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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.

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:

A compilation of the 118 times Jimbo Fisher has said the word “execute”

(1/2) pic.twitter.com/VTdGtGaENM
— Aggie Highlights (@aggie_highlight) October 24, 2023

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.

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.

Thoughts from the Auburn Game

Before I get to anything else on the Auburn game let’s be clear that’s not a good Auburn team. They’re a step up from New Mexico and Louisiana Monroe but they’re a step down from Miami and might be the worst SEC team we play this season.

They went through three quarterbacks without one getting hurt so that tells you the state of their offense. They were trying to find some kind of spark because they didn’t have a quarterback who could move the ball.

Regardless of Auburn’s lack of talent, this was still a good win for the Aggies. Still lots of questions but the Aggies handled the Tigers from start to finish with no real scares. Even when Auburn returned the fumble for a touchdown it wasn’t a real scare. The Aggies were still up by 10 and Auburn’s offense hadn’t done anything all day.

My biggest concern for the day was having to take a timeout on the second play. THE SECOND PLAY OF THE GAME WE’RE TAKING A DAMN TIMEOUT.

How does that even happen? That’s the mark of an ill-prepared team. We’ve seen this way too many times in Jimbo’s Aggie tenure where this team comes out flat, confused, or just not ready to play. It’s a massive concern that keeps happening. This was a game we should have been prepared for. We shouldn’t have been overwhelmed by this Auburn team at Kyle Field.

To make matters worse we get a false start coming out of the timeout. I don’t get it. What gets discussed during the timeout?

It should be crystal clear what personnel group will be going out there, what play will be run, and what the snap count/cadence will be.

Taking a timeout followed by a false start on the second play of the game is an ill-prepared team and that starts with coaching. There’s no defending or excusing that. That’s on Jimbo and it’s a HUGE concern in my book.

Some things need changing and Jimbo isn’t changing them.

The other concern with Jimbo is a bit nitpicky but his being on the field during the fumble return. He claims he thought the play was dead. How the hell did he think that? It was a clear fumble in the field of play and there were no whistles blown. Nobody on the field thought the play was dead.

Why did he think that? What does he see when he coaches a game? How can he screw that up? Did he just stop following the ball?

I don’t get how he thought the play was dead when nobody on the field thought that. How can he be the only one in that instance?

It kind of makes me wonder if he truly sees the game as it’s being played or if he’s still watching theoretical football in his mind disconnected from what’s happening on the field.

I don’t think he should get fined and it’s sort of funny but it makes me wonder what he sees in the game if he thought that play was dead. Nobody else near the field thought the play was dead but him.

Let’s talk about the rest of the football game.

Offense:

This offense didn’t look great for most of the game. Conner Weigman got hurt before the end of the half but he was struggling. He was 8 for 14 and 70 yards before leaving. That’s not terrible but he never looked super comfortable as some of his misses weren’t close.

We were moving the ball with Weigman but stalled out thanks to our inability to establish the run, penalties, and inability to connect on third-down passes. 3 of Conner’s incompletions came on 3rd downs resulting in a field goal attempt and two punts.

Our inability to establish the run in the first half was by far the most concerning thing in the game beyond the apparent lack of preparedness. Outside of Le’Veon Moss’ 34-yard run we only had 29 yards rushing in the first half on 10 other rushes. 2.9 yards isn’t a terrible yard per carry but the problem was 5 of those rushes were for 1 yard or less.

On 11 rushing attempts in the first half not quite half resulted in a zero or one-yard gain. That’s feast or famine and something that has to be improved if we’re going to do well in the SEC.

It’s nice that we can break off good runs here and there but I’d rather establish the line of scrimmage where 50% of your rushing attempts aren’t stalemated by the defense.

Our running backs rushed for 202 yards on 27 carries. That’s certainly not a bad day on the ground with 7.5 yards per carry. However, 2 of those carries were for 114 yards so the remainder of the 25 carries netted 88 yards. That’s 3.5 yards a carry which isn’t terrible but much of came in the second half where we had a margin of error to try and wear down the defense.

I’m being nitpicky here but the inability to establish the run game early is a big concern to me. Maybe I’m too old school but I still believe the ability to establish the line of scrimmage early in the game is a big factor in how much success you’ll have. Especially against equal opponents.

You can’t fully rely on the run game but the ability to establish it puts pressure on a defense. This Aggie offensive line has to get better at establishing the run game much sooner than the second half.

As for the rest of the offense, it was honestly mediocre as well except for 2 big pass plays by Max Johnson. His touchdown to his brother Jake was a great play made possible by his rolling out and keeping the play alive. His touchdown pass to Evan Stewart was one of the most beautiful balls I’ve ever seen at Kyle. Not quite as good as Reggie McNeal to Greg Porter against OU in 2002 but it was up there.

On the day Conner and Max combined for 193 yards completing 15 of 25 passes. That’s not terrible but it’s certainly not dominant. You’d certainly like to have seen more against a team like Auburn at Kyle.

We won comfortably but we did not win convincingly.

Count me in the camp that still has concerns about this offensive line. It’s certainly improved over last year but I don’t think it’s playing near the level that it should be. Still too much confusion via penalties, blown assignments, and just not being dominant.

As for Conner, it looks like we dodged a bullet with him. I saw him hobble to the locker room and it didn’t look good. I suppose it was a decent sign he wasn’t being assisted in any way but it was clear he was hurt and not coming back.

He looked a little like Bisontis did against Louisiana Monroe and Bisontis was out there playing against Auburn the next week. I didn’t think that was possible. I can’t judge injuries from my seat.

Jimbo said the X-rays were negative which is great. I think we’ll likely lose him for a couple of games but we should have him back after the bye week at worst.

I think this is Max’s team against Arkansas but suppose Conner could be back out there.

I have faith in both quarterbacks individually but until I see more from this offensive line I have questions on how much offense we’ll be able to produce against SEC teams that are better than Auburn.

Defense:

For the second week in a row, the Aggie defense gave up zero touchdowns. I don’t care who you’ve played that’s damn impressive to go 8 quarters of football in an offensive era and not give up a touchdown.

In addition, we limited Auburn to 3 first downs on 15 3rd down attempts. That’s also the second week in a row we’ve shut down the opposing offense on 3rd downs.

I’m not sure what to make of this defense because they’ve dominated their opponent in the last two games. It just hasn’t been against an offense that I think is very good and a real test.

To their credit, Jimbo and Durkin decided to apply pressure this game and they did a really impressive job.

According to the stat sheet the Aggies had seven sacks and an additional quarterback hurry.

They should have had two fumble recoveries returned for touchdowns. However, the refs hosed them on a BS replay overturn that was not conclusive if you have half a brain. In addition, Bryce Anderson swatted another lateral pass he should have picked up and ran back for a touchdown. Bryce brain-farted there.

Two scoop and scores would have only added to the domination on Saturday.

The Aggie defense brought pressure in a big way on Saturday. To me, it looked like Durkin decided to do away with gap integrity and just let the defensive line try to dominate the offensive line with the linebackers filling the gaps that were created.

It worked based on the results. The defensive line got a great push into the backfield and the linebackers did an OUTSTANDING job of filling the gaps as soon as they saw them. They weren’t playing on their heels waiting to see what developed and instead went into attack mode when they saw a gap develop.

You can question the ability of the Auburn quarterbacks all you want but the reality is they had no time to pass and the Aggie defensive line and linebackers were disruptive all game long. All of that pressure caused Auburn to hold quite a bit. When SEC refs are regularly calling holding in a game you know you’re dominating the line of scrimmage.

Passing wise Auburn was only 9 for 23 passing for 56 yards. That’s a roughly 40% completion rate for 56 yards. They just weren’t able to pass on us so give credit where credit is due. The defensive players and staff flat-out shut down Auburn’s passing game.

All because of pressure at the line of scrimmage.

I do have a concern with the amount of yards they gave up on the ground. Auburn’s top two running backs rushed for 112 yards on 17 carries. That’s 6.5 yards a carry.

Luckily Auburn was losing the whole game so they couldn’t try and establish the run. Auburn was playing from behind so they had to attempt some passes that weren’t working.

It looks like this defense can only shut down one aspect of an offense each game. As long as you choose correctly it’s fine but it’s a slight concern.

Another slight concern is the Auburn quarterbacks missed some open receivers but to the defense’s credit the Auburn quarterbacks missed them because they had no time to throw.

With all of that being said, I can’t dog on this defense. What they’ve done the last two weeks is impressive. I just hope it can carry over to better opponents.

I’m going to carry trauma from the Miami game until I see this defense do it against a better opponent. Speaking of Miami, if you look at the Aggie’s schedule and the quarterbacks they’ll face this year I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Tyler Van Dyke will be the best passer they face all year.

We’re gonna have some tests with Joe Milton, Spencer Rattler, and Jaxson Dart but we could look back on the Miami game and realize we got picked apart by an outstanding passer. At least I hope we can say that when it’s all said and done.

Just a positive thought for the defense…

Special Teams:

I usually gloss over special teams but there are two things I want to point out in this game.

Nik Constantinou had a horrible game. His first three punts were under 40 yards and he wasn’t trying to pin them inside the 20. They also had no real height. They were just three ugly punts under 40 yards. He had plenty of room to boom a 50-yarder but for whatever reason he kicked three ugly balls.

His fourth punt went 48 yards to the Auburn 22 and then his final punt was 46 yards to the Auburn 10-yard line. His final punt was fine but he could have put more leg into the first four but he didn’t for some reason.

Hopefully, it was just a bad day for him because we should be able to put a punter out there who can boom 50-yard punts.

The other thing I want to point out is a missed opportunity by Jimbo. Coming off the Bryce Anderson lateral bat down we backed Auburn up to their 5-yard line thanks to a penalty by Auburn. It’s 4th and 27 at the Auburn 5-yard line so the punter isn’t as deep as he normally is in his end zone.

PUT TEN MEN ON THE LINE AND SEE IF YOU CAN BLOCK IT!!!!! THAT’S OPPORTUNITY!!!!!

You tell Ainias to fair catch it as we’re trying a jailbreak at the line of scrimmage. Instead, Jimbo just sets up a regular old punt return where Ainias returns it for 10 yards. A smart aggressive coach goes for it in that moment. There’s no reason not to.

