Texas A&M Aggies Coach Jimbo Fisher Is Out of Chances
The Texas A&M Aggies hired Jimbo Fisher in 2018 with the intention of him injecting national championship jet fuel into their program.
Suffice it to say, sitting unranked at 5-4 in Year 6 of his tenure - without a sniff of a national or SEC title - that has not happened. And after a 38-35 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels on Saturday, that jet may have officially crashed and burned.
The loss to the Rebels felt different than just your typical regular season game for the Aggies.
Win, and your team is bowl-eligible, you have a win over a top-10 team, and you head into the second half of the season with some momentum. After that, perhaps, if you can win out, you get a solid bowl game and an opportunity to end your season on a high note.
And then, with a win over a No. 11 Ole Miss team, and then potentially later against No. 13 LSU, and another in a bowl game, Fisher has a chance to argue that things are trending back in the right direction.
Instead, the Aggies lost their eighth straight road game, as well as their third game in four outings, dropping them to 5-4 on the season.
And, with another failed season that began with high expectations, all of the heat is going to fall on Jimbo Fisher... as well it should.
In other words, Fisher has run out of chances.
Texas A&M Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher argues with an official during the loss to Ole Miss on Saturday
Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports
Fisher has now had more than half a decade to get the Aggies where he is getting paid $94.5 million guaranteed for them to go. Yes, that includes SEC West title games and College Football Playoff berths - neither of which he has achieved. In fact, he has yet to even eclipse the 10-win mark.
In 2020, he came close, steering the Aggies to a 9-1 record, and fifth in the final CFP polls, with wins over No. 4 Florida and No. 13 North Carolina (Orange Bowl).
But, almost is not what the Aggies made him the eighth highest-paid coach in the country to achieve. Not by a long shot.
Unfortunatley for the Aggies, if they do want to move on from Fisher, they will have to pay him a massive buyout of $76.8 million. In 2024, that number goes down, but not much, to $67.55 million.
That said, according to insiders earlier this fall, unless Fisher 'gets it going' this season, A&M will 'find the money' to make a change.
Granted, that is a bit of a subjective report. But, it would be hard to argue that the Aggies sitting at unranked at 5-4, with three games left.
So where do the Aggies and Fisher go from here?
It would seem nearly impossible at this point for even a three-game win streak to end the regular season would be enough to wipe the taste of failure away from this campaign. Especially with one of those three games coming against Abeliene Christian.
So at this point, even with wins over Mississippi State and LSU, it seems like a matter of when, and not if the decision to fire Fisher shifts from a discussion into a reality.
