Saturday showed why we shouldn't be making excuses for Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M anymore
Shortly after Jimbo Fisher arrived, they gave him a fake national title plaque. It didn’t have a year on it, other than “20__.”
After what we saw on Saturday in a loss against Alabama, I’m more convinced than ever that Fisher isn’t going to lead A&M to a national title. At least not this century. And as long as that roadblock in Tuscaloosa named “Nick Saban” is still on the sidelines, I won’t hold my breath on A&M claiming an SEC West title.
Saban was on the sidelines in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, and his squad covered the spread as an 18-point favorite against A&M in Year 3 of the Fisher era. There’s no shame in most programs being an 18-point road favorite at Alabama, even for a Year 3 coach. But when you shell out $75 million guaranteed for a head coach and welcome him with fake national championship plaques, well, you’re not most programs.
Here’s a thought — let’s stop making excuses for Fisher at A&M.
I know. I’ve heard them all.
“But A&M lost all of its receivers.”
“But A&M had 6 guys opt out.”
“But A&M faced such a tough schedule last year.”
“But if Ainias Smith had just not dropped that ball on third down … ”
If Smith caught that ball, A&M would’ve magically beat Alabama? If you want to tell yourself that, go ahead. Make another excuse for why Fisher should be let off the hook for not developing talent to stay on the field with the SEC’s elite.
Keep in mind that this wasn’t just a Saturday thing. And to be clear, this wasn’t just a Vandy thing.
Real quick on Alabama, though. Go back to when Fisher got that blank check in December 2017. What if I told you that his team would play 180 minutes of football against Alabama in its first 3 seasons, and that it would lead for just 4 of those minutes? Would you make an excuse for Fisher? Would you say, “well, he just doesn’t have his quarterback yet.”
Fisher had the most experienced quarterback in the conference in Year 3 in his system and Year 4 as a starter. Alabama, meanwhile, started Mac Jones. Oh, but you can’t make the talent comparison because A&M doesn’t have the same weapons, right? Sure, but remember that Fisher signed consecutive top-6 recruiting classes.
Also keep in mind that, along with that $75 million deal, Fisher got his assistants top dollar, as well. He retained both coordinators all 3 years in College Station.
And to be clear, this isn’t just a 2020 thing. A&M is now 2-7 in true road games under Fisher. That’s right. Just 2-7 in true road games.
There’s an even more telling stat about how far away A&M still is in Year 3 of the Fisher era. Last year, A&M played 300 minutes of football against teams who finished in the top 15 of the Associated Press Top 25. The Aggies led for 7 minutes and 42 seconds of that time.
Sooner or later, it’s not good enough to just chalk it up to it being a challenging division. It is, for sure. But look at these SEC West coaches through their first 28 games compared to Fisher:
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In case you were wondering, Saban inherited a program with NCAA sanctions, Malzahn inherited a program coming off a winless conference season and Orgeron inherited a program with an offense stuck in 1995.
Okay, you don’t want to compare the $75 million man to the best coaches in the SEC West? Fine. Let’s just compare him to his predecessor, Kevin Sumlin:
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Oh, I hear the excuse.
“But Sumlin had Johnny Manziel.”
Yes, Sumlin had one of the best college quarterbacks of all-time. That guy was a 3-star recruit who had never played in a game before Sumlin took over with his system, and then Manziel beat Alabama in Year 1. Mond at least had a year of experience under his belt before Fisher arrived. How much has Mond really progressed in those 3 years with Fisher?
The point isn’t to compare Manziel to Mond because clearly, the former is on a different level. The point isn’t even really to compare Fisher to Sumlin because clearly, the former entered with a different set of expectations. And to be clear, Fisher isn’t getting fired anytime soon. The guy has more than $50 million left on that contract, and barring something unforeseen, he’ll be given every opportunity possible to continue the mission he set out on.
But how much more evidence do we need that Fisher isn’t taking A&M to the levels he was paid to do?
I mean, for crying out loud. In the middle of Saturday’s blowout loss to Alabama, Gary Danielson talked about why A&M should kick the field goal in the second half down 3 touchdowns “to feel good again.” When A&M scored a touchdown to narrow the 28-point deficit to 21 in the middle of the 4th quarter, Danielson said that was all about “feeling good before getting on the plane” ahead of next week’s game against Florida.
You know what would feel good? Some actual year-by-year progress instead of 3 hours to show you exactly why A&M isn’t on that level.
The most buzz surrounding A&M during Fisher’s time at A&M was when everyone realized that the Aggies had the most favorable SEC West schedule imaginable with just 1 of the first 8 games coming against a team that won 7 games last year. Then when the pandemic happened and the schedule shifted to conference-only, reality set in — A&M wasn’t about to win the West with that slate. That was true before those opt-outs starting happening, too.
The problem is that we say that because A&M hasn’t been elite at developing talent. Fisher hasn’t changed the narrative of his program like Dan Mullen did at Florida or like Orgeron did at LSU.
It’s not a surprise when A&M is a 3-score underdog at Alabama. What’s a surprise is when A&M actually stays on the field with an elite program.
Saturday wasn’t that day. Instead, it was yet another reminder that paying a coach $75 million guaranteed doesn’t always guarantee national relevance.
No reasonable people thought A&M would win this game, but A&M has a habit of looking bad against ranked teams. How long do they give Jimbo?
Sadly that $75 million is guaranteed, so they’re stuck with him.
Not really joe. ATM has very deep pockets. But they won’t fire him this season. I didn’t watch much of that one. How did Mond play? I thought he might be a problem.
Even if they fire him next season, they’ll still owe him $45 million. I don’t care how deep your pockets are, you aren’t paying a guy that much money to not coach your team, on top of paying a new coach. He’ll be around for a while.
He played very well for the most part.
