By Scott Salomon
Texas A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork cannot manage money. If he were a stock exchange, he would be closed for the day and would send investors reeling and jumping out of high-story windows.
Bjork relieved Jimbo Fisher of his coaching duties Sunday morning and tacitly admitted to making a $75 million mistake. That is the amount of money that Fisher will be collecting until 2031 to sit home and eat bonbons or otherwise do anything other than coach the Aggie football team.
What Fisher is doing to Texas A&M is worse than anything than Bernie Madoff could even dream of doing. At least Madoff went to work every day.
“After very careful analysis of all the components related to Texas A&M football, I recommended to President Welsh and then Chancellor Sharp that a change in the leadership of the program was necessary in order for Aggie football to reach our potential, and they accepted my decision,” Bjork wrote in a statement released by the University. “We appreciate Coach Fisher’s time here at Texas A&M, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
Breaking: Jimbo Fisher has been fired as Texas A&M head coach, sources told @PeteThamel. pic.twitter.com/Ap8xLrkSDa
— ESPN (@espn) November 12, 2023
The termination will give Fisher a guaranteed sum of $75 million, including roughly $19 million paid in a lump sum by January 11, 2024. He will then be paid $7 million a year through 2031, regardless of how much money the next sucker pays to Jimbo to try and rehabilitate their program.
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This is a record buyout for a coach and eclipses the meager $21.5 million that Auburn paid to Gus Malzahn when he was shown the door.
The amazing part of Fisher’s buyout is that there is no offset in the event that he gets another coaching job for next season. It is fairly typical for coaches to have a clause in their contracts that the buyout is reduced by their new salary and their new program. Fisher’s buyout is devoid of any such language, and he is entitled to see every dime of that $75 million that is remaining on his extension that was signed in 2021.
The school itself will not feel the pinch as the coach’s contract was privately funded. That means that a group of Texas fat cats will have to fork over the money while the University bears none of the burden. Instead of investing in oil futures, these tycoons will be looking to leverage their losses in the head coach futures.
Forgive me if I do not cry for Fisher as he walks out of Kyle Field for the final time.
This is reminiscent of the firing of Ed Orgeron, who received a massive buyout when he was fired by LSU two years after winning a national title for the school. Fisher will receive a boatload of cash to do nothing. He was holding the ultimate Golden Ticket.
The sum can only be lowered if they reduce it to present-day value and offer Fisher a one-time payment. It is going to be hard to get boosters to pony up that kind of money in College Station and still have an open wallet for a new coach and staff. The next coach, if he is worth his headset, will use Fisher’s buyout and salaries as a benchmark for beginning negotiations to take over the underperforming Aggies.
Fisher, who was hired away from Florida State in 2017, built a 45-25 record after a 51-10 demolition of Mississippi State yesterday. His predecessor, Kevin Sumlin, who was also fired, finished his six-year term as head coach with a 51-26 record.
When Bjork gave Fisher the extension in 2021, Fisher was coming off of a 9-1 record during a shortened season during the COVID pandemic and a victory in the Orange Bowl that left the Aggies as the fifth-best team in the country. He had very little else on his A&M resume other than top recruiting classes that did not translate into victories. He was the penultimate King of the Off Season.
The rumors started swirling early Sunday morning that Fisher was going to be canned. Billy Liucci of TexAgs.com was the first to report that Fisher was well on his way to becoming the world’s highest-paid couch potato.
BREAKING: Texas A&M is expected to fire Jimbo Fisher today, per source. @billyliucci first reported the move was in the works. As we reported earlier this season, even tho Fisher has a massive buyout, A&M would find that money to get rid of him. https://t.co/FqNnEoJ0qX
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 12, 2023
“Per multiple sources, Texas A&M set to part ways with Jimbo Fisher as early as today,” Liucci wrote. “Decision was reached at the recommendation of the Athletic Department/University president during last Thursday’s Board of Regent meeting.”
Texas A&M is widely expected to name associate head coach Elijah Robinson as the interim head coach for the two remaining regular-season games and the bowl game that the Aggies earned with yesterday’s victory over MSU.
