Former Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher goes on rant about NIL, cheating in CFB
Former Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher assails NIL, cheating in college football
In his tenure with Texas A&M football, there was perhaps no coach in college football more consistently accused of cheating than Jimbo Fisher—to the point that even Nick Saban implied it, leading to a huge throwdown in the media between the two.
Now that Fisher is in retirement (at least, for now), he's had some comments here and there that have been of interest to Texas A&M football fans. Today, however, he grabbed the attention of the nation with a diatribe about NIL, recruiting, and the direction of the sport.
"We need a commissioner," Jimbo argued. "We need revenue sharing. We need a salary cap... the tampering that other schools do with players is utterly ridiculous."
In his typical quick-strike fashion, Jimbo hit upon several hot-button issues all right together. It was the tampering piece, though, that really seemed to be under his skin the most.
"The big schools are going and getting players constantly from other schools, and it’s being done illegally," he said. "I thought NIL would at least make it fair, take the cheating out of ball. It’s made it worse."
Of course, many are going to find it extremely rich that Jimbo is the one complaining about this. But I'm not really sure which part of what he's saying would be scoffed at by most people. The tampering issue in particular is one that many take for granted at this point.
Maybe the revenue sharing and contracts wouldn't be the complete fix that some seem to think, and they would doubtless come with their own set of issues. But the nugget of what he's saying is true: change is needed. The current structure of things has far too many issues. Something needs to happen.