A sputtering offense, a stubborn coach and a $76 million buyout: Inside Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M downfall
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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
SHORTLY AFTER TEXAS A&M athletic director Ross Bjork fired Jimbo Fisher, he described what the Aggies are seeking in a replacement. They’re looking for a coach who’s open to change, adaptable, organized, easy to work with, has a creative offense and is more of a CEO type than someone who’s in the film room all night.
It sounded like he was describing the opposite of Fisher.
Fisher was fired Sunday morning late in his sixth season at Texas A&M with more than $76 million remaining on his fully guaranteed contract. He was undone by an offense — his offense — that didn’t keep up with the trends in college football, ranking 101st nationally in scoring during a disastrous 5-7 season in 2022. He was undone by a stubbornness to change, waiting until Year 6 to even hire an offensive coordinator. He was undone, sources say, by his ego and his insistence on making each and every decision.
No doubt there were tantalizing highs: Fisher’s 2020 COVID-year team finished 9-1 against an all-SEC schedule and notched a 41-27 win in the Orange Bowl to finish the season at No. 4, the Aggies’ highest season-ending ranking since their 1939 national championship season. Fisher remained popular with players until the end and recruited at a level never seen before in College Station. In 2022, he landed one of the most touted recruiting classes in modern history, ranked No. 1 nationally.
But the low points were lower than the Aggies could have bargained for. There were five seasons with four or more losses, including that 2022 campaign, in which the Aggies opened the season at No. 6, only to crash to a 5-7 record amid a six-game losing streak. It was the program’s first losing season since 2009. Somewhere in that mess was a home loss to Appalachian State in which Fisher’s offense managed 180 yards and nine first downs. The Aggies became a joke. They were the biggest underachievers in the country.
Meanwhile, Fisher’s singular focus on running his program his way didn’t endear him to many people on campus. Fisher was the decision-maker on everything, and if you questioned why something was done a certain way, you were likely to be met with an angry response, sources said. (Fisher did not return a message seeking comment for this story.)
That included habits like Fisher’s desire to travel to road games on Thursday nights, meaning players and staff left campus shortly after practice, and sometimes didn’t get to hotels until late in the evening or early mornings. Then they’d wake up on Friday mornings and have meetings and just wait around for the game.
“No one does that,” one Power 5 operations director said. “It impacts academics, takes staff away from their families — and there’s nothing to do. You’re just asking for players to get in trouble.”
A staff member agreed: “You just felt like you were there for so long. That kind of wears on the players.”
The results bear that out. The Aggies have lost nine straight road games dating to the 2021 season. They were 0-9 against ranked teams on the road during Fisher’s entire tenure. When something wasn’t working, it seemed like Fisher was reluctant to change.
“You have to adapt, you have to evolve,” Bjork said at a news conference after Fisher’s firing. “I’m not going to say whether he did or didn’t, but it didn’t work.”
Looking back, that 2020 season was obviously an anomaly. As issues piled up, Fisher, enabled by his contract, doubled down on doing things his way.
“There was no hope that this would ever get better because what was going to change?” a staff member said. “He wasn’t going to listen to anybody else. It was just going to continue the way that it was.”
In the end, the Aggies decided it was no longer worth throwing good money after bad. They decided it was worth $76 million to send Fisher out the door a day after a 41-point win.
“Modern-day football requires, to me, a certain type of leadership,” Bjork said. “You’re moving forward and you’re making change and you’re dialed into what the young men want and what they expect in terms of style of play and the system and the culture and the day-to-day.”
He didn’t see that happening under Fisher.
“To me, [the lack of] all of those things were just leading to lack of confidence,” Bjork said.
AFTER THE WORST offensive season of Fisher’s career — the Aggies averaged 22.7 points a game last season — Fisher hired Bobby Petrino to take over the offense. The Aggies had a potential superstar at quarterback in Conner Weigman and skill position talent all around him, including receiver Evan Stewart. There was cautious optimism around the 2023 season. A longtime SEC personnel director called Texas A&M’s roster one of the best three in the league this year.
But after the Aggies sputtered in October losses to Alabama and Tennessee, scoring just three points in the second half of each loss, Fisher’s future appeared precarious for the first time, even accounting for the massive buyout that would accompany his firing. And for the second year in a row, offensive line troubles forced the Aggies to play their third-string quarterback.
Fisher’s in-game decisions remained a source of frustration. Against Alabama, he chose to punt on fourth-and-1 at the Tide’s 45-yard line in the third quarter of a 17-17 game. Alabama scored six plays later and never trailed again. That one call became emblematic of larger issues for a fanbase that felt, even against the best teams in the league, Fisher was playing too conservatively, almost not to lose as opposed to trying to win.
