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No one wants to be blamed for anything Kevin Sumlin related, apparently. Former Texas A&M athletic director Eric Hyman is attempting like all hell to wash his hands of Sumlin's contract extension. You know, the one that happened on his watch.
He told Mac Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he almost had zero things to do with the coach. That it was those above him to make the call to give him all that loot.
Here is an excerpt from the piece, which you should read in full:
Article Continues Below“No. I had nothing to do with it {contract extension},” Hyman told me in an interview on Wednesday morning at a Starbucks near his home in Fort Worth.
“I have done this job a long time and I don’t blame Kevin Sumlin. If someone is going to give you $5 million a year for six years, it would have been stupid of him to turn it down,” Hyman said. “But the contract was given to me, and it was ‘This is what we are going to do.’ I looked at myself and I was stunned.
“I had no say so over it. I’ve been doing this job for a long time. I had worked with Steve Spurrier for years, and he was paid a heck of a lot less than Coach Sumlin. And he won national championships after conference championships. And then you are making this commitment to a person, and again I don’t blame Kevin, that’s never won a conference championship.
“When the original contract was given to me, if Kevin were to leave the next day there was no buyout provision.”
For what it is worth, this doesn't really mean anything. A former AD doesn't have current stroke at Texas A&M. That's not how it works.
It is interesting, however, that someone once so beloved by many, as Kevin Sumlin was, is now the guy people are trying to distance themselves from.
Maybe Sumlin should have used all that praise he received during the height of Johnny Football mania to get out of dodge before dodge began to get him.
