Jimbo Fisher? Stubborn? Nooooo, that can’t be.
It’s far from the first time that term has been used to describe the former Texas A&M head coach. Fisher appeared at the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday ahead of Arkansas’ matchup with the Aggies this weekend, and provided insight into his time at A&M, as well as some updates on how life is going now that he’s out of work for the first time in his 36-year coaching career.
After winning a national title at Florida State in 2013, Fisher moved to College Station in 2017 with expectations through the roof. He brought in some of the greatest recruiting classes of all time, but was never able to translate it to on-field success. Of course, he had plenty of success against Arkansas, compiling a 5-1 record against the Hogs during his six-year tenure.
And yet, the Aggies never did much of anything with the momentum they gained from beating down on Arkansas. His eventual removal was the most expensive firing in college sports history, costing the university close to $80 million. Fisher has spent this fall on the most well-paid sabbatical ever.
Fisher said he’s spent a lot of time out in the woods hunting back in his home state of West Virginia and watching football as a fan for once. Surely during his time off, the national-champion coach has done some personal reckoning on what went wrong in College Station and how he can fix it, right?
Nope. He’s still the same ol’ Jimbo.
Jimbo Fisher’s Stubbornness Persists in Unemployment
At this point, the reasons for Fisher’s failings at Texas A&M are well-documented: a failure to adapt to the modern game, particularly on offense, and an unwillingness to hire an actual play caller until his sixth and final year in Aggieland.
Almost a decade removed from his national title triumph at Florida State, he was still running the same stale brand of “pro-style” offense – despite the fact even NFL offenses had shifted away from that paradigm. Predictable run plays and bland passing sets were stalling the Aggies constantly. In 2022, they ranked 93rd in total offense and outside the top 100 nationally in scoring offense.
That’s the entire reason behind why Fisher brought in Bobby Petrino to coordinate the offense in 2023. Despite those miserable failings that ended up costing Jimbo his job, his recent comments in Little Rock demonstrate that he hasn’t learned a thing.
He appeared on The Zone on The Buzz 103.7 FM as part of his time in the Natural State, and made multiple jokes about the hurry-up offense, saying that “everybody” was itching to run the “crazy” up-tempo offenses.
That sounds like the ramblings your uncle makes in his recliner about how the wishbone was “real football” and how the game’s gone down the drain in the modern era – not the take you’d expect from a guy who, with a salary over $9 million, was one of the highest-paid coaches in the sport last season.
There’s a reason almost every offense has taken up the hurry-up offense in today’s college game. Even the pro-style, slower-paced offenses like Georgia incorporate tempo into the scheme to wear teams down. The legendary Nick Saban, for whom Fisher worked at LSU, recognized this, and adapted by hiring innovative offensive minds like Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian to modernize Alabama’s scheme. It’s safe to say both of those guys are doing alright for themselves at the moment.
Yet Fisher lagged behind his peers, and so did his offense – both literally and figuratively. The fact he’s still referring to the hurry-up like an aging boomer shows he hasn’t changed at all.
Saban built a reputation as a football rehab clinic over the years where fired coaches could come for safe harbor and get their career back on track. It worked for many, but is now unfortunately closed for business in the wake of Saban’s retirement.
It’s a crying shame, as Jimbo would have been a prime candidate for rehabilitation under the supervision of his former boss – though the bridge-burning he did in recent years admittedly would have complicated things.
Fisher’s claim to fame when he took the A&M job was his ability to develop quarterbacks, most notably Jameis Winston, who was selected No. 1 overall in the 2015 NFL Draft after winning the Heisman Trophy under Jimbo’s tutelage at Florida State. Yet he was unable to sustain that reputation at Texas A&M. Just one Aggie QB was drafted during his tenure, as Kellen Mond went in the third round in 2021 but has yet to start a game in the NFL.
Fisher also took a jab at the role of analytics in football when talking about Arkansas’ recent losses against Texas A&M, remarking at the Touchdown Club that the Hogs were “due” for a win against the Aggies.
“Everybody’s in analytics now. It’s all numbers anyway, right?” he said. “We don’t coach anymore, you just hit the button…what’s the percentage? Analytics are important, but you gotta coach, too.”
Jimbo’s right in the sense that you can’t base every decision off analytics, but his condescending tone about the prevalence of numbers in sports – and the fact he went out of his way to make a joke trashing them – is ironic given the fact that his failure to adapt to such modern tools was the very reason he got canned at Texas A&M.