Mond was not the problem. He made one bad throw on the pick 6, but for the most part was solid.
Texas A&M probably overpaid Fisher by about $60 million. They could have found at least 10 to 12 coaches to produce the same results as fisher for a WHOLE LOT LESS!
“There’s no shame in most programs being an 18-point road favorite at Alabama”. Another awesome job by the editor Duffy. A decent editor would have noticed A&M was an 18 point UNDERDOG.
I did like article. Good job Connor.
I sometimes think high school players in the SEC footprint are better prepared than high school players in Texas. Look at Oklahoma when they meet an SEC team in the playoffs. Look at A&M playing an SEC schedule. Don’t know if it makes sense, just looking for reasons why those teams are good enough for the Big XII but not good enough for the SEC.
That’s actually an interesting observation.
Someone told me the other day that when Texas was in its prime they essentially ran a high school offense. If true that might further explain this.
Law_Dawg what do you mean by high school offense?
Kind of interesting that the two most overpaid coaches in college football are in the state of Texas- Jimbo and Tom Herman
Thank you!
A variant of Parkinson’s Law: the expenditures increase to exhaust the available cash.
Although the state being awash in cash is highly cyclical, rising and falling with oil prices.
I’ve said it 100 times …Jimbo is and has been most overrated coach in CFB. He is responsible for Florida State decline as he left the cupboard empty when he left for AM.
His success in Tallahassee was because of Jamies Winston and he’s done nothing in college station. I’ve heard him say “it’s one play” after losing by 30 about 5 times in last 3 years…btw saddest thing in CFB is Seminoles becoming so bad. For some reason they just should always be in top 20
I think jimbo Fisher let a ton of on and off the field issues slide in order to win games. Go back a look up when Jameis was suspended for a game and showed up on the field in pads. The was no accountability.
That ’13 FSU team always struck me as the year Jimbo sold his soul to win it all. It all derailed slowly after that and they beat the ’13 AU Team of destiny in the Natty.
Ignoring disciplinary issues seems to be Jimbo’s main strength as a coach. Unfortunately for A&M there weren’t any Jameis Winstons on the team.
How does a program ‘win’ footballs game when the city they live in is afraid of their roster members? And why does the NCAA recognize wins by teams that use shop-lifters and a whole lot worse? Any coaching staff can slip-up and not see an outlaw coming but look at the Fisher staff whole reaction there.
I’m willing to give Fisher a second public-opinion chance at aTm and maybe he is earning it by trying to win the right way. Do you the reader ever wonder if the games he is losing now are to programs who are, just for example, paying players, influencing refs, in concert with the gambling community, hiding shop-lifters or worse? Ask yourself that question before you finish your job evaluation of today’s Jimbo Fisher.
The second paragraph could be applied to every team in the SEC, but especially the SEC West. LSU was an aberration last year and I say that as someone who will follow the team no matter what. Even that took an impressive confluence of events to even happen (in the Bama game alone, who could have predicted that Tua would just drop the ball inside the 10).
I’m jealous of Bama’s sustained success under Saban. He has a strong argument for being the greatest college football coach of all time and could coach for several more years – much to the chagrin of everyone else in the conference.
When there’s an absolute behemoth standing in your way, it’s hard to get past it. I find it interesting that the coach that is most frequently labeled as being on the hot seat is also the one that has beaten Saban the most frequently (Malzahn).
Great point about Malzahn. Those I’impressive confluence of events” tend to happen to UA against Auburn seemingly every time they visit the plains now days.
EXACTLY my point!! I get all kinds of crap for NOT wanting Malzahn gone. He seems to have Alabama’s number from time to time which is a whole lot more than 95% of the rest of the SEC West, the exception being LSU and Coach O; time will tell if that lasts/continues. His only problem is Georgia. Which we will see those two (UGA and BAMA) go head to head. Malzahn keeps us generally pretty competitive, and we aren’t in a perpetual coaching carousel/living in the SEC basement like a lot of SEC teams have been.
I can almost guarantee anytime there is an A&M article by Connor that he uses that stat for how many minutes A&M has lead alabama. That boy loves using that stat more than your uncle’s dog loves humping legs.
I tell you what, The best coach is residing at TCU, and if you think I’m full of it, then place Coach Patterson at either Texas or A&M, and I guarantee you with the overall talent they get in those schools, Coach Patterson could produce a Title in 3 years Tops!!
Lots of coaches can produce big wins when no-holds-are-barred in the outlaws they put in the middle of your “Christian” community. You should be way more embarrassed when an criminal or predator gets recruited and hidden on your football roster than when you lose a football game.
My Dad had a favorite saying when I was a youth, And it went- “ if it Walks like a duck and Quacks like a Duck, than it’s a Duck!!” And that’s what we have concerning our 2 top programs, Not top tier elite coaches, but just average joes, because they haven’t done anything to say that they will produce anything close to a National Championship!!
Two of the worse fire-hires were Texas and A&M. Somehow Jimbo convinced the Alumni, the reason he couldnt evolve is because of facilities. This is nearly as bad as Tom Hermann requesting a bling bling grill. A&M dropped the bag on Jimbo, the staff, the stadium and the facilities. Sumlin couldn’t even get a donut for his hot seat. The records speak for themselves. And recruiting was never an issue for Sumlin even with Alabama, Texas, TCU, LSU, FLorida and Florida State shaking some in-state recruits.
A&M (and Texas for that matter) are what happens when you let boosters make key hiring decisions..
Revisiting this as I thought it would play out better for A&M. With the way Jimbo is recruiting in College Station A&M will join LSU as the most legit threats to Bama, such as it is while Saban is in Tuscaloosa. There is no reason they can’t be a consistent Top 10 team. Not a coincidence that he is expanding their recruiting more Nationally.