.
I am not as down about the immediate and long term future as number of other Bruin fans are. What is clear now once and for all is that UCLA has the financial resources to go after a damn good football coach. We are confident Bruins should be able to get a young and hungry coach, who can come in with a track record of building a program or outstanding coordinator experience from an elite program. There are lot of outstanding coaches out there who could be good fit in Westwood if we are going into the market with over $3 million per year.
We are down right now but despite what all the detractors have to say (blowhards from the Trojan Times, tWWL or Bruin haters in general), people associated with the game knows the underlying potential of U---C---L---A. Don't get too down. Our time will come. Consider this an open thread to take in tonight's game and continue the coaching hot stove speculation.
GO BRUINS.
UPDATE (N): Unbelievable update from the LA Times. Apparently Chianti Dan is out in Houston in an effort to beg Sumlin:
UCLA is racing to secure a name-brand football coach, aggressively pursuing Miami Coach Al Golden while Athletic Director Dan Guerrero traveled to Houston on Saturday to meet with Cougars coach Kevin Sumlin.
What an amazing joke this guy has become. Pathetic. Per the same report Guerrero is reportedly targeting Al Golden has well even though Golden recently signed an extension. So that is setting up as a fail to. At this point if Gene Block wants to maintain his own credibility, he should be cutting Chianti Dan lose by Monday. An epic fail all around.
UPDATE II (Bellerophon): Just a reaction piece on the update that Chianti Dan is on his way to beg Sumlin to look at Westwood before accepting the Texas A&M job. Are you f**king kidding me?! Seriously, Dan?! Do you even watch football, you lazy, chianti-swilling moron? Did you not watch another candidate, a more viable one, with an offense that would mesh better with the current players (i.e. Southern Miss blended a little read option in their complete beat-down of Sumlin's Houston team today, which would certainly work with Hundley and Pistol-style players in the fold), expose Sumlin for the chump he is?
Or, better yet, Dan, did you already forget that without All-World sixth (yes, sixth!) year senior QB Case Keenum, Sumlin is just another bum coach in a mid-major conference. Did you forget that, even with Case Keenum for the important parts of the game, Rick Neuheisel gave Sumlin a beat-down in the Rose Bowl?! Or that Sumlin barely beat Rick in Houston with a healthy Keenum?! You know, Rick Neuheisel, the guy you just fired because he wasn't getting the job done?
Let me make this clear Dan: you hire Sumlin and it will be a relentless attack coming straight for you. You've left yourself a small window to save yourself (making a good football hire, cleaning up the mess with basketball, working toward an on-campus stadium, fixing the debacle that is the Pauley renovation), but it's closing real fast buddy.
UPDATE III (N): Here is another angle to ponder what an idiotic move was on the part of Chianti Dan not to officially launch the search process following the Arizona game by firing Rick Neuheisel. UCLA got blown up by Arizona on Oct. 20. Al Golden reportedly signed his extension with Miami around November 25. So if Chianti Dan actually wanted to pursue Golden the timing would have been right after the Arizona game and before he signed his extension. The basic idiocy and incompetency is surreal and it is mindboggling that Gene Block's UCLA is paying this guy almost $700,000 a year to burn our major revenue programs into the ground. Unfreakingreal.