Bobby Petrino’s Success So Far Shows Jimbo Was the Problem
Fisher expounded on his time working with Bobby Petrino, who served as his offensive coordinator last year before moving back to Arkansas to work under Sam Pittman. The former Aggie coach was complementary of Petrino, and insisted that the two were like-minded and had a great working relationship.
“I would watch all his film, he would watch all my film because it was the only way we could get ideas off each other, because we had similar philosophies,” Fisher said. “I always had great respect for him as a coach…and I think he’s one of the great offensive minds in college football without a doubt.”
Jimbo makes their relationship sound like two peas in a pod, but it really clashes with what Petrino has said in the aftermath of their one-year marriage – an arrangement that at times might have made the grizzled OC want to pull out his hair.
“Jimbo [Fisher] wanted to keep his terminology and I didn’t sleep for months,” Petrino said in the offseason. It was hard. I was studying every night trying to figure this out.”
Fisher addressed that situation, phrasing it as Petrino making “a joke,” even though that’s really not what it sounded like. Fisher said he’d rather keep his terminology and just have one guy – the OC – crack open a thesaurus rather than the whole team. That’s the way he’s done it at all of his previous jobs, he added.
Jimbo then made a joke out of Petrino’s complaints, saying that “Bobby’s getting older, he must not learn as fast,” before clarifying that he “did a great job.”
As far as the blame assessment goes for the Aggies’ downfall in 2023, the numbers point to Jimbo as the culprit. A simple before and after shows Texas A&M shooting up in the national ranks from 93rd to 54th in total offense and 101st to 25th in scoring offense with the addition of Petrino, who replaced Darrell Dickey in that post.
Now, with more freedom to operate, Petrino has Arkansas in the top ten in total offense through four games in 2024. Fisher attributed that success to Petrino’s versatility as a play caller, citing his ability to play to his quarterbacks’ strengths as one of his best traits as a coach.
Sure enough, Arkansas has adopted a much more run-heavy attack this year than Petrino’s usual scheme. The results speak for themselves, as the Hogs are 3-1 with running back Ja’Quinden Jackson leading the SEC in rushing and quarterback Taylen Green also ranking in the top ten.
Jimbo should continue to take a few notes from Bobby, as it was his lack of adaptability that led to his demise at Texas A&M.
Jimbo Fisher’s Comments Emphasize Hugh Freeze’s Idiocy
Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze made headlines this week for all the wrong reasons, as his saltiness in the aftermath of losing to Arkansas 24-14 led to some hilarious comments about how the Tigers would win that game “nine times out of 10.” That comes after he completely threw his players under the bus in the postgame press conference.
Freeze’s comment about Arkansas getting lucky came after Fisher’s appearance in Little Rock, but some of his comments at the touchdown club make the Auburn football coach look even more like the fool. Talking about how Auburn was a tough place to compete, Fisher recalled a guy in his hotel’s elevator making a moronic take on the game.
“He was complaining, and he said, ‘Arkansas won, but I don’t really think they won.’” Fisher said. “I wanted to reach up there and smack him right in the back of the head like that one guy does on NCIS…listen, when you go to Auburn and find a way to win, that’s a great thing.”
Freeze basically said the same things on the radio that triggered Jimbo on the elevator. Falling to the same levels as some random Joe Schmo troll is yet more salt in the wound for the Auburn coach.
In terms of his career arc, Jimbo has likely already reached his top floor. If he were to call it quits today, his resume would still be one coaches would kill to have.
Of course, Fisher doesn’t particularly need to get back on the metaphorical saddle anytime soon, or ever, for that matter. The sheer size of his A&M buyout means he can comfortably spend the rest of his life hunting and taking potshots at the modern game with zero financial stress. When you think about it, the best job in America is that of a fired college football coach. Why go back into the pressure cooker?
While he seems content with skinning deer and wandering the woods this fall, it looks like he wants to get back into coaching in 2025. That might suggest a changed man, but don’t be fooled – he’s still the same stubborn coach that got ran out of Aggieland last season.
“I’m a historian of the game,” he said Monday. “I know change is inevitable in the game, and it’s not always changing for the good.”
Whoever hires Fisher next, get ready for some more bickering over who gets to hold the play sheet and whose lingo gets written on it.
***
Jimbo Fisher’s full appearance at the Little Rock Touchdown Club:
***
More coverage of Arkansas football from BoAS:
