Reacting to Jimbo Fisher’s Firing by Texas A&M Football

Reactions After Jimbo Fisher’s Dismissal by Texas A&M Football

It’s been a good few hours since the news dropped that Texas A&M football has decided to move on from Jimbo Fisher. Because of that, I’ve had a bit of time to process things, but there are still a lot of thoughts floating around. This may be a bit disorganized, but I’m going to try and get my thoughts down here.

• Ever since the Tennessee loss, and more acutely since the Ole Miss loss, things seemed to be headed in a bad direction for Fisher. Maybe it was the contract that kept him around at the end of last season (that and the LSU win, of course), but it really felt like the Aggies had built up some solid momentum headed into this year and had a lot of potential. More even than potential, they’re still a solid squad this year, per pretty much any advanced metric you’d want to consult. But the time has passed for solid teams with low win totals. Too often, Jimbo’s Texas A&M football teams were losing to teams they shouldn’t; and too seldom were they winning against teams they shouldn’t. At some point, you run out of time to fix the problems. Ten straight road games without a win. Consistently underachieving offensively. Regression year over year along the offensive line. It all adds up.
• It’s a real shame that that dumb Sumlin and Fisher wins/losses statistic is now etched in stone. It doesn’t do justice to the real difference between those coaches. To say nothing of the confounding variables of one inheriting a Heisman winner and the other being subjected to a COVID-shortened season in his best year, it just does nothing to speak to the very real, tangible difference between the program then and the program now. Part of that is donor support, yes, but not all of it. I was at that Belk Bowl in 2017; the last game before Jimbo’s tenure began. There was some excitement then related to where it felt like the program was headed, but that game—and that whole season—was overlaid with a thick malaise that I still remember. Things just felt aimless near the end for Sumlin. For me, that’s not the case with Fisher. It feels to me that he’s left this Texas A&M football program much better than he found it. It’s honestly a bummer to me that he was unable to get the program over the hump. I didn’t and don’t believe that he was just trying to get a paycheck or kick up his feet—I think he cared massively about bringing a title to the school.
• Whatever happens next, I don’t think anyone should hold any sort of grudge against Jimbo. It was starting to get nasty out there in some quarters, with people resorting to personal attacks because of the frustration they felt with how things were going on the field. I think that’s pretty ridiculous, to be honest. The man has been a great representative for the university, and has put forward proof that this is a program that can rise to those dizzying heights of which Texas A&M football fans have long dreamt. A juggernaut can be built here with the right coaching. I wish that he had been the guy. He was a culture fit to a T, and really brought a lot to the table, but when it came down to brass tacks, he wasn’t getting the job done. Because of that, a move had to be made.
• That said, I did not anticipate Texas A&M football making this move now. There are all sorts of questions that arise based off of that fact: do they already have a guy lined up? Maybe this is simply to get out ahead of the coaching carousel and to allow maximum time to pitch the current commits (as well as the current roster!) on staying the course. Billy Liucci of Texags has been indicating that this was not a move made with one specific target in mind, however. The powers that be may take their time on this one, but hopefully not too long. Securing this class and this roster is imperative to the health of the program, especially with how 2024 is lining up schedule-wise. This is going to be a very important 9.5 months for the future and legacy of the program going forward.

That’s what I’ve got at the moment. We will continue to keep things updated and up to the second on the search for the next Texas A&M football coach here on the site, so keep checking back for news.