Jimbo probably just wanted to get the ball back to his offense to see if they could score. Ironically enough that was the series Auburn picked up the fumble for a touchdown where Jimbo failed to make the tackle. Bad decisions all around by Jimbo for a quick span of the game.

I swear Jimbo sees Special Teams as an annoying event that has to take place to get offenses the ball. Since he’d rather do away with it he doesn’t see a real point in practicing or scheming each week.

Great coaches use special teams as an opportunity. Jimbo sees special teams as a gnat he just swats at.

Looking Forward:

I still believe every game left on this schedule is winnable. The talent on this Aggie team is there even with Conner being out however long he’s going to be out. Max Johnson is a more than capable backup quarterback and can win every game he starts.

Realistically though I think we go 5-3 simply because Jimbo hasn’t changed that much. He’s the same old head coach he’s been for 6 seasons in Aggieland. If his boys can out-athlete the other team he’s going to win.

He’s certainly not going to do it with scheme and coaching decisions. He’s going to get outcoached in at least 3 games on the schedule. I hope he proves me wrong but there are just a few things in the Auburn game to give me doubt that Jimbo is a different coach in 2023 compared to the previous 5 seasons.

He’s still the same stubborn coach who doesn’t know how to adjust in games and doesn’t have his team prepared from the start.

As for Arkansas, I think we win this weekend. I think we can bottle up K.J. Jefferson just enough to keep them from running up and down the field on us. I think offensively we’ll look a lot like we did against Auburn where we struggle to finish drives but we’ll score a couple of touchdowns and kick enough field goals.

I feel like both teams will score less than 50 points and probably less than 40 points. It’s going to be equal parts inept offenses and decent defenses with the Aggies having the better athletes to win.

Give me the Aggies winning 20-16.

Just win, Jimbo.

Thoughts from the ULM Game

What a difference a week makes. This time last week you thought Aggie Football was doomed forever. A week later you’re eyeing that maroon Kool-Aid wanting to take a sip or already taken some.

I’ve got news for you – nothing has changed. Other than the opponent which makes all the difference. This is still the same Jimbo Fisher lead team we’ve seen for the last two years.

Over the summer, in my Season Prediction, I mentioned it would be best to wait until after the Tennessee game to get a real feel for what kind of team we have. I still believe that even though it’s so easy to get caught up in the week-to-week emotions.

We’re about to hit a four-game stretch that’s going to give us all indications of what kind of team this 2023 Aggie team is. Auburn, Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee are finally going to give this team a true test. Interestingly enough, I think they’re in order of difficulty based on what I’ve seen of each team through 3 games and where they’re being played.

Miami exposed this team’s weaknesses so we’ll see if the Aggies can fix them in time for SEC play.

I do believe the Aggies may win all 4 of these games. However, I think the most likely outcome is we split them based on what I saw on Saturday at Kyle Field.

Offense:

Far and away the most positive takeaway from Saturday’s game was the passing accuracy of Conner Weigman. Holy cow. That kid was slinging the ball.

He was making REALLY quick reads and letting the ball fly with amazing accuracy. He wasn’t just sitting in the pocket waiting for guys to get open. He was quickly deciding what guys would be open and making great passes.

I know it was the Louisiana Monroe secondary which isn’t the same as an SEC secondary but it was great to see him not only processing the offense so quickly but throwing absolute strikes to his receivers.

He was 25 of 29 passing for 337 yards. That’s 86% accuracy. I don’t care who you’re playing. That’s as good as it gets.

If I have one concern about Weigman it’s I think he waits too long to throw the deep ball or he doesn’t have the arm to get it out there. Often he’s throwing it where his receiver has to slow down to catch the ball on deep routes.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather the quarterback throw it where the receiver can adjust to get it rather than throw it too far where the receiver never has a chance. It’s a minor complaint based on everything else but it’s the one thing I’ve noticed.

As for the rest of the offense, there were some bright spots and some concerns.

Evan Stewart did not suit up for some reason and Noah Thomas came out early. Even without those guys, the receivers did fine. Ainias reminded us what he’s capable of and Jahdae Walker stepped up in a big way with Stewart and Thomas out. I like Walker a lot. I think he would have been a big starter on any Aggie team in Jimbo’s first five years. Kind of crazy that he’s second string this season since we finally have talent at receiver. Moose didn’t get a ton of looks but he was productive with the looks he got.

I thought Jake Johnson and even Max Wright looked good catching the ball. Conner spread the ball out between his receiving weapons which was great to see.

At running back I thought Rueben Owens made some strides running with more confidence. He’s the most talented back from an all-around standpoint. He’s shown some hesitation in the first couple of games but as this game went on he seemed to be more comfortable. He’s a guy we need to settle in and lead this backfield even if he’s a true freshman.

My biggest concern on offense remains the offensive line. They weren’t tested and seemed to do fine but it took them a while to establish the run on what should be an inferior defense.

For whatever reason this line is playing musical chairs. Bryce Foster didn’t play so Mark Nabou played center. He had been splitting time at left guard and it looked like he was going to take the left guard spot. I don’t know why Foster was out but it’s not good for an offensive line to keep moving parts around.

In addition to Foster being out Chase Bisontis went out about halfway through the second quarter. He’s our starting right tackle. I saw him go out and it didn’t look good. It was clear he couldn’t go another play. He pulled himself out by going to the ground requiring the trainers to come out. He was able to walk off under his weight but he was moving slowly. They took him to the locker room before the end of the half and I believe he came out in street clothes for the second half.

Jimbo has said he’s fine. I’m not buying that. You don’t pull yourself out of a game by going to the ground and then coming out in street clothes for the second half. I get the opponent but nothing about that says he’s totally fine. He came out in the Miami game so he’s got something lingering considering he’s not finished two straight games now.

I don’t know what’s going on with Duece Fatheree but he didn’t take a snap in this game. He played a little in the Miami game but he’s been our starting right tackle for a season and a half. I know he’s been dealing with an injury himself but it’s a little concerning that when Bisontis goes out Fatheree isn’t taking any snaps.

We’re headed into SEC play and I think there are legitimate questions as to who our starting center and right tackle are. Injuries or not you don’t want to be wondering who’s going to be starting for 2/5ths of your offensive line.

I believe that’s where we are.

Beyond the personnel, there are questions about how well this unit can handle pressure on the edge from a legitimate defense. If I’m a defensive coach and I’ve watched film of A&M’s last games against Power 5 opponents I’m applying pressure from both edges to see what the Aggies can do.

Until I routinely see this unit stop pressure from an opposing defense I’m going to have concerns. Secondaries will cover our receivers tighter. Even if Conner is making quick decisions it’s going to be tougher to complete passes with increased pressure and tighter coverage.

I didn’t see enough on Saturday to make me feel confident much has changed from what’s been this offense’s weakness since last year and against Miami.

Defense:

Not sure what to make of the defensive effort on Saturday. Statistically, it was damn good. Louisiana Monroe had 222 total offensive yards and no touchdowns.

The Aggie defense allowed ZERO passing yards in the second half. That’s crazy. It’s impossible to do better than that for a half of football from a pass-defense standpoint.

Louisiana Monroe is a running team and only attempted 17 passes the entire game completing 6. They weren’t trying to pass being down by a large margin. They stayed committed to the run. We won’t see that from another team this season.

From my vantage, the secondary wasn’t tested at all. It’s hard to point to the stats and say our pass defense dominated them. They had a couple of completions in the first half where I saw the same secondary from the week before in Miami.

From a pressure standpoint, we tried a few twists on the line but that was about it. I get because of Lousiana Monroe being a running team it’s hard to attempt some unique blitzes and pressure packages we haven’t tried before.

I just don’t think we can take anything away from this defensive effort and say we corrected the issues we saw in Miami. In a couple of instances, they’re still there.

In a strange twist, I do think this defense will be better at defending the run while struggling against the pass. It’s the exact opposite of last year.

We really need to wait to see what we do against Auburn and Arkansas to see if we corrected the Miami issues. Don’t be shocked at all if both Auburn and Arkansas move the ball through the air as I don’t think the issues have been corrected. It’s hard to correct issues when you’re not tested.

Looking Forward:

I’m assuming no one from an opposing coaching staff is reading this blog so I can say this – Until proven otherwise the way to beat this Aggie team is to pressure the edges with your defense limiting Weigman’s time to throw.

Offensively, Aggie opponents would do well with a lot of intermediate passing routes along with the occasional deep ball. Obviously, you need to mix in some running with draws and play actions to keep the defense honest. I’d also stress the edges with quick sweeps and even misdirection a time or two.

I think this Aggie defense wants to get by on raw talent alone. If you make them defend the whole field as quickly as possible you can move the ball on them.

I hope I’m wrong as I’d love nothing more than to start 4-0 in the SEC.

I just don’t see that happening from what I saw on Saturday.

Just Win, Jimbo.

Jimbo On The Road Es No Bueno

I’m assuming Jimbo is a fan of Willie Nelson. I don’t know how you can exist in Texas and not be a Willie Nelson fan.

Assuming he is, I will wager there’s one song of Willie’s that’s not on Jimbo’s playlist – “On the Road Again.” Based on the results of his tenure in Aggieland, Jimbo hates being on the road again.

The life Jimbo loves is NOT playing road games with his friends.

In fact, Jimbo is on a 7 game road losing streak that dates back to 2021. Ironically enough, this streak was started by a D.J. Durkin lead Ole Miss defense that got the better of Jimbo’s Aggie offense in Oxford, Mississippi.

For Jimbo’s last road victory, you have to go back to October 16, 2021, when the Aggies beat the Missouri Tigers in Columbia.

Here are Jimbo’s remaining road games in 2023 to hopefully end this awful streak:

@ Tennessee
@ Ole Miss
@ LSU

Um, those aren’t the teams I want to be facing on the road if I’m Jimbo Fisher. Those are going to be tough games. The Tennessee game is on October 14th so the best-case scenario has Jimbo going TWO FULL YEARS between road victories. That’s a massive longshot right now though.

Beyond the current losing streak, there’s a greater concern with Jimbo playing on the road in his time as the Aggie head coach. To put it quite frankly – He sucks coaching road games in the maroon and white.

