Sherrill has one more Hall of Fame he needs to be in

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Robert Cessna

Jackie Sherrill is in so many hall of fames he probably could use one of his offensive coordinators to keep track of them.

Where's Pat Ruel, Watson Brown or Bruce Arians when you need them?

Sherrill is grateful for all the halls, which have rolled out the red carpet, thankful that he was part of their legacy, whether it was Pitt, Texas A&M or Mississippi State, where he had great success as a head coach. Or if it was the bowls his teams played in, or his home state of Oklahoma or Alabama, since he played for the Crimson Tide and legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, being part of two national championships. Most coaches are ecstatic to be in one or two hall of fames, but to be in double digits is amazing. That speaks volumes of Sherrill's impact, but he's not in the one that counts the most for someone whose spent his whole life in the college game, and that's the College Football Hall of Fame.

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Sherrill has a resume that is more than worthy, but the College Football Hall of Fame until last month required a coach to have a .600 winning percentage. Sherrill ended at 180-120-4, which is a winning percentage of .59868. Can you get any closer? If he had won one more game, he'd already be eligible. One game. You think about what he did at Pitt. He took over after Johnny Majors and the Panthers won a national championship and was 50-9-1 in five seasons with four bowl victories and four top 10 finishes, including a runner-up in 1980. Majors had been 33-13-1, rebounding a broken-down program. Everyone remembers Majors and the national title, as they should. But Sherrill played a huge role. Pitt was 19-63 in the previous eight seasons before Majors arrived. That included three straight 1-9 seasons and a 1-10 season. The Panthers were an independent and was dwarfed by Penn State so much they might not have dropped down from Division I had Majors not arrived. But Sherrill was Majors' assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for the first three years, helping in the rebuilding process. Sherrill had spent the previous three seasons in the same role for Majors at Iowa State. When Majors bolted for Tennessee when his alma mater called after winning the national title the Panthers brought back Sherrill who had spent a season at Washington State getting his feet wet as a head coach. Sherrill built on what he had started with Majors, making the program better. Pitt hasn't come close to a five-year stretch like it had under Sherrill, who also had three 11-win seasons. The program since has won 10 or more games only twice.

Sherrill did wonders at Texas A&M, going 52-28-1, winning three straight Southwest Conference championships. He beat Texas five straight times. People in these parts know Sherrill's worth. One of those halls of fames he's in is the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. This is a proud, productive state that takes pride in its sports. There is an impressive list of Texans who are in the College Football Hall of Fame, but not the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, because the competition is that keen. Yet what Sherrill did in seven years earned him a spot. You can thank Sherrill for those 12th Man towels. Sherrill then allowed Mississippi State fans to get their cowbells out of mothballs and polish them. He was 75-75-1 in 13 seasons in Starkville and made six bowl trips. He took over a program that only had one winning season in the last nine and had been 15-29. He had three winning seasons in his first four years, ending with seven. He also was 7-6 against rival Ole Miss and took the Bulldogs to their only Southeastern Conference championship game. He did all that and was not eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame because he was a win short? Over the years of covering Texas A&M football I've talked to Sherrill many times, on and off the record. Never did he complain about not being in the College Football Hall of Fame. Heck, I didn't even know he wasn't eligible.

Luckily, rules and records are made to be improved on and thanks in great part to Mike Leach the National Football Foundation in consultation with the American Football Coaches Association, the NFF Honors Court, and the NFF Awards Committee made a slight adjustment to the eligibility criteria. The minimum career winning percentage required was dropped from .600 to .595 and will go into effect starting with the 2027 NFF College Football Hall of Fame ballot.

The change mainly came about because of the 61-year-old Leach who died from a massive heart attack in December 2022 while coaching at Mississippi State. Many immediately lobbied for Leach being inducted into the Hall of Fame, but at that time the National Football Foundation wouldn't make an exception. Come on, Leach not in the Hall of Fame? Leach and Hal Mumme with their air-raid offense revolutionized football. Even Nick Saban spread the field on offense and started recruiting the nation's best quarterbacks and wide receivers. Leach was 158-106 at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. He had only five losing seasons at those places in 21 seasons. He should be in everyone's hall of fame.

