Month: November 2023

What a Fiasco

Someone in the Texas A&M Athletic Department took all the attention away from a pretty good day of college football, including one of the greatest endings in Iron Bowl history.

For 3 hours on a Saturday night, Mark Stoops had become the head coach of Texas A&M.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems Ross Bjork had been discussing the position with Mark Stoops. He was doing this without the knowledge of his bosses and didn’t have full authority. Stoops and Bjork had reached an agreement. All that was needed was approval from Bjork’s higher-ups.

From what I can tell, Billy Liucci with TexAgs posted on his website that the hire of Stoops was all but done. Liucci is also the person who broke the news that Jimbo had been fired. He’s clearly connected to someone who said it was okay to post the information.

The hiring of Mark Stoops by Texas A&M hit social media, and all hell broke loose. I’ve never seen anything like it. My phone blew up from people asking what was going on. Twitter/X was full of people in disapproval. NOBODY was supportive of the hire.

For good reason. You don’t fire Jimbo Fisher to hire Mark Stoops. It makes ZERO sense that someone at Texas A&M was even talking to Stoops, much less finalizing details for his hiring.

Mark Stoops was never getting hired at Texas A&M. I don’t think he would have gotten the approval from those above Bjork. A lot of assumptions were made. It was a done deal, but it never was.

Either way, it’s an embarrassment. It’s further proof the chain of command at Texas A&M is broken and needs to be fixed. I don’t know precisely what needs to be fixed, but someone above Bjork better be super pissed off if this ever happened and get it fixed.

Watching Bjork’s initial press conference and interviews over the last couple of weeks made me think we had an actual plan for hiring Jimbo’s replacement. It’s now apparent we don’t. That’s frustrating.

The Mark Stoops era at Texas A&M provided and will provide a ton of good humor. Unfortunately, it’s an embarrassment of leadership. It should have never happened.

Where Do The Aggies Go From Here:

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in college football. Most people don’t know, but Alabama once “hired” Rich Rodriguez, who decided not to come. The guy they wound up hiring would be Nick Saban. It’s wild to think what would have happened if Rich Rodriguez had taken the job and not Saban.

There’s another instance where Tennessee “hired” Greg Schiano, but similar to A&M and Stoops, the fan base revolted, and Schiano didn’t take the job. The Volunteers would eventually hire Jeremy Pruitt, and we know how that turned out. It wasn’t good.

Is Texas A&M hiring the next Nick Saban? Probably not. But they can avoid hiring the next Jeremy Pruitt.

Someone needs to get their ass chewed on this morning. Then, immediately settle down and get re-focused on hiring the best coach for Texas A&M. If that means taking the keys from Ross Bjork, then so be it. It would be best if he were talking to Mark Stoops.

I believe Texas A&M had a plan to see how the games this weekend played out. Most notably, with Ryan Day at Ohio State and Kalen DeBoer at Washington.

Day lost, and DeBoer won.

The Aggie leadership needs to get back to their original plan. Reach out to Day and ask his interest and if he can make a decision in the next 72 hours. I still believe he’s the best hire for the job. Conform with DeBoer he’s deciding once Washington is out of the hunt for the College Football Playoff.

You reach out to Jed Fisch and confirm he’s still interested despite what happened on Saturday night. You tell him nothing was officially decided, and an erroneous report occurred.

You also put Elijah Robinson and Mike Elko back in serious consideration. I have some concerns with Elijah Robinson based on how the team played in his two games as head coach. Maybe there was just too much “Jimbo Stink,” but many apparent errors that somebody should have cleaned up weren’t. They still looked a lot like a Jimbo-coached team.

Robinson may need an entire off-season to change the program’s culture. I know the players want to play for Robinson, but there’s a massive difference between wanting to play for someone and winning football games. We don’t have enough information on what kind of coach Elijah Robinson could be. I wanted to see more out of him these last two games.

As for Elko, I still think he’s the ultimate fallback guy, but you can’t wait forever. He would stabilize a lot of the issues Jimbo left. This feels like a “lick your wounds” hire at this point, but there are much worse hires.

The other thing I would do at this point, but it won’t happen, is to reach out to Lane Kiffin and Eli Drinkwitz. If you’re going to talk to SEC coaches, this is who it should be. Certainly not Mark Stoops.

I know many people don’t like Kiffin, and I have issues with him, but he would elevate A&M’s football program from a Win/Loss standpoint.

The number one focus for the coaching search should be SOLELY on finding a coach that will improve the number of wins. That’s it.

Sure, there has to be some element to being a fit, but don’t let emotion miss out on someone that can elevate the program to national prominence. That’s what Bjork said was the mission in firing Jimbo and getting a replacement.

While what happened with Stoops on Saturday is an embarrassment, the A&M administration still has the opportunity to do what they set out to do – Improve the number of wins from Jimbo Fisher.

Someone in the administration needs to chew on whoever’s ass needs chewing on and then get everyone calmed down and back on the mission.

This whole thing can still be salvaged with the proper focus. Hopefully, that happens, and we can all look back on the last Saturday night of the regular season and laugh.

Right, Aggie leadership?

Is This Hire Gonna Be Like It Used To Be

As we wait on the white smoke from Kyle Field, I want to take a look back at previous Aggie Football coaching hires to see if this go-round is any different.

This is a monumental hire for Aggie Football. I know it feels like that every time but this time is truly different. The reason is the talent on the current team is capable of winning a national championship. It is.
The same thing existed in 2011 when we hired Kevin Sumlin but nobody realized it. We didn’t know what Johnny Manziel was capable of. This time is different because every coaching staff in the country knows what kind of talent is on the Aggie roster.