His overall Road Record is 8-14. That’s a 36% winning percentage. He’s basically won every third game on the road. Even if he somehow wins the remaining road games in 2023 he’d be 30% in his last 10 road games. That’s terrible.

Winning those three games would be a REMARKABLE achievement but he’s still in a massive hole from a road-winning standpoint in Aggieland. He just hasn’t won on the road since he got to College Station.

Want more concerning data about Jimbo as a road head coach? His Non-2020 Road Record is 4-13. FOUR AND THIRTEEN IN ROAD GAMES NOT IN 2020!!!! That’s a 24% winning percentage so he’s just winning one out of every four games on the road except for 2020. That season DEFINITELY looks like a massive anomaly right now.

Want EVEN MORE concerning data about Jimbo as a road head coach? Take a look at his 8 road wins and the regular season record for each school.

Road Wins:

2018 South Carolina (7-5)
2019 Ole Miss (4-8)
2020 Miss St (3-7)
2020 South Carolina (2-8)
2020 Auburn (6-4)
2020 Tennessee (3-7)
2021 Colorado (4-8)
2021 Missouri (6-6)

Look at the list again.

Notice anything interesting? That’s right, only TWO of those EIGHT teams have a winning record and even then they’re both just one game above .500. Not an 8-4 team or better in Jimbo’s eight road wins as the Aggie head coach. 22 tries.

Jimbo hasn’t beaten a single team that a normal person would define as a good team in the year he beat them. He’s simply beaten crappy teams on the road. That should be expected for ANY coach much less a man with a 10-year, $95 million contract.

There is certainly no road upset in his 5+ years as Aggie Head Coach. He could have had one last year in Tuscaloosa had he given the ball to Devon Achane but you’ve heard that from me enough. Jimbo outsmarted himself that day.

He has yet to beat an 8-4 team or better on the road in his Aggieland tenure. Read that again and let it soak in. That’s a pitiful showing in 22 attempts. 22 attempts and he hasn’t beaten an 8-4 team in their house.

I know the SEC is tough but that’s pretty damn bad. That’s simply a man who has no clue how to handle road games.

Tennessee and LSU are almost certain losses this year. I felt that way before the Miami game and feel it even more after that game.

If Lane Kiffin finds out this information Ole Miss will be an even tougher game. I do feel Ole Miss is beatable this year but Lane likes to take it up a notch against Jimbo. He doesn’t need any more reason to want to beat Jimbo.

Jimbo is going to have to either buck a serious road game trend or be perfect at Kyle and JerryWorld to go 8-4 in 2023. Even then that’ll be a massive disappointment yet again.

I’d be curious if anyone at A&M has discussed this with Jimbo. This is VERY concerning since the schedule requires us to go on the road and play games against good teams in the SEC.

How in the hell are we ever going to win the SEC West if we can’t beat 8-4 teams or better in their house? We can’t and we won’t. It’s that simple.

I’m sure Jimbo thinks it’s just some weird data and there’s nothing he needs to do to address it. It’s the ref’s fault, the painted turf, a faked snap cadence, the pH of the water in road stadiums, bed bugs, or whatever else he likes to blame. It sure as hell couldn’t be the fault of the head coach who’s had 22 opportunities.

Unlike Willie I have to imagine deep down inside Jimbo would rather not get on the road again.

Maybe we all need a little of what Willie keeps on his tour bus so the pain of Jimbo’s ineptitude isn’t so sharp…

Shut Up and Win, Jimbo.

How Bad Was D.J. Durkin in 2022?

I’ve heard and read a lot of complaints related to D.J. Durkin and the 2022 Aggie Defense. My overall thoughts of Durkin’s defense in 2022 were it wasn’t as bad as most people made it out to be. I thought the 2022 Aggie Defense played much better than the 5-7 record showed. I felt the anemic offense was a MUCH bigger issue and the defense got unwarranted blame because the offense was just so putrid.

I went back and looked at each game looking at high-level stats to see if I could put some level of objectivity to grading the 2022 Aggie Defense. You can find those here.

Beyond those raw stats above I went back and looked at details from each game via the box scores. Mainly I was looking at scoring rhythms and what stuff lead to scores along with a few stats of specific players.

This is in no way a scientific analysis but more looking at the whole body of work by the Aggie defense in 2022. I felt there were some obvious imperfections but as a whole it was a decent enough defense to win more games than the 5-7 record showed.

Before I get to reviewing the 2022 Aggie Defense I need to point out we were spoiled for 4 years with Mike Elko at the helm. Mike Elko is a defensive genius. That dude can run circles around any other defensive coordinator in college football. Some are close to being as good as Elko but not many.
There was no way the 2022 Aggie Defense was going to be as good as what we’d seen in Jimbo’s first 4 seasons. It was going to drop off but the question was how much.

I knew that going into 2022 so maybe that’s a factor in my analysis. Mike Elko isn’t walking back through that door. At least not as Defensive Coordinator…

Let’s get to the games…

Sam Houston State:

Not much to say here due to the competition and weather. The defense got to play one-half of football against an inferior opponent. It did fine holding Sam Houston to below 200 total yards, getting 2 turnovers, and shutting them out. Not much more you can ask for.

Appalachian State:

Ugh. Yes, this has to be discussed. I can’t put into words the disappointment of this loss.

This is the game where I think the defense gets a HORRIBLE rap. You hate to see the defense give up 181 rushing yards to an opponent of this level. Because of the anemic Aggie offense that day Appalachian State smartly decided to see if they could keep the ball away from the Aggie offense. It made perfect sense as the game wore on. Just hold onto the ball so the Aggie offense won’t have more chances to get going.

App State wasn’t ripping off big runs or plays. They were churning out 3-4 yards a carry burning clock. When it was all said and done App. State ran 82 plays compared to the Aggies’ 38 plays. That’s right, App. State ran over twice as many offensive plays as the Aggies.

From a time of possession standpoint, App State held the ball for 41:29 while the Aggies only held it for 18:31. The Aggie offense only converted 8 first downs and gained less than 200 yards of offense.
Jimbo’s vaunted Aggie offense put Durkin’s defense in a massive hole.

I don’t see how anyone can put any level of blame on the Aggie defense for this game.

While the defense could have stopped App. State on key 4th downs the Aggie defense should have never been put in the position where late 4th down conversions were so meaningful.

This loss is TOTALLY on Jimbo and his offensive blindness.

Miami:

This is a weird game to analyze because the Miami team wound up being so bad.

The Aggie defense gave up almost 400 yards to the Miami offense but kept them out of the endzone while the Aggie offense broke in a new starting quarterback.

The defense did plenty for the Aggies to win and the Aggie offense did just enough.

No issues here for me.

Arkansas:

Arkansas had a little over 400 yards of total offense. The Aggie offense would only muster 343 yards of offense.

This one is weird to analyze because if it wasn’t for the fumble return for a touchdown the Aggies lose this game and the defense looks horrible. That was a massive 14-point swing right before the half.

By far the worst part of this game was the 4th quarter touchdown given up to Arkansas and then letting Arkansas get in range for a chance to win the game with a field goal.

I do think the Aggie defense outplayed the Aggie offense in this game. While I’m disappointed in some things they did I’m not going to rail on them for a horrible performance.

They played well enough to win while the Aggie offense struggled to get and keep any momentum.

This is by far the luckiest win of the Jimbo era getting the key breaks in a game to go our way.

Mississippi State:

This is such a tough game to analyze from a defensive standpoint. Mike Leach pulled Jimbo’s pants down from the get-go and the entire Aggie team never had a chance of winning this game. Jimbo will tell you we were just a few plays away from winning this game but that’s pure denial on Jimbo’s part.

Mike Leach and his staff knew exactly what to expect from this Aggie team and exploited it.

Jimbo’s vaunted offense did nothing in the first half while Mississippi State scored a couple touchdowns in the 2nd quarter. We went into the half down 14-0.

We opened the second half with a long drive that resulted in an Aggie field goal. The score is 14-3 so there’s a chance the Aggies can come back.

Mississippi State gets the ball back and the Aggie defense forces a turnover on Mississippi State’s second play of the half. The Aggie defense gives the ball to the offense at the Mississippi State 32-yard line. VERY favorable field position for Jimbo and his offense to make a statement we’re back in this game.

What does the offense do? Fails to get a first down resulting in a 44-yard field goal attempt. A little deflating but at least we have a chance at some points to make it a one-score game.

What happens next? Mississippi State blocks the field goal and returns it for a touchdown. Instead of it being 14-6 it’s now 21-3 in Starkville. Game. Over.

The Aggie defense would give up 473 yards but the Aggies turned the ball over 4 times that game. That’s not exactly helping the defense. The final score was 42-24 but 14 of those points came off a blocked kick and a Haynes King interception return.

By far the worst moment for the defense that day was the Aggies scored a touchdown halfway through the 4th quarter to make it a 28-17 game. 11 points isn’t impossible with half a quarter of football.
Unfortunately, the Aggie defense gave up a 75-yard touchdown on Mississippi State’s very next offensive play and any hope of a comeback was dead in the water. Dead.

I’m giving the defense an “Incomplete” in this game. The offense didn’t help turning the ball over 4 times including a Pick 6 along with the special teams getting a field goal blocked and returned for a touchdown.

However, when the team needed a stop the Aggie defense couldn’t come up with one so they’re not clean in this game.

It was just another nightmare in Starkville where Mike Leach pulled down Jimbo’s pants because the game plan for the Aggies was so obvious.

R.I.P. – Pirate.

Alabama:

What everyone thought might be the game of the year in college football thanks to Jimbo’s offseason press conferences wound up being a big dud as both teams started their backup quarterbacks. The Battle of the Backups if you will.

Alabama started true freshman Jalen Milroe. I don’t think Milroe had taken 10 snaps all season before this game.

Milroe came out of high school as an exceptional runner and athlete but had questions about his passing ability. Similar to Jalen Hurts.

It was no secret that Saban and his offensive staff weren’t going to let Milroe throw much. Anybody with half a brain knew that Nick Saban was going to grind out an ugly game against a very questionable Aggie offense.