“If it wasn’t a full yard, inside a yard, [we] probably would have went,” Fisher said.
Fisher runs a complex, pro-style offense and multiple staffers indicated that while Petrino was calling the plays, a large portion of the plays he was calling were still Fisher’s offense.
The offense worked when everything clicked, but proper execution became increasingly difficult with the revolving door at quarterback and the transfer portal leading to the addition of new players unfamiliar with the system.
Even when it didn’t work, Fisher stayed the course.
“We’ve had things there,” Fisher said after those losses to Tennessee and Alabama in which the offense scored 33 points combined. “It’s just a matter of executing plays. It has been shocking that we haven’t been able to go out and execute like that.”
But it was Fisher’s job to get them to execute, and “just gotta execute” became the defining phrase of his tenure.
“It’s too complicated,” a former player said. “And that’s why I think you saw a lot of struggles with it. It just seemed like all these pieces have to go right for a play to work. There’s a lot of thinking. There’s not a lot of just going out and playing. And I think that’s a big deal.”
And it didn’t help that the quarterbacks were battered. In this year’s game against Tennessee, Pro Football Focus said Max Johnson was pressured on 25 of his 39 dropbacks, or 64.1% of them.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Texas A&M QBs were hit on 51.7% of their dropbacks in the Alabama and Tennessee games. Among the 75 FBS teams with a minimum of 50 dropbacks over that two-week span, A&M was the only school with a QB contact percentage of more than 50%. The next closest were Kent State at 49.4% and Akron at 47.2%.
Kellen Mond started all 36 games in Fisher’s first three seasons in College Station. But since 2021, five different quarterbacks have made starts, the most in the SEC. During that span, the Aggies have had 15 games with fewer than 200 passing yards.
In the seven seasons before Fisher’s arrival, Texas A&M produced nine first-round draft picks. In the six years since, despite signing 70 ESPN 300 players, the fourth most in the FBS behind Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State, it has had one: Kenyon Green, a guard. A&M has produced just two skill-position draftees that signed with Fisher: Isaiah Spiller, a fourth-rounder at running back last year and De’Von Achane in the third round this season.
Other schools made Fisher’s stagnant offense a point of emphasis. Johntay Cook II, a Texas high school receiver who was No. 32 in the 2023 ESPN 300, told On3 during his recruitment it was a concern.
“A&M has the players but not the scheme,” Cook said. “I mean A&M is running like the Wishbone offense. It’s cool and all, but if Jimbo opened it up that would be serious.”
Cook ended up signing with Texas.
But that wasn’t the only recruiting problem. Fisher prized talent above all, as most coaches do. But there were several high-profile players who committed to A&M who couldn’t stay out of trouble.
Five-star cornerback Denver Harris was suspended twice, then transferred to LSU, where he is on scholarship and in school, but not practicing with the team because of disciplinary issues. Four-star corner Smoke Bouie and five-star wide receiver Chris Marshall were suspended and transferred. Bouie has since been dismissed at Georgia and Marshall was removed from the Ole Miss roster and is now at Kilgore College, a junior college in East Texas.
Sources said discipline was a recurring issue at A&M, with Fisher preferring to let his players lead the locker room. A former player spoke of “individualism” on the roster, with players often not being punished for missing meetings or being late.
“There was 100% a lack of discipline, a lack of accountability,” a former player said.
Last season, Fisher suspended Stewart, Bouie, Marshall and Harris for the Miami game because of a curfew violation. Harris, Marshall and offensive lineman PJ Williams were suspended indefinitely for a locker room incident before the South Carolina game.
Since the Aggies signed the No. 1 class in the country in 2022, they have gone 11-11. Sources at Texas A&M indicated there was a concern that if Fisher had remained, the exodus into the transfer portal would have been significant. The Aggies were in a no-win situation, so they made the move early in hopes that a new coach could rerecruit the roster.
“The assessment that I delivered was that we are not reaching our full potential,” Bjork said at a news conference of a conversation with the Texas A&M’s president, Gen. Mark A. Welsh. “We are not in the championship conversation and something was not quite right about our direction and the plan.”
FISHER GOT OFF to a rocky start when he first arrived in Texas and met with a 7-on-7 coach in the Houston area. This immediately raised eyebrows among the Texas High School Coaches Association, the most powerful group of its kind in the country, which had encouraged “straight-line recruiting,” going through the player’s high school coaches, rather than private trainers.