Leach was a no-brainer and kudos for the National Football Foundation and American Football Coaches Association for making it happen. The silver lining in the ruling was that now Sherrill is also eligible. Leach will go in and hopefully Sherrill will follow or better yet, they go in together, which was the case with them being in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame's 2024 class. Both men were head coaches at Washington State and Mississippi State. They won at places that hadn't been winning. Not surprisingly, they were good friends. You could argue both did their best coaching in the Lone Star state. Of course, Leach was a trendsetter, but so was Sherrill.

A&M gave Sherrill by far the richest contract at that time, paving the way for the coaches to get paid more. The national media, though, at first had a field day with Sherrill arriving at A&M for seemingly way too much money. And when Doug Flutie and Boston College carved up A&M in Sherrill's first game and the losses kept coming, the Aggies' image took a beating. As that was happening Sherrill made his infamous prediction after Eric Dickerson and the SMU Mustangs rolled to 47-9 victory over A&M the day before Halloween in 1982.

"People better get their licks in now, because we're going to be awesome in a few years," Sherrill told reporters in the locker room.

But the licks kept coming. Two weeks later, the Aggies lost to Arkansas 35-0 and the 5-6 season ended with a 53-16 loss at Texas. Things didn't get much better the following season as A&M went 5-5-1, but a 45-13 season-ending loss to Texas was the year's only lopsided loss. Some Aggies started to side with the media in thinking Sherrill was a bad hire, which intensified when he started 4-5 in his third season, having lost five of the last six games. Reportedly, some Aggies looked into getting out of the six-year contract. But A&M ended the season with impressive victories over 17th-ranked TCU and 13th-ranked Texas and the Aggies were on their way to being awesome. A&M was must-see television in the next few seasons with the 12th Man Kickoff Team, those 12th Man towels, the Aggie Band and an exciting brand of football. You didn't have a zillion televised games back then on Saturdays, but people were watching the Aggies. A&M in its three SWC championship seasons was on ESPN nine times during the regular season. It was on ABC twice and Raycom four times.

Sherrill, though, had a way of ruffling feathers and many thought the Aggies weren't supposed to be winning. An NCAA investigation led to A&M being put on probation for two years. That led to Sherrill resigning in 1988, though he was not personally found guilty of any infractions. The NCAA also hit Mississippi State with four years of probation after Sherrill retired in 2003. The NCAA found two former assistants and several boosters broke recruiting rules under Sherrill's watch. Though sanctions were issued against Mississippi State, the allegations of unethical conduct against Sherrill was dismissed. Sherrill, though, filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, the principal investigator in the probe and an Ole Miss booster alleging 18 counts of wrongdoing. Among Sherrill's charges were that NCAA defamed him and conspired to drive him out of coaching. The NCAA and Sherrill eventually settled their lawsuit.

I'm often asked my thoughts on Sherrill's time at A&M. I always say Sherrill did what he was hired to. He did something many thought wasn't possible. You could say the same thing about his time at Pitt and Mississippi State. The NCAA never could find anything to stick on Sherrill and you know they tried. Sherrill was only guilty of winning at places he wasn't supposed to. That's just another reason why he should make the College Football Hall of Fame.

Sherrill had no clue the change was coming.

"Absolutely not, but I'm very happy," Sherrill said.

Saving the best for his last hall of fame induction would be appropriate for the 81-year-old.

"It's one of the highest honors you can get in the coaching profession to be in the national College Football Hall of Fame and it's the same thing for a player," Sherrill said.

Leach was called The Pirate, because of his love for pirates. I guess Sherrill should be called the rustler because he once did castrate a bull once before playing Texas and did did run roughshod over the Longhorns for five straight years. He also allowed Pitt and Mississippi State fans to ride high in the saddle.

Leach and Sherrill being eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame drew attention to another trendsetter, former University of Houston head coach Bill Yeoman, who developed the Veer option while becoming the winningest coach in UH program history. Yeoman, who won four SEC championships, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

Yeoman was 160-108-8 in 25 seasons.

Wait a minute? That's a .594 winning percentage. How did he get in? It seems that at one time there wasn't a minimum winning percentage, but it was added.

Could the NCAA have gotten involved? Just kidding, kind of.

Robert Cessna's email is robert.cessna@theagle.com.

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Robert Cessna

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