That’s exactly what Alabama did where they rushed 51 times compared to 19 passes. They ground out 288 yards on the ground and their passing game was VERY effective completing 12 of 19 passes for 9.3 yards per completion and 3 touchdowns. Ironically they didn’t score any touchdowns running the ball.
This was a much tighter game than anyone expected thanks to one reason – the Aggie defense forced the Bama offense to turn the ball over 4 times. In doing so they held the Bama offense to under 400 total yards and only 3 touchdowns. That’s not super impressive considering they were playing a true freshman making his first start with very limited starts. However, it was a night game in Tuscaloosa so you take it all day long.

This was in no way a dominant effort by the Aggie defense but they did take advantage of that young quarterback with 4 turnovers. What they gave up in yards they took back with 4 turnovers.

There’s no doubt in my mind that if Bryce Young starts this game it’s a blowout win for Alabama. I’m not that naive. But I do have to give credit to the Aggie defense as their play that night gave the Aggies a chance to win on their final offensive possession.

I’ll go to my grave believing two things:

1) If A.J. Hinch doesn’t pull Zack Greinke when he did in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series the Astros win that game.
2) If Jimbo Fisher gives Devon Achane the ball on the final possession the Aggies beat Bama in back-to-back years.

As it was the Aggie defense did enough to win that game that evening and Jimbo Fisher squandered it by getting too cute on the final play. That loss wasn’t on Durkin and his crew. It was on the man who wears the main headset and calls the offensive plays.

South Carolina:

Another tough one to truly judge the Aggie defense. Coming off a bye week Jimbo spotted the Gamecocks 17 points thanks to an opening kick return for a touchdown and turnovers on our first two offensive possessions.

In the first five minutes of the game Jimbo’s special teams and offense spotted the opponent 17 points. Unreal. What a damn hole to dig out of.

This wound up being a pretty close game and the defense did PLENTY to win this game. They held the South Carolina offense to under 300 yards and even got two turnovers.

This game was all on Jimbo for not having special teams and offense prepared coming off a bye week. The fact this was a 6-point game despite spotting the opponent 17 points in the first 5 minutes is a testament to the defense.

This loss wasn’t even close to being on Durkin and the Aggie defense. Once again, it was 100% on Jimbo Fisher.

Ole Miss:

I believe this to be the game where people decided to turn on D.J. Durkin.

I get it. Ole Miss rolled up 390 yards on the ground. There’s ZERO defending that. We flat-out dared Ole Miss to run on us and that’s exactly what they did.

I’m not going to rehash this game but this is where I think Jimbo as the struggling OC has to take some blame for the struggles on defense as well. At some point, the head coach has to tell his defensive coordinator to stop the damn run. Get out of the 3-man front and stop the damn run.

I think Jimbo was so caught up in his fist full of plays and notes he wasn’t paying attention to what was happening on the field when Ole Miss had the ball. I’m not absolving Durkin but I’m curious what would have happened if Jimbo had given him more direction on shutting down the run.

It didn’t help the Aggie offense didn’t score in the 2nd and 3rd quarter but that wasn’t the biggest issue.
Letting Ole Miss roll up 390 yards of rushing at Kyle Field was the biggest issue that night. This defensive outcome is on Durkin and I get it.

Florida:

A week after the Ole Miss game a very bad Florida football team would roll into Kyle Field and thump the Aggies 41-24.

This is the infamous Flu Game where it seemed like half the team was out. Still, this should have been a winnable game for the Aggies.

It wasn’t. The Aggies went into the half leading 24-20. Things were looking okay as the Aggie offense was moving the ball and scoring. Anthony Richardson had a couple of frustrating touchdown runs but he’s an exceptional athlete so you knew you weren’t going to shut him out.

For whatever reason the entire Aggie team failed to show up in the second half. Florida outscored the Aggies 21-0 in the second half. 21 unanswered points at Kyle Field by an inferior team.

The Aggie defense gave up 492 total yards including 291 rushing yards.

In back-to-back games at Kyle Field the Aggie defense gave up 390 and 291 rushing yards. That’s embarrassing and that’s on Durkin. Teams shouldn’t be able to roll up 300 yards of rushing against any Aggie defense at Kyle.

Durkin and his defense didn’t show up this day.

Auburn:

For me, this is the most frustrating game of Jimbo’s time in Aggieland. Yes, more than App State. This was a VERY beatable Auburn team who had an interim coach and no quarterback. This was the 10th game of the year and Jimbo should have had the issues worked out by this game.

There was no doubt that Auburn was going to try and run on the Aggies. Auburn did a pretty decent job rolling up 270 yards on the ground but the Aggie defense didn’t allow a rushing touchdown.
They limited the Auburn passing game to 60 yards passing while getting two interceptions. The Aggie defense also recovered a fumble for a total of 3 turnovers for the game.

Meanwhile, Jimbo’s vaunted offense spent their first 10 possessions punting the ball. Read that again – in their first 10 offensive possessions they had to PUNT the ball. Not even a field goal attempt. That is completely anemic and that’s totally on Jimbo. I didn’t even know that was possible in this age of college football where the worst teams still put up points.

10 offensive possessions and 10 punts. Even R.C. Slocum knows that’s an embarrassing offensive effort.
The Aggie defense did everything they could to try and win this game. Jimbo’s offensive did nothing but sputter around the whole damn game.

This loss wasn’t on Durkin. Not even close.

UMass:

One of the most miserable games at Kyle Field in the stands and on the field.

The defense held the UMass offense to 168 total yards and no touchdowns.

They were fine in this game.

LSU:

In a classic Jimbo big win at Kyle Field, he finally pulled his head from his ass and ran some offensive plays the opposing defense wasn’t expecting. The Aggie offense FINALLY moved the ball and scored some points.

The Aggie defense wasn’t dominant that night as LSU still compiled 384 yards of total offense including 3 rushing touchdowns.

They did however come up with the biggest play of the game when Edge Cooper sacked Jayden Daniels who fumbled the ball and Demani Richardson scooped it up for a touchdown. LSU was getting a little momentum but that play squashed it.

The Aggie defense stepped up and swung all the momentum back to the Aggies who would walk away with a convincing win over the SEC West champ.

There’s no doubt I would have liked to have seen a more dominant defensive effort but they did plenty enough to win so I’m not going to dog them at all.

This LSU game is what the whole season should have looked like. We weren’t going undefeated in 2022 but it’s much easier to play defense when you have a competent offense that can score points and not turn the ball over.

Summary:

If Jimbo had pulled his head out of ass at the beginning of the season things would have been different from a defensive perception I believe.

D.J. Durkin is no Mike Elko but I think he got a bad reputation in 2022 due to the Ole Miss and Florida games. There’s no defending him in those games but I felt the Aggie defense did enough to win plenty of other games if Jimbo Fisher had just pulled his head from his ass running a competent offense.

That 5-5 record in those other 10 games could have EASILY been 8-2 as we had plenty of defense to beat App State, South Carolina, and Auburn.

While 8-4 would have still been a disappointing season it would have been MUCH better than 5-7. The Aggie defense did plenty to get to that 8-4 record. Jimbo failed the team and the fanbase. It wasn’t totally on D.J. Durkin.

This could have been a 10-2 team with a little more offensive production. Ole Miss was a very winnable game even with the defense giving up almost 400 yards of rushing. The Aggie offense went absent for almost 2 quarters of football so just a little more offense would have won that game. It’s shocking the Aggies only lost by 3 points.

The Florida flu game could have been different as well had half the team not been out but that game was just a perfect stamp on the 2022 Aggie football season.

10-2 was the absolute ceiling with this defense but 8-4 was easily attainable with how the defense played in most games.

I do expect better things from Durkin and the Aggie defense in 2023. It won’t be Mike Elko level which spoiled us for 4 years but it doesn’t mean it’ll be bad. Durkin is a decent enough coach and will have more mature talent so I think we’ll see a leap in performance.

When you take away the Ole Miss and Florida game from the 2022 slate the defense really doesn’t look that bad.

Durkin will have 12 games in 2023 to prove me right or wrong.

I just hope the hire of Bobby Petrino contributes to Jimbo pulling his head out of his ass to do some head coaching. That’s what we pay him $9.5 million a year to do.

Just Win, Jimbo

A famous Aggie once said this about an unfortunate situation – “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

I don’t know a better way to describe Aggie Football between now and October 14^th of this year. Like it or not we’re in a terrible situation with Aggie Football.

Let me summarize a few of the issues:

Bobby Petrino is our offensive coordinator.
We were 5-7 in 2022.
We have no recruiting momentum.
Jimbo has never been just a head coach.
Jimbo still has that big contract and no real results.
We have roughly 10 open scholarships after national signing day and the first portal window being closed.

I can keep listing issues but you get the idea.

Now there are certainly some positives as we have some young talent in certain areas.

We also have some big holes at a few key starting positions and depth. The key positions for starters are linebacker and left tackle. We have depth concerns at linebacker, offensive line, and receiver.

While I think this is a good team this team isn’t nearly as loaded as most people think. It’s a far cry from the likes of Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State who are the flagbearers in college football for roster talent. I think A&M may be in the second tier of current programs from a talent standpoint which would be a solid Top 10 team.

If the coaching doesn’t improve from last year this roster could be in the fourth tier which means you’re just hoping to get 6 wins and a bowl game invite.

Make no mistake the current roster is a far cry from what Alabama and Georgia have been over the past few years. We certainly have some key talent but we’re not loaded with talent across the board and top to bottom.

We certainly could catch lightning in a bottle and win the SEC West in 2023 as LSU did in 2022. However, this roster isn’t going 15-0 in 2023. Considering we play Alabama and Tennessee in back-to-back weeks I think winning the SEC West is a massive challenge in 2023.

I say all this to help you not worry or get too caught up in Aggie Football until October 14, 2023. Until we’re done with Tennessee we won’t have any idea where this team is headed. Any speculation before that is just a wild-ass guess and a complete waste of effort to even worry about.

Sure, it can be fun to kill some time thinking about Aggie Football. It’s not fun to get worked up only to be let down. If Aggie Football has taught us anything it’s that.

Results on the field matter more than anything else. People can pump up or dump on this program over the next 9 months and it won’t mean anything. Nobody has any real idea where Aggie Football is headed.

If I was forced to wager, I’d say this is a 7-5 to 10-2 football program over the next 3 years. If that happens Jimbo Fisher will be replaced after the 2025 football season. I hope I’m wrong as I want nothing but success for Aggie Football.

