Texas A&M Football: New Head Coach Kevin Sumlin Making All the Right Moves

On December 13, Kevin Sumlin was named the head coach of the Texas A&M football team.

Since that day Sumlin has been hard at work trying to build a staff while holding together a recruiting class and continuing to recruit new players.

Sumlin has made all the right moves since taking over.

So far he has been everything Aggie fans could ask for. He has pushed all of the right buttons. A new coach goes through a honeymoon period after he is hired and Sumlin is surely in that period right now.

If he continues to make all the right moves then he will extend this honeymoon period for an indefinite period of time.

This is a look at all that Sumlin has accomplished since he took over as head coach at A&M.

Convinced Ryan Swope to Stay

Junior wide receiver Ryan Swope set records for receptions and yards in a season in 2011. He was considering bypassing his senior season and making himself available for the 2012 NFL draft.

Swope suffered a concussion during the 2011 season and was concerned about future injuries.

Swope caught 89 passes for 1,207 yards in 2011. He will enter the 2012 season in the SEC as the leading returning receiver in receptions, yards and receiving touchdowns.

Swope will go up against much tougher defenses in 2012. Even against tougher defenses he should excel in the slot in Sumlin's system.

Hired Brian Polian

One of the more under the radar hires that Sumlin made was special teams coordinator Brian Polian from Stanford.

Polian is known as one of the best recruiters in the country. He will help the Aggies recruit on a national level.

The Aggies are going to need to be able to recruit out of state to compete in the SEC. Polian should help immensely in this area. There will now be teams from three major conferences recruiting in Texas. A&M will need to be able to go to Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and California and sell their program.

Polian has a lot of experience in this area selling Notre Dame and Stanford to out-of-state recruits. Hiring him was a coup for Sumlin.

Flipped DeVante Harris

The Aggies are losing three of four starters in the secondary in 2012.

The SEC features some of the top secondaries in the country. The Aggies had one of the worse secondaries in the country in 2011 and obviously need to play better in 2012.

They went a long way towards getting to that goal when Sumlin was able to convince Mesquite (TX) Horn cornerback DeVante Harris to drop his verbal commitment to Oklahoma and verbally commit to A&M.

Harris is considered to be one of the top pure cover corners in the state. He excelled in the seven-on-seven circuit over the summer earning defensive MVP honors in the Gridiron Kings national seven-on-seven tournament in Florida.

You need elite talent to compete in the SEC and with Harris the Ags added a big-time talent who should help immediately in the secondary.

Hired Mark Snyder as Defensive Coordinator

Sumlin needed to find a top-notch defensive coordinator and appears to have found his man in Mark Snyder.

Snyder had success at previous stops at South Florida and Ohio State. He has head coaching experience from a stint as the head man at Marshall.

The biggest advantage of the Snyder hire is that he runs a defense that is similar to the 3-4 scheme the Ags were running under Tim DeRuyter.

Snyder runs a 4-3 Under scheme but is multiple on defense. The Aggies have a lot of OLB talent on the roster. Snyder's scheme should allow those OLBs to find a place where they can help this defense succeed.

He will deploy a 3-4 scheme at times so the transition should be a relatively easy one for the Aggie defenders. 

Hired a Staff of Recruiters

Kevin Sumlin has recognized that to achieve greatness as a program the Ags are going to have to step it up on the recruiting trail.

Sumlin has made a concerted effort to hire a great group of recruiters.

Assistant coaches David Beaty, Clarence McKinney, Kliff Kingsbury and Brian Polian are all excellent recruiters. He also retained DL coach Terrell Williams who was the top recruiter on Mike Sherman's staff. They are the type of coaches who can go into a recruit's living room and get it done.

Both Beaty and McKinney have extensive contacts in the DFW and Houston high school coaching communities. Sumlin went out and assembled a staff that appears to be the best group of recruiters that A&M has had in decades.

Convinced Marcel Yates to Leave Boise State and Coach at A&M

Marcel Yates is one of the top secondary coaches in the nation. Kevin Sumlin was able to convince him to leave Boise State and join the A&M staff.

One of the Aggies biggest issues in 2011 was that the defense struggled to force turnovers. All too often you would see a pass hit an Aggie defender in the hands only to see the Aggie drop it.

In 2011 the Boise State defense had 15 interceptions. In 2010 they had 14 interceptions. In 2010 they had 24 interceptions with 16 of them from the secondary.

The bottom line is that Yates knows how to put defensive backs on the field that can go and get the football. This has been severely lacking at A&M for the past decade.

Sumlin went out and hired one of the best coaches in the country and it should pay dividends immediately in 2012.

Addressing Immediate Needs on the Roster

Kevin Sumlin was able to watch the Aggie football team as they practiced for their bowl game.

He identified a need for more speed at the wide receiver position and went about bringing that speed to Aggieland.

Sumlin went out and got verbal commitments from Trinity Valley Junior College wide receiver Derel Walker. Walker is a 6'2" wide receiver who can really run.

The Ags also went and convinced Sabian Holmes to switch his pledge from Baylor to A&M. Holmes starred during Southlake Carroll's playoff run to the state championship as a corner and a wide receiver. He should help the Aggies in the slot in 2012.

The willingness of Sumlin to jump right in and make changes to the roster indicates that Sumlin wants to win right away and is not trying to rebuild the program.