In addition, coaches know that Texas A&M is poised to compete at the highest levels in what college football is about to become. Money and support will matter now more than ever. You’re starting to hear from coaches that if a program doesn’t have money to spend it’s going to be limited in its success going forward.

Coaches understand what Texas A&M is capable of going forward even if most college football fans that can only look at past results don’t.

To get there I want to go back and look at who and how we hired coaches before this one. Having that frame of reference will help determine if we truly learn from past mistakes and do things differently.
Before I get going let me say I have very little inside knowledge. Most of my knowledge comes from public sources anyone can read. I think I consume a lot more stuff when it comes to Aggie Football but I don’t have any real inside knowledge other than a few things I’ve picked up along the way.

Previous Coaches:

Jackie Sherrill:
I’m going back as far as my knowledge will let me. I was alive when Jackie was hired but I wasn’t aware of the hire. In reading the history of this hire this was a MASSIVE hire. Bum Bright wanted a big name and wanted to flex the money muscle.

Bum was willing to make the next Aggie coach the first with an annual income of over a million dollars.
He tried to get Bo Schembechler first but he declined. Then he went and got Jackie Sherrill.

Jackie had just come off three consecutive 11-1 seasons at Pitt with three bowl wins where his teams finished in the Top 5. He was extremely successful at Pitt.

Jackie had great success at A&M but his hire was as big as it got at the time.

The search consisted solely of finding the most successful coach that would take the money.

It worked.

R.C. Slocum:
Slocum took over from Jackie due to some recruiting violations and internal politics.

Slocum was the obvious choice because the Aggies were rolling on the field and Slocum was the architect of the Wrecking Crew. No coaching search necessary.

Just give the keys to the machine Jackie built and see what he can do. The same formula has worked for OU giving the keys to Lincoln Riley and Ohio State giving the keys to Ryan Day.

Dennis Franchione:
Sandwiched between Jackie and the Jimbo hire, Dennis Franchione was as big of a hire as it got at the time.

He had been wildly successful at TCU and had some immediate success at Alabama. He looked like a no-brainer hire.

The story was the Franchiones wanted to come back to Texas. From a football standpoint Alabama was about to have some recruiting restrictions placed on them for things that happened before Franchione got there.

That all makes sense as to why Franchione would take the Aggie job over the Crimson Tide job. It was also deemed payback for Alabama luring Bear Bryant away from Texas A&M. The storylines were wonderful to paint for the media and Texas A&M.

There was a fallacy in this hire in that Fran was the only coach considered based on my knowledge of how things went down. It makes sense as on the surface Fran was a MASSIVE get for Texas A&M and the school hadn’t had a coaching search in 20ish years.

They didn’t want to screw up firing Slocum and missing out on Fran. Based on what I’ve read and heard including being very attentive at the time no one else was considered.

I wanted them to consider Brent Venables who was running OU’s defense to perfection at the time along with this coach at Bowling Green named Urban Meyer. Yes, Urban Meyer jumped from Bowling Green to Utah at the same time Fran went from Alabama to A&M.

To be completely honest I think even if the school did a legit coaching search with due diligence on multiple coaches Fran likely still gets hired. However, who knows what a true search with due diligence would have produced?

Fran didn’t work out because he was a fraud propped up by Gary Patterson at TCU and some pretty awesome talent left to him at Alabama. I don’t know if due diligence would have uncovered that but it would have been interesting to know.

Mike Sherman:
We got Bill Byrne as our AD right before we hired Fran but Byrne didn’t have much to do with the Fran hire other than stamp it and introduce him at the press conference. For Mike Sherman, I was told this hire was all Bill Byrne’s by someone who would know.

I trust that person immensely but the factors around the timing of the hire lend to that as well. Robert Gates had just left Texas A&M the year before and we had an interim President. Bill Byrne had sole control of the Athletic Department.

This hire also fits Bill Byrne to a T.

I could write 10 pages on Bill Byrne but the jist of Bill Byrne is that he seemed to never think Texas A&M was a Tier 1 athletic department. He would talk like it but his actions never showed it. He was mindful of finances which was very helpful from a profitability standpoint.

When it came to hiring coaches he never shot for the stars when it came to head coaching hires other than Billy Gillispie, Pat Henry, and Gary Blair.

While all three were EXCELLENT hires they were also easy hires. They were Texas guys that weren’t making huge salaries at the time. He just paid them more money and gave them the keys to their respective sports at a flagship Texas school Very astute hires but it didn’t take a lot of work on his part to make.

For every other hire at Texas A&M, Bill Byrne liked to show he knew more about hiring a coach than anyone else. He never went for the big names. He liked to find the diamond in the rough.

When Coach Fran announced he had been fired Bill Byrne said he was immediately starting a national search. Well, that national search took him to a hotel room in Hempstead to interview Mike Sherman. I shit you not that’s about as far as it really got.

Bill Byrne loved the Green Bay Packers and the offensive line. Mike Sherman fit exactly what Bill Byrne thought football should be.

While Mike Sherman is a fine person and offensive coach he was never made for college football. Especially at a program like Texas A&M. He certainly stabilized the program from what Fran had done to it but Sherman was never the long-term answer. I loathed this hire from a college football standpoint.

It’s been a while so I can’t remember who was available during that coaching cycle but there was another coach that could have been interviewed in Hempstead by the name of Art Briles. He was coaching in Houston just like Mike Sherman. I know Art Briles’ name is sullied now but at the time I don’t see how any person could have interviewed Briles and Sherman thinking that Sherman was the better college hire.
Byrne zeroed in on Mike Sherman from the start and never deviated.

