The Texas A&M Aggies have had roller coaster seasons each of the last three years under coach Kevin Sumlin, each time starting out 5-0 before finishing the year a disappointing 8-5.

If the Aggies do that again in 2017, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit thinks Sumlin could be out of a job next spring.

During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Herbstreit said Texas A&M’s annual second-half collapse in recent years is a troubling trend:

“What’s interesting to me when we went back and looked at it, you think of A&M’s starts these last three years, all three years 5-0, ranked up in the top 10 in the country,” he said. “Then you look at the games after those 5-0 starts, and I think collectively in the three years they’re 9-15. So something is there.

“If that happens once, maybe a second time, but a third time, I’m sure that’s an area that he has felt that he’s had to address. You could put in drills and different things in the off-season and finishing, and here’s a fourth-quarter mat drill or whatever you might want to do. But when GameDay was there when they played Tennessee and they were No. 8 in the country at that time, they found a way to win that one in double overtime. They went all the way up to No. 6 before they played Alabama. Then it’s almost as if they lose a game and then it’s like, oh, well, there went that season. It just caves in emotionally.”

As to what would have to happen for Sumlin to get fired, Herbstreit said he thinks another second-half collapse would force the Aggies to make a change:

“I don’t know,” he said. “His AD came out and was very vocal with, hey, we better do better than we are. I can’t sit here and talk to you and say, hey, he better win nine or he better win ten. I just think they can’t look the way they’ve looked the last three years. If they win 8 or 9 and they don’t collapse in the second half of the season, then I think that’s improvement and that would be a positive thing for Kevin Sumlin. But if they go through what they’ve been through the last three years where they collapse in the second half, then I’m sure they’d have to make a move.”

Texas A&M travels to the Rose Bowl to take on UCLA on Saturday, Sept. 2 — no easy task for a team yet to name a starting quarterback.

If they lose that game, the seat will only get hotter under Sumlin.