You know Jimbo Fisher has lost his mojo when he can’t even beat the Florida Gators anymore.
The struggling, rebuilding Gators won their first SEC road game in nearly two years by running over Jimbo’s Texas A&M team, 41-24, on Saturday, handing the Aggies their fifth straight loss and providing concrete evidence that Jimbo’s program is crumbling right before our very eyes.
You see, when he was coaching at Florida State, Jimbo was the ultimate Gator killer and even shipped two consecutive Florida coaches — Urban Meyer and Will Muschamp — out of Gainesville with losses in their final games at UF. Muschamp was fired and Meyer quit to spend more time with his family (and the Ohio State Buckeyes).
Jimbo entered Saturday’s game with an 8-1 career record against the Gators and a higher winning percentage against UF than any other coach in history, including Bear Bryant, Nick Saban and Vince Dooley.
But now the Aggies — after yielding 492 yards of offense and allowing UF quarterback Anthony Richardson to account for four TDs on his own — are 3-6 overall along with 1-5 in the SEC and need to win their last three games just to become bowl eligible. Obviously, there are serious questions about Jimbo’s future in College Station.
To be fair, the Aggies were missing several starters on Saturday because of a flu outbreak on campus, but don’t kid yourself. The fact is, Jimbo’s program has been sick all season long. And the Aggies — with their huge fan base, amazing booster support and the exorbitant salary they are paying Jimbo — deserve better.
Let’s face it, this was a game between two struggling SEC programs with not a whole lot on the line except the possibility of going to a third-tier bowl after the season. But at least the Gators have an excuse for their struggles this season. Coach Billy Napier is in his first season of a rebuild and is trying to establish a culture of discipline and accountability
We saw as much this past week when Napier dismissed one of his best defensive players — linebacker Brenton Cox Jr. — from the team for what the coach called an accumulation of issues. This was clearly a coach sending a message to his team that everybody — even five-star recruits with NFL potential — will be jettisoned if they don’t buy into Napier’s plan to win.
Napier couldn’t say enough about the way his defense responded on Saturday. After giving up 24 points and 307 yards offense in the first half, Florida rose up and shut out A&M in the second half.
“I think we could have easily got frustrated with our defensive performance in the first half, but, man, in that locker room you would never have known it,” Napier said. “It’s really a group that stuck together. ... In this game of football, we spend countless hours on scheme, training, lifting weights, running, working on fundamentals and situational football, but there’s a human element to this game — leadership among our players, character, accountability and brotherhood. I think we saw that today.”
Jimbo used to talk like that when he was at Florida State, but now he seems to have lost his way.
You wonder now if Jimbo wishes he had just stayed in Tallahassee.
Even more so, you wonder if Texas A&M wishes Jimbo had just stayed at Florida State.
Instead, the Aggies are stuck with Jimbo and vice versa.
Texas A&M stupidly gave Fisher a 10-year fully guaranteed contract extension before last season that will pay him $95 million through 2031. If Texas A&M were to fire Fisher after this season, the school would owe Fisher more than $85 million.
To make matters worse, many buyouts include clauses that subtract any salary from a new job from the buyout itself. However, Fisher’s contract has no such clause, which means the Aggies must pay him more than $10 million per year for the next eight years whether he is coaching them or another team.
Translation: The Aggies must keep Jimbo unless Texas A&M boosters can somehow raise more than $100 million to buy out Jimbo and his staff while also hiring a new head coach and a whole new set of assistants.
This is what you call organizational malpractice on the part of A&M’s athletic director Ross Bjork and the school’s entire administration. In fact, college football administrators throughout the sport should be charged with grand theft for such irresponsible spending of other people’s money.
Seriously, why did Bjork need to sign Jimbo to a contract extension before last season when Jimbo still had seven years left on his original 10-year, $75 million contract? It’s not like Jimbo had been winning SEC titles. He went 9-4, 8-5 and then 9-1 during the pandemic-plagued season of 2020 before he got his extension. He was hired to win SEC and national championships but inexplicably got a 10-year extension for winning eight or nine games.
It’s downright disgusting how these college athletic programs spend their money. Look at what Michigan State did after coach Mel Tucker had one good season last year when the Spartans went 11-2. What did athletic director Alan Haller do? He gave Tucker a 10-year, $95 million contract extension. In the first year of that new contract, Tucker and the Spartans are 4-5, 2-4 in the Big Ten.
Call it ego or call it stupidity, but college ADs hand out long-term, multi-million-dollar contract extensions like they’re Halloween candy.
Which brings us back to Jimbo, who famously bolted Florida State for Texas A&M so quickly back in December 2017 that he left his abandoned Christmas tree on the curb in front of his house.
Who would have ever thought that five years later there would be so many Texas A&M fans and boosters who wish they could similarly kick Jimbo himself to the curb?