The craziest part about that is EVERYONE knew Fran was getting fired that season. That was the year the news of his VIP email “leaked.” The leaders at Texas A&M had months to see who would be interested.

After Fran was officially dismissed, Bill Byrne simply drove 45 minutes down Highway 6 to meet with the guy I believe he wanted all along. His statement of a “national search” was a farce.

He was always hiring Mike Sherman in my mind. Nobody held Byrne accountable because there was no real leadership at Texas A&M when the hiring went down. Byrne did what he wanted.

Kevin Sumlin:
I don’t have a lot of insider information on the Sumlin hire.

The timing of it all was very strange. I do know there were no plans to fire Mike Sherman until after the loss to Texas on Thanksgiving night. The decision as I understand it was made pretty swiftly that night.

We were headed to the SEC. There were concerns about Mike Sherman being the guy to lead the Aggies into the SEC but he was going to get the chance. However, that loss to Texas made it obvious he wasn’t the guy.

To complicate matters, Bill Byrne was on his way out. Bill Byrne didn’t think the Aggies should go to the SEC so he was winding down as athletic director.

So we had a surprise firing and lame-duck athletic director. We were behind the ball from a timing standpoint and an athletic director who didn’t care about the results for that head coach.

I think Byrne headed up the search committee since he was technically the athletic director but there was a lot of input from various parties. As with most committees with a lot of input and little accountability, the results don’t turn out well.

I will say at the time Kevin Sumlin was a very hot name. He had great success at Houston and seemed to be on the rise. I don’t begrudge the hire at all but just curious what some due diligence would have done.

Sumlin was successful thanks to Case Keenum and Bob Stoops. You remove those two elements and he’s not the same coach. I don’t know that due diligence would have uncovered that but my guess is Sumlin was the hire all along because it was the easy hire.

To be fair, the obvious coaching candidates at the time were all pretty lame. Larry Fedora was the other name being thrown around and he didn’t do anything at UNC. It might have made sense for A&M to hire an up-and-coming coordinator or big name over an established coach at the lower levels.

There was a rumor Mark Richt was being considered and may have even visited campus but that seemed like a stretch to get him from Georgia. I’m also not sure Richt would have been the correct hire as his ceiling was pretty clear.

Either way, Texas A&M went with the easy and obvious hire in Sumlin.

Jimbo Fisher:
Kevin Sumlin went into the 2017 season on a massive hot seat. After he blew the game against UCLA in the Rose Bowl his seat was on fire and he was a dead man walking.

The whole season there was speculation on not if Sumlin got canned but when. The Aggies had plenty of time to get things lined out for a new coach.

Thanks to Scott Woodward who was the Athletic Director at the time they made a massive hire in Jimbo Fisher. I don’t know if anyone else was considered as it seems Woodward zeroed in on Jimbo Fisher and no one else. I think 99 times out of 100 you make this hire but there were some questions about Jimbo.

For me, I was mostly curious about how the Jameis Winston situation was handled. Art Briles had been let go from Baylor a couple of seasons ago so I was curious what Jimbo knew and how he handled it.

On the football field, Jimbo was having his worst season ever. Florida State was struggling to be bowl-eligible and had been passed up in the ACC by Clemson the previous two seasons. Florida State was in a clear decline from when Jameis was under center.

Everyone chalked it up to Jimbo being frustrated with the FSU administration. He was checked out because he knew he was headed to Aggieland. On the surface, it sounds reasonable but you would think a championship-caliber coach would have some personal pride to try and win football games. Especially when you’re still a big dog in the conference.

I think even with some due diligence you still hire Jimbo but I don’t think the administration did that.

Through Scott Woodward’s connection to Jimbo, the Aggies could make a massive flex by hiring a coach with a national championship to his name.

Like I said, 99 times out of 100 you make that hire but it would have been interesting to look under Jimbo’s hood and see who else might be interested and attainable.

Summary:
Other than Mike Sherman I believe every coach the Aggies hired would have been hired even with some more due diligence. They were easy and obvious hires but rooted in enough reason they would be successful as the head coach in Aggieland.

I just think it might have made more sense to not zero in on someone from the start. Have some flexibility in truly considering more than a single candidate should question marks emerge about the lead candidate. You never know what might happen when you don’t have a solution to the problem before working through the problem.

What We Know About This Coaching Hire:

In his initial “We Canned Jimbo” press conference, Ross Bjork laid out these items for what he deemed necessary for the next head coach in Aggieland.

1) Program Identity – Not sure what this means other than they need head coaching experience along with if they’re defensive or offensive oriented.
2) Great Interpersonal Skills – They don’t want to hire an asshole. I wonder if they’ll take a jerk that wins football games.
3) Track Record of Player Development – Assuming this means putting some guys in the NFL.
4) Commitment to Academics – Giggle.
5) Recruiting Machine – Obviously.
6) Supreme Organizational Skills – I think this is a shot at Jimbo.
7) Culture of Discipline – Another shot at Jimbo I believe.
8) Passion for the Game – I take it as they want someone not just looking for a paycheck. Wonderful idea.
9) Proven Winner With Strong Leadership Skills – This one seems obvious.
10) Involved in the Community – Eh. Let’s be real. Nobody cares about this one. Just win football games and the community can fend for itself.
11) Knowledge of Xs and Os – While important I’d rather they just have the ability to hire great coordinators, watch game film to understand opponents, and watch the game to offer adjustments to their staff. “Schematic Advantage” as Charlie Weiss once put it is way overrated for a head coach.
12) Ability to Capitalize on Today’s Modern College Athletics – I think this means someone with intimate knowledge of NIL programs and the Transfer Portal. We ABSOLUTELY need someone knowledgeable about that.

