Sumlin brewing?

Rumor has it Miami’s been talking with Oklahoma co-offensive coordinator, Kevin Sumlin. Good news on a lot of levels.

Most notably, Kevin Rogers being out of the mix and staying at Minnesota. Sumlin would run a more traditional Miami-style offense as opposed to Rogers, who runs the spread.

I wrote a few days back that I’ve heard nothing about Rogers and I took some heat for it when the Miami Herald reported that contact had been made.

There have also been reports the two sides never spoke and others stating that Rogers actually turned Randy Shannon and Miami down.

I stand by my original post. My guys told me that Rogers never really fit the scheme that Shannon wants for Miami’s offense. Rogers scheme might work well for a mobile guy like Kirby Freeman, but in the long term Shannon’s Canes need something more traditional and Sumlin could be the guy for that.

Sumlin is proven, yet unproven. The 90s were spent as a receiver coach for Wyoming, Purdue and Minnesota, where he also worked with quarterbacks. 2001-2001, Sumline was the assistant head coach, OC and receivers coach at Texas A&M. In 2003, he headed to OU and took over tight ends and since 2005, co-offensive coordinator and a receivers coach.

The Sooners have an impressive body of work in 2006, losing starting quarterback Rhett Bomar before the season, uber running back Adrian Peterson during the season and still making a BCS bowl game with two regular season losses. How much of that was Sumlin versus offensive coordinator, Kevin Wilson, I don’t know. (Could we work another Kevin into this story?)

What I do know is that Oklahoma is a winner program and that Sumlin has been under Bob Stoops for four full seasons now. Winners breed winners and the Sooners coaching tree is a pretty good one. Plucking a co-offensive coordinator from Norman is infinitely better than an NFL guy like Rogers whose offense and quarterbacks were suspect this past season. The Vikings finished 6-10 and didn’t even sniff the playoffs.

Please note, that Sumlin isn’t the only candidate. From day one, word was that Shannon had an extensive list and game plan for how to bring Miami back. Regarding coaching vacancies, he was reportedly 3-4 deep with candidates. Dirk Koetter was obviously choice #1 for the OC vacancy. That didn’t pan out, so now it’s Plan B. Sumlin is in that mix, as are others. Expect this to be a busy week at The U as positions are about to get filled.

Another rumor? Walt Harris seems to be back in the mix. Which means his name is being thrown around by fans supposedly “in the know.”

Before Christmas I wrote that a source mentioned Harris’ name to me, but it was on the hush-hush. Supposedly Harris had put in a call to The U and was interested on some level, but Shannon had his sights set on Koetter.

Three weeks later, it looks like a good time to take Harris’ call, so pay attention to how that plays out this week. The national and local media is yet to even mention Harris, which means there might be something to it. Especially since most of these folks have been screaming about Rogers for over a month even though that went nowhere.

Stay tuned.

.:Canes305:.

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