“It was just a matter of not really knowing the climate and how we’ve been working hard to keep that element out of Texas,” D.W. Rutledge, the organization’s executive director, told The Dallas Morning News in Dec. 2017.
When Mack Brown arrived at Texas, he extended a welcome to high school coaches, hiring Dallas Carter’s Bruce Chambers to his first staff, and keeping him on board for 16 years. Brown was a fixture at the THSCA convention, sending every one of his coaches to shake hands and invite coaches to campus.
Every year at the coaches’ convention, there is a keynote panel that includes every Division I coach in the state. This year, Fisher was the only coach who didn’t show. His presence was expected and his absence was not explained. That raised eyebrows across Texas.
“I just believe that if you coach in this state, you need to know when the Texas High School Coaches Association convention takes place and you need to be present,” said Lee Wiginton, the head coach at Allen High School and the past president of THSCA. “Texas A&M is a prestigious program in our great state. When their head football coach doesn’t attend our convention, it’s simply not a good look in the eyes of the Texas high school coaches.”
Fisher was the only coach in the state in recent years not to do interviews or appear on podcasts with Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine, often called the Bible of football in the state (and a publication that put Fisher on the cover when he arrived in College Station). Sources spoke of their surprise that Fisher didn’t offer a scholarship to John Paul Richardson, a wide receiver who is the son of Aggies great Bucky Richardson. Richardson instead signed with Oklahoma State and has since transferred to TCU. He had 49 catches for 503 yards last season. On A&M’s roster, only Stewart, who had 53 catches for 649 yards last season, surpassed those numbers.
The Aggies started to see comparisons to all the stories they’d heard from Florida State before Fisher headed to College Station. “Jimbo was adamant that he wasn’t going to shake hands and kiss babies,” one influential FSU booster told ESPN in 2020.
Compared to Texas, which currently sits at No. 7 in the College Football Playoff rankings and will join Texas A&M in the SEC next year, the Aggies felt like they were “stuck in neutral” according to Bjork, and couldn’t afford to take any more chances.
The early signing period and the opening of the portal were coming quickly. There was a bowl game to contend with in the middle of that. There were staffing vacancies that needed to be filled. (After recruiting the historic 2022 class, director of player personnel Marshall Malchow departed for Oregon to join Dan Lanning’s staff and Fisher replaced him with Kevin Mashack from Indiana. In June of this year, Fisher abruptly fired Mashack and did not replace him this season.) There were likely to be more coaching changes, particularly along the offensive line. Bjork said this week that he didn’t believe Fisher had the blueprint to fix all of those issues.
“How was the plan going to be executed?” Bjork said. “Was there going to be any hope? Were we going to have the right performance next year? I didn’t see all that lining up for success.”
In the end, the Aggies were tired of being embarrassed. And so they paid Fisher more than triple the largest buyout in college football history. Bjork compared the program to a car driving too slow in the fast lane and holding everyone back.
With Fisher out of the way, Bjork says the Aggies will learn their lessons from the contract and the extension. They’re focused on finding the right fit, rather than worrying about winning a news conference or making a splash hire.
“You take the spirit, you take the passion that’s here. … We were 5-4 going into our last home game and we had 103,000 people that showed up on a Saturday night to support our team,” Bjork told ESPN. “There’s no other place like that. And so if you couple that enthusiasm, those resources, what we have to offer in the facilities world, the NIL world, all the support that people receive here at Texas A&M…”
Wiginton said Fisher’s departure offers the Aggies a chance to find someone who will take pride in his role in Texas. Bjork said it’s a chance to get a coach who embraces the current state of college football and to start over with a clean slate.
“It’s going to be a positive environment,” Bjork said. “We’re going to hire the right coach. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
Mark Schlabach contributed to this story.
The College Football Playoff selection committee will reveal its first ranking at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday on ESPN, giving us our first look at what the 12-member group thinks about the playoff pecking order after 10 weeks.
It’s far from over, as teams still have ample opportunities to build — or bust — their résumés.
Separation, though, is starting to occur, and the Bubble Watch is tracking it for you. Teams with Would be in status below are featured in this week’s top 12 projection, a snapshot of what the selection committee’s ranking will look like when it’s released later Tuesday. For each Power 4 conference, we’ve listed teams as Last team in and First team out. These are the true bubble teams hovering around inclusion. Teams labeled Still in the mix haven’t been eliminated, but have work to do. A team that is Out will have to wait until next year.
The 12-member selection committee doesn’t always agree with the Allstate Playoff Predictor, so the following categories are based on historical knowledge of the group’s tendencies, plus what each team has done to date.