None of these items are truly insightful. All they tell me is the Aggies are looking for an established head coach with some kind of record if they can find one. It makes sense. Start with someone who has the most experience and work from there.

The Contract:
Ross Bjork has alluded to learning from the Jimbo contracts. First off, we don’t need to tie ourselves to a coach for 10 years. I don’t know the number Bjork has in mind but I wouldn’t go longer than 6 years. From an annual salary standpoint, I wouldn’t go more than $10 million a year.

I don’t want to give out a $60 million contract but it’s not far off from what the top coaches make. You are going to have to pay market value to get a top-notch head coach. If you can grab someone with a truly established track record don’t let money be the factor. Just don’t tie ourselves to a decade if it doesn’t work out.

In addition to the annual salary throw some serious incentives for 10 wins, SEC West, SEC Champion, College Football Playoffs, and of course a massive incentive for a national title. I’m saying you can make another $10 million if you win it all.

Pay them a ton when they’ve done something.

The Search Process and Candidates:
The rest of what you’re going to read is based on my reading of social media and various articles. I have no insider information on what’s going on. I do think I have a pretty good idea of what’s real and what’s not. I know who to trust in these processes and who not to.

I believe Dan Lanning was the number one target from the second we fired Jimbo. As both sides started talking I think it became clear Lanning isn’t going to leave Oregon for Texas A&M right now. Some of it is money and the other is he has serious momentum at Oregon. He’s got a potential Heisman Trophy candidate and a decent shot at playing for the College Football Playoff.

Should he lose to Oregon State this weekend or Washington next weekend he might come back around but I think that’s a long shot.

Because Lanning isn’t a serious candidate it seems the search committee broadened their search. Thanks to the standardization of Zoom and Teams it seems they have talked to several candidates last week. Based on what I’ve read they talked to actual candidates and not their agent which has been the norm in several coaching candidates.

Many times, agents got the coaches hired without administrations ever actually talking to the coach. It sounds like the Aggies are talking to actual coaches via video conferencing. I think this is a great move.
The Aggies also seem to be talking to coaches who have expressed interest in the Aggie job. It doesn’t hurt to talk to someone to see if they’re genuinely interested and have a plan. You never know who might impress you until you talk to them.

I don’t know what the result will be but so far I’m pleased with the process based on what I’ve read.
Based on what I’ve read and seen there appear to be three finalists in the moment. This is all very fluid as there are two more weeks of games. I’m not sure how a coach with a legit shot at the College Football Playoff leaves their program for Texas A&M. Stranger things have happened but it seems like a massive longshot for a coach to leave with a shot to win a national title.

Here are who I believe are the three finalists heading into the final weekend of college football:

Ryan Day:
This seems like a massive longshot but the more I’ve read on Day it seems like if he loses to Michigan on Saturday he’ll be named the Aggie head coach next week. Ohio State thinks he’s underachieving and will never win them a national championship.

To me, that’s crazy because he pushed Georgia to the brink in the Semi-Final last season. If his kicker makes that game-ending field goal they win the game and I’m convinced they would have beat TCU in the championship game.

This dude is a field goal away from a national championship and they’re still not happy. Sure, Ohio State has massive resources but Day is doing a pretty good job. They’ve only won two national championships since 1970. Twice in 50 years. Day isn’t doing anything more than any coach before him.

He’s recruiting well and has been in the College Football Playoff for 3 of 4 seasons. What more does Ohio State want? I have no clue how he could be on the hot seat but if I was him I wouldn’t be happy either.

In addition to his actual coaching, he’s become enamored with the SEC. Ever since losing to Alabama in the 2020 title game, he realized how he needed to adapt Ohio State to being more physical like the SEC. In his first test with an SEC team since that 2020 game with Bama, he took Georgia to the wire.

I don’t think he loses to Michigan this weekend so the Aggies never get a real chance to hire him. However, if he wants to come to Aggieland you make this hire all day every day.

The dude wants to win it all and he’s got the experience and is still plenty young and hungry.
Cheer for Michigan as this is the guy to hire.

Kalen DeBoer:
I don’t know much about this guy as he didn’t come onto the national scene until this year. He did well at Washington last year and has been damn good this year. If he can get by Oregon next week he’s headed to the College Football Playoff.

My biggest question with DeBoer is his lack of time at a major program without a stud at quarterback. Michael Penix, Jr is a stud so I’d like to see more of DeBoer without him.

I wouldn’t mind this hire but there are lots of questions in my mind for how he’ll translate to the SEC as well.

Jed Fisch:
Ironically enough, Jed Fisch took over the Arizona program from Kevin Sumlin. He went 1-11 in his first season, 5-7 last season, and he’s likely to go 9-3 in his third year at Arizona.

What he’s done in 3 seasons at Arizona is pretty impressive. I just don’t know what his ceiling is.
His pedigree is pretty impressive as he’s coached for a ton of successful head coaches.

He’s a roll of the dice hire. If he’s the floor it’s not a terrible floor.

It also gives me some hope the search committee didn’t go in with any preconceived notions about who should be the head coach. They’ve let the process play out like it should if Fisch is a finalist.

So What’s Going To Happen?:

At this moment nobody knows for sure.

Bjork has made it clear he’d like to hire someone by December 4th due to the transfer portal window opening up. That makes sense. The College Football Playoff will be set so no need to wait around on a coach in the playoffs. Make the hire once the playoffs have been set if not sooner with Day.

If Ohio State loses this weekend then I think Day is named next week. I don’t think that happens and Day stays at Ohio State. He’s the guy I want even above Lanning after thinking about it more.

