No coach’s seat was hotter than Kevin Sumlin’s coming into this season. He brought the Aggies into the SEC five years ago with a dynamic quarterback and teased us into believing that his program could compete in the best conference in the country.

Fast forward to three consecutive second-half-of-the-season collapses and 8-5 finishes, and the temperature has increasingly risen through the years until nearing a boiling point. Add to the cauldron a worst-case scenario — blowing a 34-point lead in the 2017 season opener — and some of us wonder just how it didn’t boil over then and there.

But it didn’t, and the Aggies haven’t looked back. Sure, there was that hiccup with top-ranked Alabama, a one-possession loss at Kyle Field. But even that loss, the only one since the debacle in The Coliseum, is considered by many as a moral victory. After all, it was the closest the Aggies have come to knocking off the SEC’s top dog since 2013.

Sumlin’s hot seat was cooled considerably on Saturday when Daniel LaCamera figuratively poured a bucket of ice cold Gatorade on it with four field goals, three in the fourth quarter, including the game-winner in the final minute of a 19-17 victory over the Gators in The Swamp. It marked the first time under Sumlin that A&M has won the seventh game of a season, i.e. the second-half opener.

A&M under Sumlin

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At 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the SEC, a breakthrough season might be in the offing. The trend over the last three seasons of second-half collapses took a turn on Saturday, and Sumlin has an opportunity to steer clear of the iceberg that stared him squarely in the face after Week 1.

He has an opportunity to make a statement, to vanquish a few SEC demons. Mississippi State is next up on the schedule. Following a bye this weekend, the Aggies host the Bulldogs, a team they’ve lost to in two of the last three meetings, including last year’s 35-28 loss in Starkville. The home team has won the last four games, and that bodes well for the Aggies. And if they hope to build on Saturday’s huge road win, the Aggies must take care of business on Oct. 28 in Kyle Field.

But that’s just the beginning of a string of games that will ultimately define this season and perhaps the future for Sumlin in College Station. The Aggies welcome in Auburn on Nov. 4. It’s a Tigers team that Sumlin has yet to defeat at Kyle Field. The road team has won the last five matchups, which means it’s time for Sumlin and the Aggies to change things up.

It doesn’t get any easier the rest of the way, either. After a home game against New Mexico, the season closes with road games at Ole Miss, which owns a three-game win streak over the Aggies, and at LSU, a team Sumlin has never beaten.

So there are still quite a few land mines and pitfalls that must be negotiated before a turnaround is complete. If Sumlin can’t run this gauntlet relatively unscathed, a rekindled hot seat is inevitable and a return for the final year of his contract will come into question once again.