The conferences below are listed in order of the number of bids they’re expected to receive, ranked from the most to least. Check back Tuesday night after the rankings reveal show for an updated bubble watch that will reflect the selection committee’s latest ranking.
Jump to a conference:
ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten
SEC | Independent | Group of 5
Bracket
SEC
Would be in: Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Last team in: Ole Miss. The Rebels are in a safe spot, but they’re not a lock if they don’t run the table. With remaining games against The Citadel, Florida and at rival Mississippi State, there’s no possibility of a “good loss” remaining, and historically, losing in November has been far more damaging to playoff hopes than losing earlier in the season. Ole Miss shouldn’t lose; it has at least a 72% chance of winning each of its remaining games and has the seventh-best chance in the country (43%) to win out. If an upset occurred, though, the Rebels would join the two-loss club and might not win a debate with other two-loss teams that had more statement wins — and didn’t lose to an unranked opponent. The Rebels’ remaining schedule strength is No. 56 in the country. With a second loss, Ole Miss would be banking on wins against Oklahoma, Tulane and LSU to impress the committee enough for an at-large bid.
First team out: Texas. The Longhorns got a significant boost this week in part because three teams above them fell out — Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Miami — but also because they earned another CFP top 25 win against the Commodores. The head-to-head win against Oklahoma also could help them with the committee. If Texas is ranked No. 11 or No. 12 by the committee, though — and the ACC and Group of 5 champions are outside of the committee’s top 12 — the Longhorns would be elbowed out during the seeding process to make room for the fourth- and fifth-highest ranked conference champions, which are guaranteed spots in the playoff.
Still in the mix: Missouri, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt. The Sooners earned a huge résumé boost with their win at Tennessee and have what should be a CFP top 25 win against Michigan. For two-loss Vandy, a close road loss to Texas isn’t an eliminator. Where the committee ranks Tennessee after its third loss will impact both of their résumés as a common opponent. Missouri’s lone losses were to Alabama and Vanderbilt, but the Tigers don’t have anything yet to compensate for those. That could change Saturday with a win against Texas A&M.
Out: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Tennessee
Big Ten
Would be in: Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon
Last team in: Oregon. The one-loss Ducks have a more challenging second half of the season, and the committee is about to learn how good this team truly is. So far, Oregon’s best win was Sept. 13 at Northwestern. The Ducks have been passing the eye test, but their opponents have a winning percentage of 47.2% — ranked No. 116 in the country. The committee will still respect the double-overtime win at Penn State, but also recognize that the Nittany Lions weren’t playing at an elite level even with James Franklin on the sideline. With road trips to Iowa and Washington — both respectable two-loss teams — and a Nov. 22 home game against USC, Oregon has a chance to further entrench itself in the top 12 or tumble out.
First team out: USC. The Trojans’ two losses were on the road to respectable teams (Illinois and Notre Dame) by a combined 12 points. Their best win was Oct. 11 against Michigan, but the Trojans could really boost their résumé this month and completely flip the script with Oregon if they can win in Eugene on Nov. 22. According to ESPN Analytics, USC has the fourth-best chance in the Big Ten to reach the playoff (17.3%), just ahead of Michigan. The only game they’re not favored to win is Nov. 22 at Oregon. If they can pull off that upset for a 10-2 finish, the committee would definitely consider the Trojans for an at-large spot.
Still in the mix: Iowa, Michigan, Washington. These teams could be ranked by the committee Tuesday night, but Michigan will probably have the shortest climb into the conversation. The head-to-head loss to USC will be a problem in both the Big Ten standings and the CFP ranking, but if USC loses again and their records are no longer comparable, it can be overcome. Then, there’s a head-to-head loss to Oklahoma. Still, Michigan has a 13.2% chance to reach the playoff, according to the Allstate Playoff Predictor. The Wolverines still have a chance to beat Ohio State and earn one of the best wins in the country en route to a 10-2 finish.
Out: Illinois, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, Wisconsin
Big 12
Would be in: BYU, Texas Tech
Last team in: Texas Tech. If Texas Tech loses to BYU on Saturday but still wins the Big 12, it’s a CFP lock. The problem is that if the Red Raiders lose a second conference game, they will need some help to reach the Big 12 championship. So, a loss to BYU could be devastating to their conference and CFP hopes. If the Red Raiders beat BYU on Saturday, but lose to the Cougars in the Big 12 championship game, Texas Tech would still have a chance at an at-large bid as the Big 12 runner-up. The Red Raiders would be able to claim a win over the eventual Big 12 champs, which would be a much-needed boost to their résumé. It would depend in part on how the game unfolded. The Cougars are the Red Raiders’ only remaining opponent with a winning record, as Texas Tech ends the season against UCF (4-4) and at West Virginia (3-6).