As of right now, I don’t think Jimbo Fisher is whom we hoped he was during his first three seasons.

I think we’ll look back at the 2022 football season as a colossal failure that was too much for Jimbo to overcome.

So for the next 9 months just relax and enjoy it.

Here are some musings if you’re interested.

The Petrino Hire:

Perceptually I hate this hire. I don’t think Bobby Petrino is the scourge of the earth that people make him out to be. Sure, I’m not going to defend a guy who cheated on his wife but that’s between him and his family more than anyone else. Besides, there’s been another prominent coach in Aggieland’s past who’s still adored today and is rumored to have cheated on his wife.

People act like Bobby Petrino is human scum. Once again, not defending a man who cheated on his wife but people act like Bobby Petrino is some heinous person. He may be an asshole but I don’t think he has super questionable character other than the affair for which I’d say he was justly punished. People just like to blow things out of proportion.

As far as I know, Bobby Petrino hasn’t been involved in or associated with covering up actual criminal acts. The worst thing he did was hire the person he was having the affair with which violated state hiring laws. That’s why he got fired. He put his employer in a difficult situation by bringing his affair onto his direct payroll.

I don’t know which is dumber – cheating on your spouse or hiring your mistress as your direct report while skirting hiring laws. They’re both stupid but it did bring us the sweet picture of Bobby P with his bruised face in a neck brace. Who in the hell thought that was a good idea to meet the media that way? He should have gone into hiding for a couple of weeks. Letting that picture exist was the dumbest decision.

I hate the hire perceptually not because of his supposed questionable character but more because Bobby Petrino hasn’t been college football relevant since 2017. His 2018 Louisville team was a complete disaster and he’s been hanging out at Missouri State after not coaching in 2019. To make matters worse he left the head coaching job at Missouri State to become the offensive coordinator of UNLV for a month.

Head Coach at Missouri State to Offensive Coordinator at UNLV. Neither of those are football powerhouses but that’s where Bobby P has been hanging out.

The best offensive coordinator the Aggies could hire hasn’t been college football relevant in five seasons. Perceptually this sucks.

Football-wise I don’t mind it for two simple reasons:

Bobby Petrino at one point had one of the best offensive minds in college football. Seriously. I’ve seen Bobby Petrino’s offenses run defenses ragged. This guy has as much ability in calling plays as anyone in college football if he’s truly motivated. This is a chance for him to put his name back on the college football map. If he’s motivated for redemption in Aggieland it’s going to be good.
If Petrino fails then Jimbo Fisher fails with him. Jimbo won’t get a do-over to hire another offensive coordinator like Kevin Sumlin got when he mistakenly hired Jake Spavital. If Petrino fails then Jimbo fails with him. We’ll have our answer to the Jimbo era in Aggieland sooner than later.

I think I’m more excited about number 2 than number 1. I have no idea how motivated Petrino is. That was Jimbo’s job to figure out during the interview process. If Jimbo failed in his assessment of Petrino then Jimbo will fail right along with him.

Jimbo can’t throw Petrino under the bus and buy himself more time. He tied his future in Aggieland to Petrino. I don’t want to wait any longer than we have on the short- or long-term outlook for Jimbo Fisher in Aggieland.

We’re going to know in 3 seasons or fewer thanks to the Bobby Petrino hire.

I know there’s some excitement building for Bobby Petrino running our offense. I get that. It’s the time of year when you put on your maroon-colored glasses and swig the maroon Kool-Aid. It’s a ritual.

Remember how everyone sold the Steve Addazio hire? How did the offensive line turn out in 2022?

I have similar concerns with Bobby Petrino at this point. The ability was there at one point but it hasn’t been there in the last five years. Maybe he just needs the right talent and motivation.

It’s anyone’s guess at this point. You can make the case either way.

Flat Footed 2022 Season:

I hate to bring up bad memories but before you get too excited through your maroon-colored glassed and Kool-Aid, let’s look back at the 2022 season. Jimbo certainly got handed a bad hand when it came to injuries but some of these games can’t be blamed solely on injuries. A lot had to do with coaching.

In one of Jimbo’s early press conferences, he said he has a saying for his players – “Your actions speak so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying.” That’s a great statement, Jimbo.

Your 2022 season stunk so bad I can’t hear a damn thing you’re saying anymore. You lost the right to lecture anyone on what good football looks like. You can certainly earn it back but for now, you need to shut up because your actions don’t match your words.

Let’s take a look at the key games in 2022:

Appalachian State – We lost AT Kyle Field to a team we paid money to beat. That’s right. We didn’t pay to play them. We paid to beat them. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. The offense was stuck in a complete rut the whole game. Our offensive mastermind of a head coach was clueless about how to score more than 17 points on an inferior opponent.

Miami – This looked like a much better win at the time as we eeked out a win at home thanks to a really strong defensive effort while our offense struggled to score 17 points. Miami would go on to a 5-7 record losing to Middle Tennessee the following week. The Blue Raiders put up 45 points on the Miami defense one week later. The signs were there.

Arkansas – Similar to Miami it was a thrilling win at the time. Thanks to the defense, a boneheaded mistake by the Arkansas quarterback, and the infamous Oink Doink the Aggies got the breaks and the win. Arkansas would stumble to a 6-6 season including losses by Liberty and Missouri. This wasn’t the win we thought it was. It damn near was a loss.

Mississippi State – Mike Leach (R.I.P.) completely exposed the Aggie football team in a way only Mike Leach can and has done numerous times before. Max Johnson got hurt and Jimbo said we were just a few plays away from winning despite a 42-24 score. We weren’t even competitive in the 4^th quarter. I think Jimbo and I have a different definition of what “a few” means. Meanwhile, other coaches watched this film and found the Aggies’ vulnerability. This was never close to a win.

Alabama – Texas A&M faced an Alabama team without the defending Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. Alabama started a quarterback with zero experience and questionable ability to pass. Despite that, Alabama ran for half a mile on the Aggies. Thanks to 4 turnovers by the Aggie defense and a gritty effort by Haynes King the Aggies had one final play at the two-yard line to win the game. Our offensive genius of a head coach ran a pass play that Bama had seen multiple times and knew how to defend. Debate pass interference all you want but Jimbo didn’t have a trick play or wherewithal to give the ball to Achane who was his only real playmaker. I’ll go to my grave believing number 6 for the Aggies would have found paydirt and shocked Bama at home. Jimbo has no one to blame but himself.

South Carolina – Coming off a bye week the Aggie team found itself down 17-0 in the first five minutes of the game. That’s right coming off a bye week the Aggies spotted the Gamecocks 17 points in five minutes of football. That’s 100% on coaching for not having the team prepared. Despite that, the Aggie defense would hold the Gamecocks to 13 more points but it wasn’t enough for the Aggie offense to overcome. We win this game if we don’t gift them 17 points 5 minutes in.

Ole Miss – In Connor Weigman’s first start the Aggies would go into halftime up 14-10 and get the ball to start the second half. The Aggies would get shut out while Ole Miss ran all over the Aggie defense to the tune of 390 yards. Jimbo’s head was buried so deep in his play sheet he couldn’t tell Durkin to sell out to stop the run. Kiffin just kept handing the ball off or his quarterback would find space. This game was completely winnable if Jimbo could have pulled his head from his play sheet.

Florida – The flu game. In Jimbo’s defense, there were a lot of guys out of this game due to illness. In not his defense this was a pretty bad Florida football team. Florida had one real weapon in Anthony Johnson and the Aggies failed to shut him down. The Aggie defense also gave up 200 rushing yards to Florida running backs. Just one week after Ole Miss ran down our throats. The Aggies were only down 20-14 at the half but got blown out 21-0 in the second half. Jimbo couldn’t figure out a way to be competitive with a bad Florida football team at Kyle. It’s a coin flip if this or App State was his worst loss at Kyle.

Auburn – This may be Jimbo’s worst loss as an Aggie coach. Yes, worse than App State or Florida. Against a REALLY bad Auburn team with an interim coach, Jimbo spent his first TEN offensive possessions punting the football. That’s right, Jimbo’s vaunted offense punted its first ten possessions against a suspect Auburn defense. Not even a field goal attempt. Just 10 straight punts on 10 offensive possessions. We lost this game 13-10. If we kick two field goals on those first 10 offensive possessions we probably win this game. Jimbo called the plays and couldn’t muster anything more than a punt on the offense’s first 10 possessions of the game. This was the 10^th game of the season and we couldn’t move the damn ball against a suspect Auburn team. I really can’t put into words what an inept showing this was by a supposed offensive mastermind. Shameful is the only word that comes to mind.

We beat LSU to close out the season which only makes you wonder what happened in the previous 11 games. Sure, for one game Jimbo called a game to damn near perfection. He finally gave Achane the damn ball as he ran 38 teams while Weigman and Moose Muhammed had a couple of amazing throws and catch.

After the game, Jimbo crowed how his offense can work and that a team that runs tempo has never won a national title. Do what, Jimbo? You just salvaged a horrible season with a nice win but calm down a little. Don’t go lecturing people on how to national titles when your current record is 5-7.

Your 2022 season in which you controlled the offense the entire time was HORRIBLE. Why in the hell are you talking about how to win a national championship? Why don’t you get your team bowl-eligible before you start schooling people on how national championships are won?

His comments truly sounded like someone clueless and grasping at straws thanks to a few good positives.

Don’t get me wrong the LSU game was a wonderful win and a way to end the season. The problem is 11 other games say that game was just a wonderful blip and nothing more.

Jimbo needs to string together some quality wins before believing he’s somehow turned the corner on being a championship-caliber coach. That coach existed a decade ago. Not saying he can’t get back there but that’s not the current coach roaming the Aggie sideline.

The sooner he realizes he’s currently Kevin Sumlin more than Jimbo Fisher from a decade ago the better off everyone will be.

2021 Ole Miss and LSU Predicted This:

Coming into this season the 2021 Ole Miss and LSU games perplexed me. They were games we should have won but we failed to do enough in the second half to win the game.

There were obvious coaching decisions in both of those games that confused me. I couldn’t figure out if Jimbo didn’t see them or if he knew something I didn’t and was compensating for the limitations of certain players.

