'Why Did It Happen?' Aggies Jimbo Fisher Explains Last Season
Last season was a learning year in College Station, and now is where the college football world finds out the real identity of the Texas A&M Aggies.
Head coach Jimbo Fisher hopped on "The Paul Finebaum Show" after his time at the podium at Southeastern Conference Media Days Monday, saying that last season "didn't go the way" he wanted it to go. However, this offseason is about evaluating and fixing the issues at hand from the head coach all the way down to the lowest player on the totem pole.
"If that shakes your confidence and knowledge of what you do, you don't need to be where you're at," Fisher said. "The key word is why? Why did it happen? If you understand why and you get the players to understand, that's why we never lost our players. Our players never quit playing hard. We didn't play as well and that's we have to coach them better. We have to find a way to help them make those plays and do a better job, and I think we did. Our staff did a good job in those situations of educating why we didn't have success, showing them on film."
The Aggies hovered around 100th in the country in offense last season, but they did boast the No. 25 scoring defense, allowing 21.2 points per game.
The quarterback position was in limbo last season, starting with Haynes King — who transferred to Georgia Tech — before splitting time between Max Johnson and Conner Weigman.
Weigman closed out the season, scoring by far the best win of the season in a 38-23 defeat of then-No. 6 LSU. In five games last season, the Cypress, Texas native completed 55.3 percent of his 132 pass attempts for 896 yards and eight touchdowns without an interception.
Going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows from the Aggies' 2022 season: the loss to Appalachian State. The Mountaineers' 17-14 victory was the first of five one-score losses for Texas A&M last season.
Fisher said there's "about five inches a game, which is about five plays" and the Aggies didn't find those last season.
"The inches you fight for, whether you're on top or on bottom, it can go that quick," Fisher said. "What you got to understand is why you're doing it, get back to fighting for the inches, get a great attitude within the concept of your team, which we have right now, and play. You can be on top or bottom in any league in college football that fast."
Fisher said the Aggies are "in a great position" for the 2023 season.
"We're recruiting well. We got good players, got a great staff," Fisher said. "You have one season that didn't go the way you wanted it to go, you look at why it happened, fix the issues, and move on. That's what life is. I mean, you adjust, you adapt, you grow, you learn and then you move forward."
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