Kevin Sumlin is back on the sideline, and the Dallas Renegades are betting on his track record to give their UFL program a lift.
The Renegades announced Wednesday that they’ve hired Sumlin as their new head coach. The 62-year-old spent the 2025 season away from football after two seasons as the University of Maryland’s associate head coach.
Sumlin’s coaching résumé includes a long run in college football, where he put together a 95-63 record from 2008-20. His rise began at Houston in 2008, where he helped develop Case Keenum, who finished his Cougar career as the NCAA’s all-time leading passer. Sumlin went 35-17 there before moving on to Texas A&M.
At College Station, he immediately made noise. In his first season, Sumlin brought Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel to Texas A&M and guided the Aggies to an 11-2 record in their first season in the SEC. That stretch also included Texas A&M’s 2013 Cotton Bowl victory over the Oklahoma Sooners.
The next few seasons were less dominant. Texas A&M finished 9-5 or 8-5 in each of Sumlin’s next four years, and he was dismissed in 2017 after a 7-5 campaign. He left the Aggies with a 51-26 record.
After Texas A&M, Sumlin took over at Arizona, where the Wildcats struggled under his watch and he finished 9-20. His last head-coaching stop came in 2022 with the UFL’s Houston Gamblers, where he went 3-7.
In Other News...
South Carolina Faces Real Pressure As Kentucky Brings A Bigger Concern
South Carolina gets Kentucky at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday afternoon with a little more urgency than the records alone might suggest. The Gamecocks are 2-2 and still looking for their first SEC win, while Kentucky arrives at 3-1 and already has a conference victory, setting up a matchup that feels bigger than a standard early-October league game. The 4:15 p.m. kickoff on SEC Network comes with the usual game-week backdrop of injury updates, betting lines and weather watching, but the broader pressure is simple enough: South Carolina needs to steady itself in the league race.
Kentucky brings a different kind of concern into Columbia, because this is the sort of opponent that can make a team pay if it is still sorting through its own issues. The odds list South Carolina as a slight favorite, which tells you oddsmakers still see a path for the Gamecocks at home, but the margin is thin enough to leave plenty of room for anxiety. With conference play already off to a shaky start, the interest is not just in whether South Carolina can win, but in whether this is the game where it begins to look more like the team it expected to be. [Read more 🡒]
Florida State Has A Growing QB Concern At The Worst Time
The quarterback picture across the conference has become harder to ignore, and it only gets sharper for South Carolina when LaNorris Sellers is part of the conversation. The Gamecocks have leaned on his talent and development all season, and as other teams sort through their own quarterback issues, Sellers remains one of the more important young passers to track heading into the stretch run.
Jayden Maiava, Marcel Reed and Ashton Daniels are all dealing with their own pressure points as their teams look for steadier play, but South Carolinas interest in the group goes beyond casual scoreboard watching. The Gamecocks are trying to keep their own momentum going while the leagues quarterback ranks shift around them, and the next round of games will tell a lot about which of these passers can clean things up before the stakes get even higher. [Read more 🡒]
South Carolinas Emerging Back Could Change One Big Offensive Problem
Jabree Coleman has quietly worked his way into a meaningful role for South Carolina, giving the Gamecocks a second option at running back as the offense looks for more balance. Over four games, Coleman has piled up 147 yards and three touchdowns while averaging 8.6 yards per rush, and the early returns match the internal buzz around him. Coaches and teammates have pointed to his natural feel for the position, his intelligence and the kind of work ethic that tends to earn more opportunities.
For a South Carolina offense that has been searching for more consistency on the ground, Colemans emergence is more than a nice depth chart development. His role is expected to keep growing, particularly when the conditions line up for a run-heavy approach, and that gives the Gamecocks a potential answer to one of their bigger offensive issues. The question now is how far his workload can go as the season moves on and the staff looks for the right way to keep him involved. [Read more 🡒]