Most notably Zach Calzada.

In the Ole Miss game, he failed to see Devon Achane as the clear hot hand in the third quarter and went away from him in the fourth quarter. I get not riding him in the ground but Ole Miss had done nothing to show they could stop him in the fourth quarter.

In the LSU game on a crucial third and short that would have put the game away if we got a first down. He should have given the ball to Isiah Spiller. Instead, he called a roll out to the left on a sort of tight end screen.

It was an odd call considering Calzada’s challenges all season. I didn’t understand why he rolled him to his weak side expecting a positive result. I chalked it up to failed execution and that Jimbo knew a weakness we could exploit.

Looking back after the 2022 season I now realize it was just Jimbo being an offensive idiot that didn’t have a feel for the game. He was just calling plays not seeing what was happening on the field in front of him. Sure, some of it could have been player execution but a great coach sees challenges before they happen.

A great coach sees advantages as they’re developing in the game and exploits them. In both of those games, it’s now clear to me Jimbo was just sticking to plays he thought should work because he drew them up coming into the game. Sometimes you must scrap what you think should be able to work in favor of what’s working.

A better coach wins both of those games. Looking back after the 2022 season there’s no longer a question in my mind about what happened in those games.

Jimbo lost those games due to coaching decisions because he couldn’t see how the game was developing.

Plain and simple. Jimbo’s direct decisions and not player execution cost us those two games back in 2021. Those same problems manifested themselves in 2022. It was there in plain sight but we didn’t see it or refused to admit it.

Haynes King and Jahmir Johnson Also Predicted This:

I don’t mean to single out individual players but I feel it’s necessary to further diagnose Jimbo’s challenges.

At the end of the 2021 Aggie Football season every Aggie fan out there was convinced if Haynes King stayed healthy, we would have at least been 10-2 that season. Guess what? We were all wrong. If Haynes King had been healthy, we likely would have gone 6-6.

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia for you – The Aggies have only ever won one game against a Power 5 opponent that Haynes King started. That game? The 2021 Colorado game where he got hurt on the second series and Zach Calzada took over. Remove that game and the Aggies never won a Power 5 game that Haynes King started.

I’m not trying to hang Haynes out. The dude is a great Aggie and gritted out some games in 2022 that he didn’t have a reason to play.

The problem is Jimbo. For two seasons Jimbo was convinced Haynes was the guy. Even in his true freshman year, he was running second behind Kellen Mond and in front of Zach Calzada. I’ll admit the game film on Haynes was short so we as fans didn’t know but for whatever reason Jimbo always favored Haynes King over Zach Calzada and Max Johnson.

Had we not lost to App State I’m convinced we would not have seen Max Johnson under center against Miami. Even if the win over App State was ugly I’m convinced stubborn Jimbo would have trotted Haynes King out there against Miami.

The reason I think that? Max Johnson didn’t see a snap against App State when he should have started the second half and ABSOLUTELY should have started the only series the Aggies got in the 4^th quarter.

Stubborn ass Jimbo ran Haynes King out there when it was CRYSTAL clear the Aggie offense needed something else under center.

I don’t know what Max Johnson looked like in practice but I watched a lot of LSU game films that told me Max Johnson was infinitely better than what Haynes King had shown us in 2.5 games against an inferior opponent. Jimbo either didn’t see it or refused to admit it. Either way, it’s not a good thing.

Jimbo Fisher COMPLETELY whiffed on his assessment and coaching of Haynes King as the Aggie starting quarterback. I don’t blame Haynes as much as I blame Jimbo. He should have seen the issues with Haynes King before an App State loss at Kyle made them obvious.

Jahmir Johnson is a little different. Most Aggie fans don’t know who he is but he was a graduate transfer from Tennessee for the 2021 season. He was Tennessee’s starting left tackle in 2020 so he had SEC experience but in the limited film I saw of him he wasn’t great. He certainly didn’t do anything impressive against A&M when we played Tennessee in 2020.

That 2020 Tennessee team went 3-7 which is somewhat indicative of the talent on that team. As far as I know, he was never a candidate for even Honorable Mention All-SEC.

The 2021 Aggies needed a left tackle with the graduation of Dan Moore, Jr but I was never sure why Jahmir Johnson was the solution. His play on the field didn’t show it.

I never could understand why this guy kept getting the nod as a starter. His play certainly wasn’t showing it.

The most confusing thing to me was he was hurt in the Alabama game. You know, the game where upset the top-ranked team at Kyle Field. Jahmir Johnson didn’t play a single snap and Blake Trainor held his own against Bama’s talented defense.

I just assumed Blake Trainor was the new starting left tackle as he certainly looked better against Bama than Jahmir Johnson looked against anyone so far that season. The next week against Missouri Johnson was back out there and he started the rest of the season.

He never impressed me as our starting left tackle. He was routinely beaten and he never even showed flashes of dominating. He blew assignments which are bad for an experienced senior. Maybe Blake Trainor got hurt but I never understood why Jimbo kept running Jahmir Johnson out there at left tackle when Trainor seemed like the better option. At least you could try and develop Trainor.

Looking back at those two players I’m beginning to believe Jimbo has a massive issue distinguishing between practice and game ability. I get practice is important but there are a TON of players that are great in practice but not so great in games. Some guys elevate their play in games and play better than they practice.

You want the guys that elevate their play in games. Practice matters but throw out the practice film when you have game film to judge someone.

It’s why I no longer care about practice reports and spring games. I want to see guys perform against opponents who have schemed for them. That’s when you know if someone is a player or not. Practice certainly prepares you but some guys simply can’t elevate their play from practice to game situations.

To me, game film matters 100X more than practice film. Practice film can give you an idea of what a guy should be able to do but the game film is the true determinant that matters.

I have a serious question of if Jimbo can objectively grade game film based on his handling of Haynes King and Jahmir Johnson.

Jimbo’s Body of Work:

I used to be a Jimbo defender until last season. I would point to the fact he had a national championship under his belt and three conference championships. He also sounded like he knew a lot about how to win football games.

Well, that national championship was a decade ago and his last conference championship was 9 seasons ago.

In the last 8 football seasons, Jimbo is 64-33. That’s a .660 winning percentage. That’s not terrible but I would expect better at programs like Florida State and Texas A&M.

For reference, an 8-4 season is a .667 winning percentage. For the last 8 football seasons, Jimbo is an 8-4 coach. That’s not terrible but I certainly wouldn’t classify that body of work as great.

He had an outstanding season in 2020 when we went 9-1 winning the Orange Bowl and finishing 4^th in the polls. That was a diamond in the rough though as the rest of those 7 seasons have been pretty mediocre with a couple of stinkers thrown in.

If you factor in his last full decade as a head coach he’s 81-34. That’s a .704 winning percentage. A 9-3 season is a .750 winning percentage. So even if you factor in two seasons where he went 17-1 he’s not quite a 9-3 head coach over the last decade.

Based on his last decade of football I don’t think there’s any way you can classify Jimbo as a Tier 1 coach. He’s certainly not in the discussion belonging with Nick Saban and Kirby Smart who is the clear Tier 1 of college football coaches.

I’m not even sure right now I’d include him in the discussion of Tier 2 coaches including Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, Brian Kelly, Kyle Whittingham, Dabo Swinney, and Jim Harbaugh. He lost that tier with his 2021 and 2022 seasons.

I do think he’s in Tier 3 of coaches with guys like James Franklin, Josh Heupel, and a host of others. He can certainly coach himself into Tier 2 in 2023 but as of right now, I believe Jimbo Fisher is a Tier 3 coach based on his past decade of college football.

I’ll leave you with one more sobering thought when it comes to where Jimbo Fisher currently stands as a football coach – It’s not unreasonable to argue Florida State is in a better spot than Texas A&M right now. That can easily be flipped in a season but if you’re being objective right now you can’t definitively say Texas A&M is a better football program than Florida State. Florida State might be on a better trajectory than Texas A&M.

Geez, Jimbo.

The Vaunted 2022 Recruiting Class:

Jimbo has always been seen as a pretty good recruiter. His classes at A&M have ranked between the Top 5 and Top 10 in his first three full years. In 2022 he pulled in arguably the greatest recruiting class ever. That’s an impressive feat.

I think there are a lot of reasons it was so good and not just NIL-related. I certainly think NIL was a factor but I think Jimbo and his staff also did an outstanding job. Couple that with a big win over Bama at home where kids started recruiting one another and the Aggies pulled off something pretty amazing.

A year later it doesn’t look so great. There are certainly some bright points from it but 7 guys are gone.

Sure, 4 of them couldn’t come back due to team suspensions and likely academic issues from the university. I have no facts there are academic issues but let’s be real – If they’re smoking from a vape pen in the locker room after an actual game do you think they’re keeping up with their studies? I’m going to guess they were dealing with more issues on coming back than football related.

Either way, it’s a bad look. You had 4 guys that didn’t have any discipline. How did they get through the cracks? This is stuff Sumlin used to do. He took questionable character guys all the time just because they had talent.

That class looked great on paper but a year later it’s more like the previous recruiting classes Jimbo had where it’s a Top 5 to Top 10 class. That’s great but Saban and Smart are battling it out for the top recruiting class EVERY year.

If Jimbo can’t get over the Top 5 hump we’re going to struggle because we just won’t have the needed depth to compete with Bama and Georgia. That’s where I want to be. Jimbo is getting paid to compete with Saban and Smart.

For one recruiting class, it looked like he could pull it off. 12 months later it sure looks questionable.

It looks worse at the moment.

No Recruiting Momentum:

For whatever reason, we seemed to have lost some recruiting momentum last summer. We picked it up in the Fall with a nice win over Miami but then it completely fell apart as the losses piled up.

We all know about the de-commitment of Anthony Hill. He was the best linebacker in the country and committed to A&M over the summer. As the losses piled up he de-committed and eventually signed with Texas. That’s a MASSIVE loss. I can’t tell you how big that loss was.

Some people say it wasn’t totally on Jimbo but I say one thing about that – BULLSHIT.

Jimbo is the head coach and everything runs through him. Anthony Hill was THE biggest recruit that was needed and he slipped away. Blame the position coach, recruiting coordinator, or whatever else but plain and simple a great head coach keeps that kid locked in.