First team out: Utah. The Utes are in a tricky spot because their two losses are to the Big 12’s best teams — BYU and Texas Tech. Utah still has the third-best chance to reach the Big 12 title game (22.8%), but will need some help to get there. Utah’s best wins are against Arizona State and Cincinnati, but the Utes have a hard time earning an at-large bid without beating at least one of the best teams in their league.
Still in the mix: Cincinnati. The Bearcats are included here because they still have an 18% chance to reach the Big 12 title game, according to ESPN Analytics. They have only one league loss, which gives them some slim hope. Their other loss was in the season opener to Nebraska.
Out: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, UCF, West Virginia
ACC
Would be in: Virginia
Last team in: Virginia. Like Georgia Tech, Virginia also has a road loss to NC State as its lone blemish, but it was an early four-point loss, while the Yellow Jackets lost to the Wolfpack by double digits. Virginia also has a head-to-head win against Louisville. That’s the Hoos’ best win of the season, and likely their only one against a CFP top 25 opponent. That’s why it’s unlikely Virginia is ranked in the top 12 in the initial CFP top 25. Virginia would still be in, though, if it wins the ACC even if it’s ranked outside the committee’s top 12 — just like three-loss Clemson was last year.
First team out: Louisville. The Cardinals lost at home in overtime to Virginia on Oct. 4, but earned a statement win Oct. 17 at Miami. Louisville will probably have only one win this season against a CFP top 25 team, which will make earning an at-large bid difficult. Louisville’s best shot would be to run the table, have teams above the Cardinals lose, and win the ACC. Louisville has a 10.6% chance of winning the ACC, fourth best behind Georgia Tech, Miami and Virginia.
Still in the mix: Georgia Tech, Miami. The odds of earning an at-large bid dropped significantly, but any team that has a chance to win its league will have a chance to lock up a playoff spot, and they’re both in contention to play for the ACC title. Georgia Tech has the best chance to reach the ACC championship game (72.3%), followed by Virginia (51.1%) and Miami (28.5%), according to ESPN Analytics. Georgia Tech still has the highest chance to win out (40.5%) and win the league (41.2%).
Out: Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, North Carolina, NC State, Pitt, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Independent
Would be in: Notre Dame. The playoff stars aligned for Notre Dame in Week 10, when Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Miami all lost, opening the door for the 6-2 Irish to move back into the top 10 after beating Boston College. The question is whether the selection committee will honor Miami’s season-opening 27-24 win against Notre Dame because they have the same record. It’s one of several tiebreakers, but not weighted, and if the committee deems the Irish the better team and not comparable now, Notre Dame can be ranked higher. Notre Dame has the best chance of any team in the country to run the table (68.3%), but the Nov. 15 trip to Pitt will be difficult. The Panthers, winners of five straight, are playing well and have a bye week to prepare for the Irish. The Irish’s playoff position will remain tenuous until the clock runs out at Stanford and they’re 10-2.
Group of 5
Would be in: Memphis. As the projected winner of the American this week, Memphis would earn a playoff spot as the committee’s fifth-highest-ranked conference champion. The Tigers’ Oct. 25 win against South Florida was critical in the league race, but the loss to 3-5 UAB is an ink stain on their résumé that can be overcome with a conference title. Memphis has at least a 57% chance to win each of its remaining games, according to ESPN Analytics.
Still in the mix: South Florida, North Texas, James Madison, San Diego State. The committee would consider South Florida’s head-to-head wins against Boise State and North Texas.
Bracket
Based on our weekly projection, the seeding would be:
First-round byes
No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
No. 2 Indiana
No. 3 Alabama (SEC champ)
No. 4 Texas A&M
First-round games
On campus, Dec. 19 and 20
No. 12 Memphis (American champ) at No. 5 Georgia
No. 11 Virginia (ACC champ) at No. 6 Ole Miss
No. 10 Notre Dame at No. 7 BYU (Big 12 champ)
No. 9 Texas Tech at No. 8 Oregon
Quarterfinal games
At the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl Presented by Prudential and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.
No. 12 Memphis/No. 5 Georgia winner vs. No. 4 Texas A&M
No. 11 Virginia/No. 6 Ole Miss winner vs. No. 3 Alabama
No. 10 Notre Dame/No. 7 BYU winner vs. No. 2 Indiana
No. 9 Texas Tech/No. 8 Oregon winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State
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