Assuming Ohio State wins, I think we wait to see if Washington beats Oregon next weekend. If Washington loses then I think DeBoer is headed to Aggieland. I wouldn’t be upset at that either.

I do think both Ohio State and Washington make the College Football Playoff removing Day and DeBoer from consideration.

We’ll make one more run at Lanning before announcing Jed Fisch as the head coach on Monday, December 4th.

Maybe Fisch can finally be the guy to Make Aggie Football Great Again.

You Didn’t Win, Jimbo

Some of what you’re about to read I wrote before the Ole Miss game. I had outlined a piece called, “What to do with Jimbo Fisher.”

After the South Carolina game, I knew what was coming. We were headed for a 7-5 finish.

I didn’t think Jimbo would use the bye week to adjust and do anything differently. He hadn’t done it in the past so why would he do it this season? I did want to see if he would before passing the final judgment. The South Carolina game proved it to me. He was set in his ways.

After the Ole Miss game, I was dejected. The same old Jimbo we’ve seen for the last three seasons stuck to his guns and didn’t adapt a single thing. We were headed squarely for 7-5 because there was no way he was beating LSU in Baton Rouge.

I didn’t want to continue writing the same things I’ve written over and over again related to the deficiencies of what Jimbo has done the last three seasons. I’m focusing on the last three seasons because I feel that’s his true body of work. 2020 was great but that was ages ago and a single blip in his six seasons at A&M.

He’s had time to get his recruits in along with some longevity with his staff. He can’t blame anyone else for the state of the program over the last three seasons. It’s entirely on him. I also believe your more recent history is your most relevant history.

Jimbo’s last three seasons at A&M have fallen well short of expectations and it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. It wasn’t going to change anytime soon because Jimbo was going to stick to his guns trying to prove everyone wrong. He believed his way was still a way to win a national championship.

He couldn’t even sniff the SEC West but he routinely talked about how to win a national championship. That’s a coach detached from reality.

Mississippi State Game:

Before I get going on my thoughts about Jimbo Fisher I do want to briefly touch on the Mississippi State game.

Walking to the game with my buddies I said, “I wonder if Petrino tells Jimbo to take his hands off the offense. Henderson is his guy and he’s going to run the offense as he sees fit.”

I’ll be damned if I didn’t nail that one. We saw something out of a quarterback we hadn’t seen in some time. We saw a quarterback produce on the ground and through the air. We haven’t seen something like that in the last 3 years where our starting quarterback took over the game. Jaylen Henderson was damn impressive.

Sure, he missed a couple of deep passes but he had thrown 8 passes in his collegiate career before Saturday night. Those passes were 2 seasons ago so I’m not going to fault a guy who wasn’t perfect on the night. The dude showed up in a big way though.

I’ve had a feeling Jimbo constrained the offense all year. We didn’t see those constraints on Saturday night. We saw an offense use the zone read to neutralize the threat of a crashing defensive end. We saw an offense roll out a quarterback rather than drop straight back to keep pressure off of him.

We saw clear plays designed for this defense they weren’t expecting. We FINALLY saw creativity from an Aggie offense. It wasn’t without fault but by and large, it was damn effective.

I’m not saying Jaylen Henderson is the second coming of Johnny Manziel. He caught Mississippi State by surprise and LSU will be more ready for him.

It was just refreshing to see an offensive scheme that was unique and not the same old tired 20 plays we’ve seen the last 3 seasons from Jimbo.

That’s my quick thoughts on Mississippi State.

Back to the piece I had started on Jimbo.

All of the bold and underlined areas I touched on were my outline before Ole Miss. I had outlined these items as key discussion points for what I thought was the inevitable decision when he went 7-5. After reading them two weeks later I think the outline points are still relevant.

I know it’s a little confusing but just trying to show in two weeks nothing changed for Jimbo. At the time I wrote those words he could still beat Ole Miss and win 10 games including the bowl game. He took himse

You will read words in present tense that should be past tense today.

<BEGIN TWO WEEKS AGO BEFORE OLE MISS>

First off, believe it or not, this is not a post on firing Jimbo Fisher. I don’t want Jimbo Fisher fired. I want Jimbo Fisher to win out this season including a bowl game for 10 wins.

I want Jimbo Fisher to have the Aggies as the second-best team in the SEC West. I want Jimbo Fisher to close a really strong recruiting class. I want Jimbo Fisher to have some momentum going into the offseason for the first time in 3 years.

Beyond this season, I want Jimbo Fisher to routinely compete for the SEC West. I want Jimbo Fisher to go to Atlanta to compete for the SEC Championship. I want Jimbo Fisher to get into the College Football Playoffs and compete for a national championship.

I want a statue of Jimbo Fisher outside of Kyle Field.

I really and truly want all of that.

I just don’t think it’s going to happen. Should this season play out like I think where we go 7-5 losing to Ole Miss and LSU on the road I think the decision-makers have a serious issue on their hands.

What to do with Jimbo Fisher?

Execution vs Scheme:

Jimbo is convinced his offensive style is the only style that can win a national title. He said so much after last year’s LSU win at Kyle Field. In a season where he went 5-7, he spent some of his post-game press conference crowing about how his offense is the type of offense that can win national championships.

YOU JUST WENT 5-7 AND YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT HOW TO WIN A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP FROM AN OFFENSIVE STANDPOINT???

His specific comment was, “We are so caught up in tempo. Name me a tempo team that’s won a National Championship. There’s not one in the last 15 years.”

