Texas A&M Football: Jimbo’s Comments Stir Up Controversy

Talking season is in full swing, and Texas A&M football head man Jimbo Fisher is making his rounds in the media circuit. The past week has seen Fisher speak at several A&M organizations around the state, and he took the stage last night at the Fort Worth A&M club. While answering questions from the crowd, Jimbo made a remark that quickly caught the attention of the hoi polloi on Twitter.

TCU, of course, is coming off an embarrassing 65-7 beatdown they sustained against Georgia in the national championship. Though this performance indeed cause them to lose some of the status they had gained in the eyes of the nation throughout the season—especially following their upset victory over Michigan in the semifinals—at least they made it there, right? This line of thinking certainly seemed to be in line with that of most fans who took the time to respond on Twitter. And then there were the App State jokes.

On a side note, ever since that “It Just Means More” campaign came out, I’ve noticed there’s nothing fans of other conferences enjoy more than shoehorning that phrase in wherever they can when talking about the SEC. It usually seems like they’re trying to be sardonic, but it often just doesn’t make sense. Like in the above tweet: what does “It Just Means More” add here? It would have the exact same meaning if this dude said “they went 5-7” etc. Anyway, maybe that’s just a pet peeve, but it’s strange. Continuing on with the tweets:

There were many more in this same vein. You get the idea. It’s certainly not a great look for Jimbo to be taking shots at the national runner-up when Texas A&M football just flamed out so spectacularly in the same season—it’s easy fodder for opposing fans.

That said, you do have to consider the audience, as well as the fact that we are reading and not hearing what Jimbo is saying. We don’t know if he was just riffing, or responding to a specific inquiry. In fact, according to Carter Karels, who tweeted the quote, the Texas A&M football head man was just having some fun with the crowd:

The more relevant part, in my mind, is the earlier piece of Jimbo’s sentence: it seems like he was making a dual point about the importance of health, continuity and experience for a college football team—areas in which that moribund 2022 Aggie squad was lacking—as well as the grind of the SEC schedule. On their face, those are completely valid points to make. It’s the context that brought everyone’s ire and invited the potshots from random Twitter users. But this kind of stuff is what talking season is all about, right?