Sumlin To Coach Wide Receivers

BOULDER - The University of Colorado has named Kevin Sumlin as its new wide receivers coach, head coach Gary Barnett announced Sunday.

Sumlin, 38, joins the CU staff after serving two years as assistant head coach and receivers coach at Texas A&M, where he also served as offensive coordinator for the last nine games of the 2002 season.

All hirings at the University are subject to the approval of CU-Boulder chancellor Richard Byyny and subsequently by the Board of Regents.

"Kevin is an excellent coach, a tremendous role model and a great teacher," Barnett said. "We are extremely fortunate to be able to add him to our program. He finished the year as the offensive coordinator at A & M, and one of the things he accomplished in that role was their win over Oklahoma."

He replaces Jon Embree, who joined the UCLA staff as passing game coordinator under its new head coach, Karl Dorrell. One vacancy remains on the Buff staff, as Barnett also must replace running backs coach Eric Bieniemy, who also joined Dorrell in his native Los Angeles for family reasons.

"I'm extremely excited to come to Colorado, and be a part of a staff and team that has won consistently in the Big 12," Sumlin said Sunday from College Station. "It's a nationally recognized program, and I'm honored that coach Barnett considered me to come there and even happier that I am going to be joining the program."

Sumlin lettered four years as a linebacker at Purdue from 1983-86, ending his career ranked in the top 10 all-time in tackles by a Boilermaker. He walked on as a freshman, made 91 tackles and earned mention on Sports Illustrated's All-America walk-on list. He earned honorable mention all-Big 10 honors as a sophomore (109 tackles) and as a senior (114, which ranked fifth in the league). He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in criminology and criminal justice from Purdue in 1988.

He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Washington State in 1989, helping on defense with the linebackers, and coached the junior varsity team his second season with the Cougars. His first full-time position was as wide receivers coach with Wyoming in 1991-92, moving on to a similar position with Minnesota, where he spent four seasons (1993-96) coaching the receivers, and in 1997, he switched to mentoring the quarterbacks. He returned to his alma mater in 1998, coaching receivers at Purdue for three years (1998-2000). His 1998 group set school records with 377 receptions, 4,208 yards and 43 touchdowns.

Sumlin was named assistant head coach at Texas A&M in 2001, also tutoring the receivers for his position assignment. When former coach R.C. Slocum shook up responsibilities after the third game last fall, he moved into the offensive coordinator role. Prior to the switch, the Aggies had scored just 48 points in three games (16.0 per), but afterwards, A&M put 297 points on the board, or 33.0 per contest. The offense averaged 419 yards per game after just netting 286 in the first three contests. When Slocum was fired after the season, incoming coach Dennis Franchione retained none of the assistants, as he brought most of his Alabama staff with him.

He was recruiting the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the Aggies, and will cover the Houston area for Colorado.

Sumlin is a native of Brewton, Ala. He is married to the former Charlene Sirois, and the couple has three small children, two girls and boy.