Well, Jimbo…

The 2015 season title game between Alabama and Clemson was a 45-40 contest won by Alabama where Nick Saban himself said he believed his defense could not stop Clemson’s offense. This is the reason he called the onside kick in the 4th quarter. Clemson was running a tempo offense with Deshaun Watson.

Clemson didn’t win THAT game but they certainly stressed Nick Saban’s defense to the point he called an onside kick because he didn’t have faith in his defense. Clemson would win the national championship the next season which was the 2016 full season. That same Clemson offense won the national championship the following season after stressing Nick Saban so much he felt he needed some luck via an onside kick to win the game.

Maybe there’s a fine line between urgency and tempo in Jimbo’s book.

Either way, both are a long way from the slow, plodding offense that Jimbo likes to run. Teams with an offensive urgency have won national titles in the last 15 years.

You can’t tell me the following offenses didn’t have some sense of urgency in trying to stress the defense beyond that 2016 Clemson offense I previously talked about:

2018 Clemson

2019 LSU

2020 Alabama

Sure, those offenses had elite quarterback and wide receiver play but much of what they did was operate with a sense of urgency to stress the defense. I suppose you could argue their offenses weren’t true “Tempo” offenses but they ABSOLUTELY had a sense of urgency and used their elite talent to stress defenses by quickly lining up and calling plays.

They certainly weren’t offenses that tried to bludgeon their opponents with perfect execution on every play. It was to line the ball up and let players make plays.

Jimbo has the weapons at his disposal but he refuses to utilize them to his advantage. He has an antiquated style of offense he needs to evolve.

He hired Bobby Petrino to run the offense but nothing has appeared to have changed. The only thing that appears to have changed is that all of his playsheets and notes are with Bobby in the coaching booth. The style of offense is the same.

That’s all on Jimbo.

Look around college football. Everyone is running some kind of offense with an urgency that can stress the defense. They’re attacking sideline to sideline to make the defense defend the entire width and length of the field.

They’re doing it urgently so the defense doesn’t have time to rest or get set. You don’t have to run this pace the whole game but there’s absolutely a time and place to have some sense of urgency with your offense in a game.

Jimbo simply talks about perfect execution. Seriously. Execution is all he talks about. Thanks to the power of the Internet we have proof:

118 times in 19 games Jimbo has referenced execution as the sole reason for the success or lack of success for his offense.

At what point does Jimbo admit some scheme issues are leading to all of these struggles and not just straight-up execution?

Jimbo needs to get with the times. His slow and plodding offensive style is antiquated. Defenses know what to expect with his offense which makes execution by his players more difficult.

It’s more scheme than execution despite what he thinks.

Humps vs. Hills:

A common argument is just to give Jimbo more time. There’s a long list of college coaches who won after years of being at their schools.

That’s not true. Most coaches that have won national championships in the last 20 years have done so in the first 5 years.

Mack Brown and Dabo Swinney are kind of the outliers taking longer than that but in the time it took them to win their first national championship they were routinely winning 10 games and were the second-best team in their conference.

Jimbo Fisher is a long way from routinely winning 10 games and being the second-best team in his division.

It’s not a hump that Jimbo is just trying to get over. He’s got a hill bordering on a mountain he needs to get over.

<END WORDS WRITTEN BEFORE OLE MISS>

Now we’re back to the present tense.

As I read all of that two weeks later I believed it was even more accurate after what happened at Ole Miss and what we showed against Mississippi State with a different quarterback and offensive scheme.

The decision-makers at A&M decided to make the change with Jimbo. I applaud them for what they did. It needed to be done. It’s a painful thing to admit due to the money involved but for the sake of the football program it needed to be done.

Jimbo was not going to wake up one day and adapt to what he needed to do. He was stuck in a time warp from over a decade ago.

A&M needed to make the change.

I’ll keep moving on to the topics I planned to write two weeks ago.

Blaming the Players:

I can’t tell you how tired I got of Jimbo blaming the players. Obviously he routinely blamed lack of execution which is blaming the players.

His BS about fighting for inches got old too. They’re only fighting for inches because they’re talented and your coaching sucks.

I got tired of him dressing down quarterbacks. There’s a time and place for it but he spent the whole damn game yelling at his quarterback. So much so he quit paying attention to the ball in the Auburn game because he wanted to yell at Max Johnson and was standing on the field while the play was alive.

After the Ole Miss game, he blamed Randy Bond for kicking the ball an inch too low on the potential game-tying field goal attempt. Never mind it was the FIFTH blocked kick of the season. Couldn’t have been the lack of special teams coaching or scheme. It was the player’s fault for not anticipating a potential block and kicking it higher.

The photo I used for this piece is Jimbo dressing down Max in the Ole Miss game. The dude was getting hammered and Jimbo was just piling on. I’m sure it got old being dressed down like that the entire game.

He pretended to blame himself as well but he never truly meant it. Which is why he wouldn’t change his ways.

Most Coaches Are Interchangeable:

The sad reality in college football that nobody wants to admit is every coach other than Nick Saban and Kirby Smart is interchangeable. They’re the two outliers in college football.

Sure, there are tiers of coaches in the college ranks but the dropoff from Saban and Smart to the rest of college football is pretty far.

Everybody wants to talk about Urban Meyer as an elite level coach but do you see any drop off from him to Ryan Day at Ohio State? I don’t. Urban was a VERY successful college coach. However, if he never gets Tim Tebow to Gainesville I’m not sure he sniffs a national championship at Florida and he doesn’t get the job at Ohio State. He likely flames out.

Ohio State is a perennial winner because of its location and conference. Some of it is coaching for sure but several people have had the same level of success Urban had at Ohio State. Ohio State while REALLY good under Urban only won one title.