The kid was committed to Texas A&M and he de-committed to sign with our in-state rival. That’s all on Jimbo. 100% of it is.

Somehow the play on the field and recruiting staff Jimbo had in place allowed doubt to creep into this kid’s mind.

That’s. On. Jimbo.

I will give Jimbo credit he and his staff did a nice job of scrambling at the end to salvage what was looking like a pretty failed recruiting class. They added a couple of quality receivers and Rueben Owens along with holding onto guys like David Hicks.

The only issue is it’s just a Top 15 class. It’s a smaller class but even if you judge it on per recruit average it might improve to a Top 10 class. It’s a pretty drastic reduction from his previous 4 classes.

It’s got some great individual pieces but it’s not going to add a ton of depth which is desperately needed.

The 2024 class is stuck in neutral.

There is minimal recruiting momentum. We’re not getting the quality of guys even visiting College Station anymore. Aggie recruiting sites will spin stuff to make it look like everything is okay but it’s not.

We’re back to the Sumlin days of recruiting where there are a few nuggets here and there but there’s a drastic difference between recruits visiting College Station compared to recruits actually committing and signing elsewhere.

Go look at the recruiting lists since the 2022 class. It’s a little above average. To compete in the SEC West you have to be pulling routine Top 5 classes. Every class is going to have attrition and guys that don’t pan out. That’s why you must stack them every year if you’re going to be elite.

You can’t rely on one or even two years to get over the hump to the elite.

Jimbo has lost some serious luster when it comes to recruiting. The lists don’t lie.

OU, LSU, and Texas are all recruiting better than us right now. Those are our three biggest recruiting rivals and they have a ton more momentum right now. They’re recruiting well while it seems Jimbo is sitting on his hands.

Jimbo had his foot on their throats and he let them up. This reminds me of R.C. Slocum when Bob Stoops arrived in Norman, Nick Saban in Baton Rouge, and Mack Brown in Houston. R.C. lost a ton of recruiting momentum to those three guys and he never recovered.

Fran, Sherman, and Sumlin could never get above those teams and we saw what happened.

Sure, Jimbo can make some staff changes and he certainly needs to but the only real way to improve recruiting is simple – Just win, Jimbo.

No Roster Urgency:

I respect loyalty but there’s a fine line between being loyal and bringing in competition. There has to be healthy competition to be great.

I think everyone knows we had a large number of transfers in the off-season. I don’t have a problem with the guys that transferred. Other than the 4 guys that likely couldn’t come back for academic reasons most of the guys that entered the portal weren’t part of the two deep.

The problem I have is Jimbo didn’t add enough people coming back. He added some nice defensive backs and a nice prospective receiver but we need linebackers and a left tackle.

I get those positions don’t grow on trees and every team wants them but there were a couple of linebackers that would have been great additions. We seemed to have had a good chance at the linebacker from Oklahoma State but he went to USCal. There were also another couple of linebackers we didn’t even seem to have a chance with.

Linebacker is a serious position of need and Jimbo did zero with it in the transfer portal. He could have tried to keep Ish Harris but he transferred to UH.

At tackle, there were a few guys out there but we didn’t sniff any of them. You’ll take Jahmir Johnson two years before but you can’t/won’t take anyone else when you need it?

We have roughly 10 open scholarships right now.

USE THEM AT POSITIONS OF NEED!!!! That’s linebacker and offensive line.

You have no recruiting momentum and need depth. What the hell are you waiting on, Jimbo?

I don’t get what he’s doing. Much like his offense in 2022, he’s not working on his current roster with any sense of urgency. There are some obvious holes and Jimbo is acting like everything is fine.

It’s not fine, Jimbo.

We’re coming off a 5-7 season and had roughly 20 guys transfer that added depth. We have no recruiting momentum. You need to add new guys or hold more of the ones you have.

It feels like he’s banking on a great 2023 season to get everything back on track. It’s entirely possible that happens but that seems like a big roll of the dice.

Jimbo seems to be clueless about the current state of his roster and his position for filling it.

Create some damn urgency.

Where’s the Draft Picks:

The ultimate decider for a program’s success is wins and losses. The next determinant is NFL draft picks. It’s a very objective measure. 32 teams that make more money when they win decide whom they want on their team.

Recruiting rankings certainly matter but NFL draft picks are a better determinant because I value NFL personnel much more than recruiting services. Plus, it also factors in how well a coaching staff can develop talent beyond just recruiting it.

How’s Jimbo doing?

Well, there’s been 17 Aggies selected in the NFL since the 2019 draft. That’s the first draft after Jimbo’s first full season.

Would you believe me if I told you only four of those guys are Jimbo’s guys and the rest are Sumlin’s?

Kenyon Green, DeMarvin Leal, Isiah Spiller, and Jace Sternberger are Jimbo’s guys. The rest of the 14 guys are Sumlin’s guys.

If you factor in the 2023 draft we’re likely to get Antonio Johnson, Devon Achane, and Jaylon Jones drafted. That will be 20 guys drafted in Jimbo’s first five full years. Only 7 will be his guys.

Sure, you expect the previous coach to have some guys in that group but Sumlin still has 2/3 of the draft picks in those five years.

I know some guys came back but that’s only because their draft grade wasn’t high enough. That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for Jimbo’s development and/or utilization of those guys.

At the current moment, one could reasonably argue that Kevin Sumlin was a better recruiter and judge of talent.

That ain’t good, Jimbo.

October 14, 2023:

I’m not a licensed therapist so I can’t offer you any real therapy on how to handle the current state of Aggie Football.

For me, I’m going to try and temper my emotions until the evening of October 14, 2023. The Aggies will be coming off their 7^th game, 4^th straight SEC game, Bama/Tennessee back to back, and headed into our bye week.

I feel at that moment we’ll be able to sit back and make a true assessment of where things stand.

Anything up until that moment is pure speculation. Even the smartest college football analyst has no way to predict how the Aggies will be at that point. Anything you hear or read between now and that date is just a guess.

No need to get worked up over it. Just let the games play out however they do.

There’s absolutely a chance the Aggies are 7-0 at that point. I firmly believe that. I just don’t know if it’ll happen due to the most recent body of work for Jimbo.

We have the talent at starting positions to win our first seven games.

It’s a tall task but if the starters stay healthy and the coaching staff decides they want to be great this team can be great. I’d put it way more on coaching than the players. The talent is there.

It’s not very deep so we can’t handle a ton of injuries but it’s there. It’s entirely up to the coaching staff to utilize that thin level of talent against each week’s opponent.

If I had to wager money right now I’d say this team is 5-2 at that point. Miami, Auburn, and Arkansas will be tough but I believe we’ll win those games simply because our youth will have matured from last season.

I don’t think we have the coaching staff to beat Alabama and Tennessee this season. They’re both losing great quarterbacks but their bowl games are an indication they’ll load up and be fine. I know Bryce Young is leaving but Bama showed up for that game in a big way. I expect that trend to continue going into the 2023 season.

Everyone is writing off Nick Saban and Alabama because heaven forbid they lost two football games in 2022. All they did was load up with more talent and their coordinators found new homes. I’m sure Nick Saban is burned up watching Kirby win back-to-back national championships. I’m quite certain Nick Saban is operating with a sense of urgency, unlike Jimbo.

I thought Tennessee would take a step back in 2023 due to the loss of Hendon Hooker. If the Orange Bowl is an indication they’re not going to miss a beat with Joe Milton under center. Tennessee wiped the floor with a pretty solid Clemson team. Sure, it’s not the same Clemson with Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence but that’s still a damn good football team. Tennessee annihilated them.

I expect Bama and Tennessee to be too much for the Aggies in 2023. If that happens we’re looking at a 9-3 or 8-4 season as I believe there will be another loss or two in there.

If that happens Jimbo will have reached a similar point we experienced under Fran, Sherman, and Sumlin. Whatever positive momentum he ever had is lost and it’s clear he’s not the coach we hoped he was. The detractors will have won because the body of work will say Jimbo is not the guy who won the national title in 2012. That guy is long gone.

I hope it doesn’t happen but if we lose to Bama and Tennessee it’ll be painfully clear in year 6 of Jimbo he still hasn’t gotten us there and likely won’t.

I know there are lots of examples to show Jimbo can come back from where he is right now. Brian Kelly at Notre Dame, Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, and most recently Sonny Dykes at TCU. My problem with those comparisons is they didn’t have to do it in the SEC West. It’s a different animal.

It’s possible but from where we are right now it doesn’t look likely. I don’t think Jimbo has it in him. I don’t. It’s a mighty big hill and I don’t think he’s capable of climbing.

I hope he proves me wrong and I’ll be there cheering the whole time if he does.

Until then, like that prominent Aggie said, “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

So that’s what I’m going to do. Relax and enjoy those first seven Aggie football games because there’s nothing I can do about the results.

The starting talent is there if the coaching will carry it along.

Just win, Jimbo.

What I Would Do With Jimbo

For this week’s blog I thought about doing the same thing Jimbo does with his offense. Just posting a previous blog and changing the name of the opponent. It’s essentially the same thing Jimbo is doing with his offense.

I like to think I’m better than Jimbo so you get a fresh blog this week.

Before I get going on the game I know we’re all numb to losing but let me put into perspective what that loss on Saturday in Auburn means:

We lost to a team with an interim coach. No offense to Cadillac Williams but teams have interim coaches because they’re bad. Teams that have one of the highest paid coaches in the game are supposed to be good. JIMBO LOST TO AN INTERIM COACH!!!!
Assuming Arkansas beats Missouri we secured last place in the SEC West EVEN with an unlikely win over LSU. If we lose to LSU then we own last place in the SEC West all by ourselves no matter else what happens. Jimbo’s FIFTH year as head coach and we’re sitting dead last in the SEC West including Auburn who has an interim coach after firing their head coach because their season is so bad.
As we stand now we have as many wins in the SEC as Vanderbilt who is also last in their division. We have one less overall win than Vandy so we currently sit as THE WORST TEAM IN THE SEC ten games into the season. Let that one sink in. The worst team in the SEC including Vanderbilt.
Assuming a win over UMass and an LSU loss along with Vandy losing to Florida and Tennessee we will be tied with Vandy for both SEC record at 1-7 and Overall record at 4-8 when the season is done. TIED. WITH. VANDERBILT.

