Enemy Lines: With Grace Period Gone, Jimbo Fisher Looks to Put Everything Together

Now in his sixth season, patience is wearing thin for the Head Aggie

Author:
Daniel Shi
Publish date:
Sep 29, 2023 12:07 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Fanning the flames of fire, Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher enters this game amidst his most important season yet. Fresh off a 5-7 season last year and failing to make a bowl, Fisher leads his Aggies into the Southwest Classic against Arkansas desperate for a 2-0 start in conference play. For this week's enemy lines, I sat down with Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle, who has been covering Aggie Athletics for the past quarter of a century.

Note: This interview has been edited for length

Daniel Shi: A year after Max Johnson led the Aggies to victory over Arkansas, he's back in the starting role. What's the situation between (Conner) Weigman and Max Johnson?

Brent Zwerneman: Everybody kind of assumed it was going to be Weigman's job going into the summer, but I'm telling you Johnson gave him a really good fight in camp. I know Bobby Petrino, a name that y'all are familiar with around there, really liked Johnson as well. It was almost like a 1a/1b type situation at quarterback. Weigman is special; he's a 5-star guy out of Bridgeland High School near Houston and has looked the part. Max Johnson is also a guy who has started in the SEC. It was bad news for the Aggies, but it could have been worse news if Max had transferred in the offseason. Suddenly, you are looking at Jaylen Henderson, who is an unknown (transfer) out of Fresno State, or Marcel Reed, who is a true freshman. Suddenly, you are back to Max Johnson just like you were last year, and they led the Aggies to a win over Arkansas. Certainly, A&M doesn't look at it as all is lost.

DS: Was Johnson ever really close to transferring?

BZ: I never got the sense that he was ever wavering or considering it. A big part of it is his younger brother Jake is a tight end on the A&M football team. There was that opportunity, even if Max was in a back-up role, for him to play with his brother and perhaps throw passes to his brother. Well, that happened last week. [Max] came in for Weigman and Jake was out there. He ended up connecting with him on a pass and then threw a touchdown pass to him. Max Johnson was asked this week, 'How close did you come to transferring?' He said, 'Never. I love this place.' The idea of playing with his brother and he's a fan of the coaching staff and his new teammates and all those things. I actually kind of believe that. I never heard there was any kind of wavering on his part that he might be exiting.

DS: [Former Texas A&M running back] Devon Achane's not playing, but how have Le'veon Moss and Amari Daniels developed as running backs?

BZ: There's a third guy now too, who was a 5-star out of El Campo High School [in Houston] Rueben Owens. So Daniels cracks off that 79-yard run late to help put away Auburn; Moss punches it in. I've covered A&M for a long time, a quarter century, and I can't ever remember actually covering an offense at A&M that had a 5-star quarterback ... a 5-star receiver in Evan Stewart, and a 5-star running back in Owens. Fisher has done a good job recruiting on that side of the ball and he's done a good job recruiting running backs because he was able to bring these guys on board even with Achane ... on board and with the idea that he potentially could have come back for his senior year. He was able to recruit Moss, Daniels and Owens, so they've got a three-headed monster there, which I think based on the news of Weigman, they'll rely on even more in terms trying to kind of use up some clock and use that talent they've got a running back with Weigman out.

DS: Given all of the talent on both sides of the ball, do you think Jimbo still has the grace among the fan base to kind of see how the season plays out?

BZ: I don't think so. He's in his sixth year and I think he won the national title at Florida State in his fourth year, if I'm not mistaken. Now he's six years in, at A&M and has never even so much as won a division title. A&M fans are not gonna say 'You lost your starting quarterback. It's OK if you go 6-6 or 7-5.' It's way past that point. Kind of to your point, he's recruited so well and has plenty of depth with the idea that if you do lose your starting quarterback, the guy behind him should be okay, which I think they will be with Max Johnson. There's definitely no grace period left for Jimbo Fisher. He had the long contract re-upped going into the year. I think he still has nine years left at about $9 million per year. Essentially, if he had not agreed to get an offensive coordinator, I think he would have been gone at the end of last year. He did agree to give up the play calling and become more of a walk-around coach and I think he's good at that, managing the entire program. He's done a good job recruiting. [He's] turned the play calling over to Petrino and their offense overall has been much better than it was a year ago. That's an area where they feel like they're improved moving forward. In terms of any kind of grace period for Fisher, that does not really exist in College Station right now.

DS: Last week, Arkansas' secondary really struggled against LSU in the second half. You have a lot of fast receivers on this A&M team. How is Petrino trying to attack the secondary?