He certainly never attained the level of success Saban and Smart have had at their schools.

Urban’s time at Jacksonville in the NFL shows me while he was a solid coach he had some really good timing at Florida with Tim Tebow and the defensive talent Ron Zook left him. I’m not trying to take anything away from Urban but just trying to show there are a lot of external factors to most coaches winning it all.

Urban had great timing.

Moving on from Urban let’s talk about Dabo Swinney. I know he’s a piñata right now but Dabo is THE perfect example for the reality of most college coaches – You’re only as good as your coordinators and starting quarterback.

With Brent Venables running his defense and Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence under center he won two national titles. He also played for two more which is an amazing accomplishment. From a success standpoint, Dabo is the third most successful coach in college football.

The coordinator and quarterback luck hold for Ed Orgeron, Jimbo Fisher, Gene Chizik, and Mack Brown. All four of those guys had great coordinators and a Heisman winner or runner-up as their quarterback.

I’m leaving off Les Miles because he’s essentially the Barry Switzer in the NFL of college football. Much like Switzer taking over from Jimmy Johnson, Miles took over from Saban. Only a fool wouldn’t have won a national championship with what was left to them.

Outside of Saban and Smart, the coordinator and quarterback are just as, if not, as important as the head coach.

Despite all of that, colleges are paying coaches like Nick Saban and Kirby Smart to grow on trees. You just have to find one and pay them before they win it all. They don’t grow on trees. It can be fool’s folly to pay someone to be something that they’re not.

In reality, just hire a coach who’s got some recruiting ability and the smarts to hire top coordinators. Then you roll the dice every season and hope some luck with an amazing quarterback finds you.

It also helps if you’re in the SEC.

Recruiting Momentum:

One of my greatest concerns with holding on to Jimbo was his recruiting momentum was about to slow down big time.

Texas A&M has a solid NIL machine but kids still want to win games. The 2022 recruiting class was sold on winning a national championship. Two seasons later they couldn’t be further from that goal with Jimbo as head coach.

If Jimbo were to start losing recruits which I suspect was about to happen, elite recruits in future classes would be harder to come by. When you lose recruiting momentum in college football due to not winning enough it’s hard to get it back. If ever even get it back. That’s where Jimbo was about to be with recruiting.

I think we were also staring at a lot of transfer portal entries this go-round. Not the backups we saw last season but starting talent looking to go somewhere and win football games.

Don’t think opposing coaches weren’t going to use 5-7 and 7-5 to their advantage.

I’m positive it was about to get bad. Three seasons of failed expectations spoke for itself.

As we’ve seen with other coaching staffs once you lose recruiting momentum you’re a dead man walking. The hole for the next coach is that much bigger.

Now vs Later:

If the Aggie decision-makers can make a solid hire they can hold a portion of this team together AND keep the recruiting machine going. A&M is recruiting at a level it hasn’t seen but momentum is still a very real thing. I think some of the elite recruiting was Jimbo but let’s not kid ourselves that A&M is VERY competitive on the NIL front.

Let’s give another coach a shot at doing something with the talent on the team and in the pipeline rather than come in a year or two later with a total rebuild.

A competent coach and staff can win big next year. The talent is on the team and in the recruiting pipeline if we can hold it.

I don’t think there’s any way Jimbo was going to hold a good portion of the talent. A new coach at least has a chance.

That’s why the move needed to be made now and not later.

Those That Came Before Him:

In the end, Jimbo Fisher will be no different than those who came before him in Aggieland.

He did recruit at a superior level compared to the coaches before him but his on-the-field performance was the same or worse. He had one good season out of six but didn’t do enough with the resources he had.

Why that is I have no idea but we need to try something different with this next hire.

We need someone who is truly hungry. None of the guys we’ve hired since R.C. Slocum were truly hungry.

Fran was too caught up with the perception of himself and had already won a national championship in his mind. Mike Sherman while a fine person was not a college head coach. Kevin Sumlin was never equipped to be a big-time college head coach.

Jimbo wanted to prove to everyone he could win a national championship in his style. He didn’t want to adapt and instead took a big paycheck to prove people wrong.

Let’s get someone who hasn’t won anything and is super hungry to win it all. How you identify that I’m not totally sure but give me someone who hasn’t won anything of real substance or thinks too much of themselves and is willing to put in the work to win a national championship.

Dan Lanning:

Dan Lanning has been my key target since I started thinking Jimbo might get let go this season. I was actually on the Elko train for a bit but that had more to do with finances and reality.

I like Lanning the most because he’s coached in the SEC under Saban and Smart. He’s had pretty good success at Oregon. I think it’s important to have had some time as a head coach at a big program to show you can do it. He checks that box.

He’s not been perfect as a head coach but that’s okay. He’s won a lot more than he’s lost and hopefully learned some coaching lessons along the way.

He’s young and appears to understand the recruiting game. After all, he hired away the architect of Jimbo’s vaunted 2022 class.

Yes, you read that correctly. Lanning hired the guy who was the key component to that 2022 class at Texas A&M. His name is Marshall Malchow. He also spent time with Lanning at Alabama and Georgia.

Lanning’s Offensive Coordinator also has heavy Texas ties. He’s been at UTSA, Lake Travis, and Texas. I know time spent at UTSA and Lake Travis doesn’t seem like much but he’s continued Bo Nix’s development and is familiar with the state of Texas.

There’s a lot to like about Lanning considering his success as a head coach at Oregon, his time spent under Kirby Smart and Nick Saban, and having some staff he’d likely bring that has strong awareness of Texas.

I think he’s a coach that would hit the ground running in no time.

