Sumlin: No schools in touch about other jobs

HOUSTON One of the quirky realities of being a coach at a place like the University of Houston is that everyone assumes you can't wait to leave. Which means if you have a great season, everyone assumes you are as good as gone. Perhaps nobody outside the Sumlin household knows for sure how Cougars coach Kevin Sumlin feels about this, but the facts are he has a 12-0 football team that will be losing most of its core players at the end of the year, a strong candidacy for national coach of the year honors, a pedigree that includes a stop at Oklahoma and a football program that won't be able to play for the national championship as long as it plays in Conference USA. In other words, Kevin Sumlin has been linked to just about every open job in the country. And there are plenty. "Nobody has contacted me from anywhere," Sumlin said Tuesday. This, of course, is what they all say. The difference, if there is one, at Houston is that the idea of the coach leaving for somewhere else is not treated as taboo. These are realistic people, and as long as Houston plays in a conference whose champion isn't automatically invited to the BCS, schools that do are going to look more appealing. That's just reality. "The way I've always looked at it, especially after my first year when coach (Art) Briles left was if your coach is showing up on different lists, that's a good thing," quarterback Case Keenum said. "That means you've got a good coach. You don't want them to show up on those other lists, the other side of it." Sumlin has a handy little quote about this, too. "People talk about coaches two ways in college football," he says. "A bunch of them that got talked about got let go on Monday and Sunday and a bunch that got talked about are moving on to other jobs. If people are talking about me moving on, then hopefully I'm doing a pretty good job." Houston's last coach, Briles, left the program for Baylor after going 34-28 in five seasons, which included a 10-4 record and Conference USA championship in 2006. Sumlin is 35-16 in his fourth season. The two coaches who preceded Briles, Kim Helton and Dana Dimel, went a combined 32-79-1 from 1993-2003. Sumlin and Houston athletic director Mack Rhoades have had talks regarding a contract extension. Sumlin's current deal is scheduled to pay him 1 million per year through 2015. If Sumlin receives an offer from a BCS-conference school, it would likely double that number, or get close to it. Kansas was paying Turner Gill 2 million per year before firing him Sunday. Illinois was paying Ron Zook 1.75 million per season until it fired him this week. Houston Nutt, ousted at Ole Miss, was making 2.76 million per year. Houston may have a difficult time matching such an offer. If those offers are coming in to Sumlin directly, to his agent or reaching him some other way, these conversations are nothing new. "I've dealt with that since I've been here," he said. "Everybody around here is used to it."