With eight years left on his contract and a buyout of over $77.5 million, Jimbo Fisher has been fired by Texas A&M.
Fisher's buyout, the second-largest of any current NCAA Division I-A (also known as the Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS) coach is behind only Kirby Smart's more than $92.6 million buyout with the Georgia Bulldogs. But that did not deter the Aggies from saying good-bye to their head coach before allowing him to lead the team in their final two games of the season.
I had said years ago that Fisher should have stayed with the Florida State Seminoles. His record over eight years there was 83-23. Fisher guided his team to the postseason in seven of those eight years, with a 5-2 record, including winning the final Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship game in 2013, in a season where the Seminoles went undefeated at 14-0.
His time with Florida State from 2010 to 2017 went as follows: 10-4. 9-4, 12-2, 14-0, 13-1, 10-3, 10-3, and 5-6.
With six of his eight years being double-digit winning campaigns, plus a national championship, and the recruits he was bringing in, who commonly went on to the National Football League (NFL), it seemed to me that Fisher could have remained at Florida State forever.
But, going to a Southeastern Conference (SEC) football program commonly offers a substantial pay raise from most other conferences. Those high numbers in a coach's bank account also seem to come in a shorter period of time.
However, with everything Fisher accomplished at Florida State, I did not see a world where Fisher would have been forced out. Instead, I saw a world where he could coach as long as he wanted to for the Seminoles, have a statue on campus in his honor, and eventually make the same amount of money that Texas A&M was offering, if not more, over time, albeit having to wait a little bit longer than the quick money approach that the Aggies took with Fisher.
But Fisher chose to move on from the Seminoles, to a conference where your leash in arguably the shortest and the tightest in the country.
In his time with the Aggies, Fisher, from 2018 to now, went 9-4, 8-5, 9-1, 8-4, 5-7, and 6-4. Fisher's first three years at Texas A&M ended in three-straight bowl games, all victories: Gator Bowl in 2018-19, Texas Bowl in 2019-20, and Orange Bowl in 2020-21.
Fisher had wins over 13th-ranled Kentucky and eighth-ranked LSU in his first season at the helm of the Texas A&M football program, followed by a win over fourth-ranked Florida in his third season where the Aggies went 9-1 overall, winning their last eight games of the season, including a bowl victory over 14th-ranked North Carolina. In his fourth season with Texas A&M (2021), Fisher led the team to wins over 12th-ranked Auburn and over Alabama who was ranked first in the nation at the time of play. There are coaches that have spent their entire tenure in the SEC never defeating the Crimson Tide once, and Fisher did it in his first four seasons at a time where the Crimson Tide were regarded as the best team in the country.
Last season, Fisher led Texas A&M to victories over sixth-ranked LSU, 10th-ranked Arkansas, and 13th-ranked Miami.
But under Fisher here in 2023, the Aggies have lost to every ranked team they have faced so far: 11th-ranked Crimson Tide, 19th-ranked Volunteers of Tennessee, and 11th-ranked Rebels of Ole Miss.
Fisher does not have any key victories this season.
Three-straight bowl games, wins over ranked teams, and even a win over Alabama, which is something many FBS teams cannot boast of, seemingly do not matter to the Texas A&M decision-makers.
Those happened in the past.
And the SEC forgets quicker than most.
I said it before that fast money versus a place to call home arguably for the rest of your career was the choice Fisher had to make.
He took the fast money.
Something many have done.
Only to receive an SEC tombstone with his name on it, joining an ever-growing graveyard of coaches that did not meet the highly-inflated standards of the conference.
Nevertheless, Fisher's tears will be mopped up by many large bills as he decides the next step in his career, with enough money to uproot his SEC tombstone and place it gently on the sands of his own private island.
Comments