I believe Lanning is THE key target and it’s okay to “break the bank” on. I’m not saying give him a 10-year deal at $9.5 million per year but I do think it’s fine to give him an 8 million dollar-a-year contract for 6 years. That’s $48 million total guaranteed.

I know he has a $20 million buyout but that’s the cost of doing business for a guy like him.

I’m also fine throwing in some serious incentives for 10-win seasons, College Football Playoff Appearances since it’s going to 12 teams, Division Championships, Conference Championships, and of course a MASSIVE incentive for winning a National Championship.

I’m talking about throwing a $10 million carrot for winning it all.

I do have questions if Lanning would take the job considering he’s in the hunt for a Pac-12 title and berth in the College Football Playoff. I know he also came out and said he had no interest in leaving Oregon. We’ve heard that before from other coaches so take that for what it’s worth.

If I do have one concern about Lanning it’s that he’s a bit prickly. He’s not the smoothest talker but I don’t care. I want someone more interested in winning football games than winning press conferences. He also has a slight Tom Herman vibe but not going to hold that against him as he’s won at a big program.

Either way, he’s the candidate I make tell me no before I move on to anyone else. Even if he said he’s not interested. He may not have realized what he was saying no to.

At least say we tried everything we could to hire him.

The Others:

Mike Elko – Mike Elko has always been my safety hire if we needed to fire Jimbo and save some bucks. What he’s done at Duke is remarkable. My biggest question with Elko is if he has a limited ceiling. He seems like that 9-3 to 10-2 coach at A&M. That’s MUCH better than we’ve experienced in the past but I don’t know if it’s enough. The man can coach football but I’m not sure he’s geared for what a perennial national title contender needs.

Jeff Traylor – Much like Elko, he seems like a safe hire who will improve from where Jimbo was but I believe has a ceiling. If we wound up with Traylor I wouldn’t be upset but I think we’re looking at a perennial 9-3 and 10-2 coach because he doesn’t have the elite level experience.

Lane Kiffin – I LOVE Kiffin as a football coach. He’s got a great football mind but it ends there. When things don’t go his way he becomes very petulant. He seems to think he’s got a ceiling at Ole Miss which is true but he doesn’t need to verbally express it every time something doesn’t go his way. Pass on him.

Deion Sanders – I thought Deion was the perfect hire for Auburn last season. They screwed that up. I don’t have a problem with his flash but I do wonder about his ability to coach in games. We just don’t have a good sample set due to a host of reasons. I know the shine is off him right now. The reality is other than getting stomped by Oregon they’ve been pretty competitive in the rest of their games. They blew a MASSIVE lead to Stanford but other than that they’ve only lost to ranked teams. This was a 1-11 team last season that’s now 5-5 in a pretty good conference this season. He’s someone I wouldn’t take off the list just yet. Like most things in life don’t let the media narrative around him influence the decision making. What he’s done at Colorado is REALLY impressive when you remove the flash and talking heads. He needs to be considered as the process plays out. I don’t think he’s the guy but I’m not going to dismiss him solely because of perception. He’s better than a LOT of college coaches. I do think he’d be better off at a program that needs more of a rebuild which isn’t A&M right now. I don’t want to see him at Arkansas or Mississippi State though.

Elijah Robinson – This is my heart-string candidate. This guy seems to have that Terry Price aura to him. Those guys don’t always make good head coaches but as the coaching search plays out and he gets to coach two games let’s see what happens. If Lanning doesn’t take the job and Robinson beats Brian Kelly in Baton Rouge I think he’s all of a sudden a serious candidate assuming players aren’t entering the transfer portal and recruits are holding. My biggest question with Robinson beyond his ability as head coach is what does he want? If he’s never truly wanted to be a head coach it’s not a gear he can just turn on. It’s something he should have been building to.

Kalen DeBoer – This guy seems like a winner but his body of work at a massive program is pretty small. He won big at Sioux Falls over a decade ago and then bounced around coordinator positions at minor programs before getting the Fresno State job for a couple of seasons. He then landed the Washington job where he’s done pretty well but with an outstanding quarterback. I have no clue if he has any interest in this part of the world and the SEC. This guy is the wildest of wildcards. I just don’t know enough about him and don’t think anyone does either.

Glenn Schumann – Schumann is THE assistant coach in college football simply because he sits next to the throne of college football in Kirby Smart. He’s young at 33 but has Texas ties having graduated from McKinney Boyd. His dad was a football coach and Schumann started his coaching career at Alabama under Saban where he got tight with Smart and moved with him to Georgia. Schumann is by far the biggest roll-of-the-dice candidate out there. He’s got no skins but his pedigree is as good as it gets for any assistant in college football. If you’re going to gamble on an assistant he’s the guy without question.

Jake Spavital – Just wanted to give you a giggle if you’re still reading this.

Summary:

Jimbo needed to go. The money is an unfortunate thing but the move had to be made for the health of the Aggie football program. It was pretty clear Jimbo wasn’t going to get it done. He was stuck in the past and stubborn to the point he wanted to prove doubters wrong. That’s a bad combination.

Had we waited to let him go we might have saved some money but we would have put the program in a bigger hole for the next guy. It would likely have cost us more money over time. It was time to make the move.

This will be THE defining hire of Ross Bjork’s career. Even he doesn’t know who it’s going to be right now. If he did we’d know about it.

Whoever it is will be walking into as good of a situation as you get in college football. That is assuming they can sell the current players and committed recruits. If they can do that AND coach modern-day college football we’re going to see a massive spike in wins next season.

Now we just sit back and see if it happens.

Sorry, you didn’t win, Jimbo.