By Scott Salomon
Should Jimbo Fisher be terminated by Texas A&M, it will be the second team that he left worse than he found it.
When Fisher left Florida State in December 2017, it was not under the best of circumstances. He left the program worse than when he inherited it.
In Fisher’s last season in Tallahassee, the team went 5-6 and was compelled to play a rescheduled game against Louisiana-Monroe that was originally canceled due to Hurricane Irma so they could even their record, collect their sixth win, and qualify for a bowl game. Odell Haggins coached the team in Fisher’s stead.
If they did not make up that game, FSU’s 36-year streak of appearing in a post-season bowl game, mostly under Bobby Bowden’s regime, would have ended. “If we did not buy that Hurricane makeup game, the bowl streak would have ended then,” said then-FSU Athletic Director David Coburn.
Florida State’s main problem in Fisher’s latter years was their inability to sign a blue-chip quarterback after Jameis Winston left early for the NFL Draft.
“Our problem was recruiting—the quarterback particularly,” a former FSU assistant says. “That’s where you live and die in this game. You get the right players. You win a lot of games. The problem is, we took too many chances on kids we probably shouldn’t have signed.”
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Matt Hayes, of Bleacher Report did a full expose on the problems that Fisher had at the end of his reign as Seminoles head coach.
Hayes noted that there were “academic deficiencies and recruiting failures” and disciplinary problems that occurred as a result of players not performing well in the classroom, and Fisher allegedly had a hands-off approach when it came to the student part of the student-athlete. His main goal was to just keep players eligible, according to Hayes.
The Seminoles had such a low Academic Progress Rate that they were “at risk of not complying with NCAA standards and being ineligible to participate in championship events.” The APR was so low, it was the lowest of any Power 5 program at the time.
That’s nothing to put on a resume, Jimbo.
Fisher was asked about the problems at FSU at the 2019 SEC Media Days and did not react well to the question.
“In this business, you have to learn to have tough skin, you learn the circumstances of everything that happens and how it happens, (but) that’s part of this business,” Fisher said. “People are going to say and write things, and you know what goes on and you move on.”
He did not accept any responsibility for his players’ failure to make grades.
“I have no comment on that. I loved my time at FSU,” Fisher said. “We left the program in good shape, with good players.”
Coburn also contradicted Fisher’s statement, and said that Willie Taggert, Fisher’s successor at FSU, inherited a world of problems and that they could not be corrected overnight.
“What’s real is there absolutely were locker-room issues, and now, too, you can see the academic issues,” Coburn said at the time. “Willie had a lot to deal with, beyond the field, when he got this job, and he’s been busy dealing with it. That is Taggert’s biggest culture change.”
A former FSU assistant coach told Hayes that he’s never seen a program go downhill so quickly after winning the title during the 2013 season.
“Won it all, then the worst thing could’ve happened is going to the playoff the next year,” the assistant said. The hardest job in this business is convincing kids who have been to the mountain top that there’s new, different gold up there – and it’s worth the climb.”
Taggert would eventually get fired because of lack of success on the field, but he did raise FSU’s APR and eventually got the players to go to class more than old Jimbo.
When Fisher left for A&M, he took over a successful program, similar to that of Florida State when he took over for Bowden, and ran that program into the ground.
Fast forward to 2021 when Jimbo signed a 10-year $95 million dollar contract that would go through the 2031 season.
In the 2021 pre-season, the Aggies were ranked as high as No. 6 in the polls. They started the season winning their first three games but then proceeded to lose to Arkansas and Mississippi State before defeating Alabama at home. Fisher became the first former Nick Saban assistant to beat the teacher at their new school.
The team finished 8-4 and received an invitation to play in the Gator Bowl but opted out of the game due to COVID concerns. They would end the season unranked in the final Associated Press poll.
Fisher was geared up for the 2022 season as the Aggies were again ranked as high as 6th in the pre-season AP poll. Fisher and his A&M team lost six out of their first nine, including their second game against unranked and heavy underdog Appalachian State.
The team ended the season unranked with a 5-7 record and did not qualify for a bowl game.
So far in 2023, the Aggies are 1-1 and coming off of a devastating loss to the then-unranked Miami Hurricanes by a score of 48-33. The Aggies surrendered a 17-7 first-half lead and never got back into the game. The game was not really as close as the score indicated.
After serving as a major disappointment in College Station and ending his FSU career with negative grades everywhere, what type of condition will TAMU be left in if Fisher is terminated? The truth will eventually come out, just as it did when he left Florida State.
The next question is, what school would want to hire Fisher, given the ending of his last two career moves?
Only time will tell.