BZ: It was interesting in the opener against New Mexico that it was very clear Petrino wasn't gonna hold anything back in terms of just being conservative in the run game. He was gonna let his quarterback start airing it out and working guys like wide receiver Ainias Smith, who's a very familiar name because he's been around so long, working him back into the mix and terms of running routes. He's coming back from injury. Stewart is the guy I already mentioned. He is maybe top two or three in terms of talent-wise at receiver that's ever come through Texas A&M. Noah Thomas is a guy who's been hurt and had some family matters to take care of ... He's a tall and rangy guy who had a few touchdown catches early in the season and has been sidelined the past couple of games, but I think he's gonna be back. There are a few guys Johnson can spread it around to and with those running backs I mentioned, I do think Petrino loves the idea that maybe this is the most talent he's ever had at his disposal to try and do some different things ... Max Johnson is a guy who's shown he can get yards with his legs when needed as well. Petrino and Fisher kind of team up on the play-calling, even if Bobby Petrino does it play-by-play. They're definitely not afraid to spread it around to these different receivers.

DS: A&M's defense looked really good against Auburn. Compared to the rest of the SEC, where does this defense stand right now?

BZ: It's hard to believe because they haven't been aggressive. Edgerin Cooper is a linebacker who they turned loose against Auburn. Those of us who have watched this defense under DJ Durkin, we're kind of surprised by that aggressiveness and getting after the quarterback. I will say the Auburn quarterbacks were awful. They missed a lot of open targets and so forth. If you're gonna say anybody was sandbagging early in the season, it seems like it was Durkin because it did look like a different defense. One of the things Texas A&M has done so well in the past two or three years is recruiting defensive linemen. I used to be able to count the number of 5-star recruits like over a decade on one or two hands and now I think they've got about six or seven 5-star guys on the defensive line alone. The only problem with that is they're all kind of similarly built, those bull rusher types, defensive tackle types. They've tried to kind of slim Shemar Turner down and turn him loose a little bit more. Walter Nolan. is a guy who slimmed down. They don't have that scary edge rush or a Myles Garrett [from years past] ... but they have shown a little more aggressiveness lately in trying to get after the quarterback as well. They got a lot of guys to choose from on that defensive line. Linebacker was a concern for the Aggies going into the season, but Cooper has played really well. Taurean York is a true freshman who hasn't looked the part. He's done a good job of being one of the quarterbacks of that defense. They've had some concerns in the secondary with an overall lack of speed, but they plugged in a guy named Jacoby Matthews a couple of weeks ago and he added speed at safety ... They did get torched against Miami when they went against a good quarterback in Tyler Van Dyke in a decent Hurricane offense and gave up 48 points.

DS: How does Jimbo Fisher view the Arkansas defensive unit and the game as a whole?

BZ: It did raise some eyebrows in the idea that this Arkansas team went into Baton Rouge and it gave LSU all it wanted in that sense after losing at home to BYU. I think that certainly got their attention. If there was any thought that A&M was gonna be looking past Arkansas ... that's out the window. Of course, as you saw last year, it took a field goal off [which I've never seen in all these decades of covering college football] off the top of the goal post and careen back ... That was something that I had not witnessed before. All of those things add up to saying, that even if Arkansas has maybe struggled on defense and in the secondary and so forth, that got their attention that they played a really good LSU team so close in Death Valley.

DS: A quick word on the neutral-site ending for this game after next year.

BZ: It's one personally I've enjoyed. I know that some Aggie fans and Razorback fans are like 'This should be home and home,' and next year will definitely be the last year in Arlington, but it's one of these things I've kind of liked the idea of this short road trip every year and getting up to the metroplex ... It's been some really colorful, good games through the years too, so I'm one of those who has liked it in Jerry's World. It was kind of a little bit sad that it's going away on that front, but so it goes. Obviously, with the new scheduling format that they're still trying to figure out in terms of all those feature schedules past 2024, it wouldn't have been something that probably survived that anyway ... If history is any indication, this shapes up as what's gonna be a good, spirited game that comes down to something that happens in the fourth quarter.

DS: Well for Arkansas fans' sake let's hope it's not the same kind of crazy as last year.

BZ: Hey, it's the craziness that makes it fun. What do they say about sports? The unscripted drama? I can honestly say one of the things I learned is that maybe there's a slight angle to the top of the goalpost because I still haven't figured out how it bounced back instead of careening over the top. Wild.