Jerry Reed once sang, “It all sounds sort of funny but it hurts too much laugh. Jimbo got the goldmine and we got the shaft.”

I don’t know any other way to put it. Jimbo got the goldmine and Aggie fans got the shaft.

Let’s talk about the Auburn game for just a little bit.

Auburn:

We didn’t know it at the time but that game was lost before we even ran out of the tunnel before the game. For whatever reason Moose Muhammed’s decision to wear or not wear sleeves created a major issue in the game.

It’s still all kind of murky because Jimbo “handled it in house” but Moose Muhammed didn’t play in the game because of sleeves on his arms. That’s right, a player’s decision to wear sleeves on his arms either before the game or during the game caused him to not take a snap.

WHAT THE EFF???

What is going on with this football team when sleeves on a guy’s arm are either an act of confusion or an act of defiance? Seriously. It’s minor in the grand scheme but for whatever reason it created a real issue.

I get having standards that players must live by but this is just foolish. Who cares if a receiver is wearing sleeves or not if they’re producing? If they fumble while wearing sleeves then advise them to take them off. A player’s decision to wear sleeves is a minor thing if they’re producing. WHO FREAKING CARES???

This seems like the epitome of Jimbo’s problem. I get game preparation and team standards but how in the hell do sleeves on a receiver matter this much where a guy can’t play in the game?

They couldn’t have an adult conversation in warm up or during the game about the sleeves? He just got an automatic suspension? It seems like Jimbo is questioning if he has any control of this team so he’s going over the top. Straight foolishness.

As the game started the following things happened:

False start before our first snap. Auburn is a tough place to play but it’s no different than other stadiums they’ve played in this season. How in the hell are we still false starting before the first snap in Game 10?
We took two time outs in the second quarter to avoid a delay of game after already taking a delay of game. This was all on the same drive and our last offensive possession of the half. 10^th game of the year and we’re still struggling to get plays in and snap the ball before the play clock runs out. Three times on the same drive. Unreal.
The first 10 offensive possessions resulted in 10 punts.

Read that last one again. The first 10 offensive possessions resulted in 10 punts. Not a single scoring attempt in our first 10 possessions of the game against Auburn. TEN OFFENSIVE POSSESSIONS AND TEN PUNTS!!!!

Jimbo can blame injuries, suspensions, and whatever else he wants but 10 punts in 10 possessions is the definition of offensive failure. Auburn has a decent defense but they aren’t the 85 Chicago Bears that just dismantled every offense they played.

This Auburn defense has given up the following points to the following teams this season:

Penn State – 41
LSU – 17
Georgia – 42
Ole Miss – 48
Arkansas – 41
Miss State – 39

Okay, Auburn doesn’t even have a decent defense. They’re a bad defense. In 10 possessions the mighty offensive genius known as Jimbo Fisher couldn’t even muster a field goal attempt.

We had -3 total yards in the third quarter. NEGATIVE THREE YARDS IN A QUARTER!!!! To a defense that’s given up close to 40 or more in 5 games this season.

Winners find a way to win and Jimbo didn’t do that.

He ran the same damn offense that hasn’t worked all season that a junior high coach could figure out how to defend.

The formula is simple – Send your defensive ends straight into the offensive tackles. Don’t get cute. Just run as fast you can at the offensive tackles outside shoulder targeting where the quarterback will be three steps back from where he’s standing when he receives the snap. You both will arrive at approximately the same time. Then have your defensive tackles and 2 linebackers change up their path and timing headed to the backfield on every play. You’ll spend the entire night in the Aggie backfield with 6 guys. If you’re talented enough you can do it with 5. Then have your other defenders cover crossing routes and the Aggies won’t complete more than 50% of their passes.

Seriously people. It’s that simple.

Defenses keep doing it over and over again and Jimbo keeps calling plays right into it.

It’s maddening.

Now to the other side of the ball. While it’s true D.J. Durkin is our defensive coordinator there’s one thing everyone keeps forgetting – D.J. WORKS FOR JIMBO!!!!!

I’m not here to defend D.J. but it’s crystal clear to me that Jimbo is not giving D.J. any guidance or feedback on what’s going wrong.

App State basically broke the code on how to attack this defense – Just run the ball. We got lucky against Miami because they got behind and thought they had to throw the ball. We got lucky against Arkansas with the fumble we returned for the touchdown. This defense did a tremendous job against Alabama with 4 turnovers and against South Carolina with 2.

Other than that teams have run all over this defense. The last three games against Ole Miss, Florida, and Auburn have really exploited it.

Here’s some rushing stats from those games:

Ole Miss:

Running Backs – 280 yards
Quarterback – 108 yards

Florida:

Running Backs – 180 yards
Quarterback – 93 yards

Auburn:

Running Backs – 242 yards
Quarterback – 66 yards

The last three opponents who aren’t adept at passing the ball rushed for at least 273 yards against this Aggie defense. Ole Miss racked up 388 yards and lowly Auburn who can’t pass to save their soul gained 302 yards on the ground. I get there’s injuries and youth but these are one dimensional teams just running it down our throats.

Just running at will and nothing is being done to stop it.

For some inexplicable reason the 3-man front made a regular appearance against Auburn. I can’t figure out why. I put this on Jimbo more than I put it on Durkin. Just like Jimbo gets in a rut with play calls Durkin is clearly in a rut calling his defense. Jimbo as the Head Coach aka El Jefe needs to tell Durkin he needs to pull out all the stops to slow down the run. No more 3-man fronts and work with the Front 7 guys on how to scheme to slow down the run.

We’ll worry about the pass when the opponent feels they can’t run on us. It’s really that simple.

I know it was a 13-10 game so it was technically close. If you watched that game you know it shouldn’t have been that close. Sometimes you must make your own fortune and the Aggies did nothing against Auburn to make our own fortune.

That’s why we lost by 3 points. We put ourselves in that position due to inept coaching.

Press Conferences:

Jimbo is becoming shorter and more defensive in press conferences. That’s what people do when they have no answerers to what they’re seeing.

Jimbo was asked a question in Monday’s press conference about disarray with the team and recruiting. His response was this – “We’re not in disarray in recruiting. We’re not in disarray in our team.”

I got news for Jimbo – Both are absolutely in disarray. We had a massive de-commit last week with Anthony Hill and since David Hicks we haven’t had a commit for 2023 and we have PLENTY of spots. We don’t have a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver committed. We have ZERO offensive momentum and the defensive guys are starting to listen and look.

We’re dead last in the SEC and we had a receiver not play against Auburn because of arm sleeves.

I don’t know Jimbo’s definition of disarray but I will say we’re not in a good state. If he truly believes everything is fine we’re in big trouble. Hopefully he’s just giving coach speak to the media.

I hope behind closed doors he’s being honest to those he reports to with a plan to fix the issues. I hope those he reports to are asking tough questions he needs to answer.

Things aren’t good, Jimbo.

Here’s What’s Going to Happen:

We’re going to beat UMass convincingly. Weigman is finally going to break out getting time to throw and to open guys downfield. He’ll throw for close to 400 yards and 4 touchdowns through the air. We’ll get another 100 yards on the ground with a score. Mix in a couple field goals and we’ll score 41 points.

Defensively we’ll keep UMass under 17 so we’ll win by 24 points. Not sure we cover the 33 points or whatever it is but we’ll win in convincing fashion.

Jimbo and Durkin will think they have everything on track. They won’t change a thing for LSU.

LSU will roll into town and wipe the floor with us. They’ll rush for close to 400 yards and put another 150 through the air. Defensively they’ll attack our offensive tackles freeing up Harold Perkins to make a mockery of everything else we’ll want to do on offense.

It’ll look like we’re playing Auburn all over again with punt after punt after punt.

I’m expecting a 35-10 beatdown. It won’t be pretty.

Jimbo will look stunned and confused with his glasses staring at his Trapper Keeper. Durkin will be slinked off on the sideline.

The misery that is the 2022 Aggie Football season will end with absolutely ZERO momentum and a host of questions that can’t be answered for another 9 months. Questions can only be answered on the field against opponents. If 2022 taught us anything it’s that. Practice doesn’t matter. Performance with live bullets matters.

While most of the teams in college football will get an extra month of practice our young guys will get an extra month to explore the portal. 4-8 with a single SEC win will do that to a team.

All thanks to a stubborn head coach who couldn’t see what was happening to his team or refused to see what was happening and adjust.

My Greatest Concern with Jimbo:

There’s lots of talk over Jimbo hiring an offensive coordinator. That’s obvious but I’m not sure what it’s really going to do.

Jimbo became Offensive Coordinator at LSU in 2000. He’s been on the sideline with his trusted Trapper Keeper for 23 seasons now. Can he stand on the sidelines without his woobie and manage the whole game?

That’s a massive question we have no clue the results because he’s never done it. He honestly doesn’t appear to have any desire to do it.

Does he really want to hire an Offensive Coordinator or is he doing it because it’s being forced on him? If it’s being forced on him then it’s pointless. It’s just doing something to do something and it’s not really going to take hold.

It sounds good in theory and it should keep us from going 4-8 in future seasons but I don’t think it’s going to help us win an SEC West title which should be the goal.

I don’t think Jimbo can be a true head coach. I think he’d already be there if he wanted to. We certainly wouldn’t be 4-8 if he can truly see the issues with this 2022 Aggie team.

His offensive staff is full of his closest friends that won’t challenge him. He already did musical chairs with them and the results got worse from previous years. He hired an offensive line coach that’s been a massive failure. That’s on Jimbo because he hired him.

I think Jimbo has been a glorified offensive coordinator for the last 13 seasons since he took over as Head Coach at Florida State. He’s never adapted his offensive and college football passed him by.

He caught lightening in a bottle in 2013 and in 2020.

He’s not a terrible coach as he can recruit but he’s in a time warp from 15 years ago I don’t think he really wants to get out of.

If he’s truly on board with becoming a different head coach then it’s worth a shot. If he’s just going to stand around and do nothing or meddle with an offensive coordinator then any staff changes is pointless.

I don’t think Jimbo truly wants to change who he is a head coach. He’s stubborn and stuck in his old ways.

Maybe I’m wrong. Actually, I hope I’m wrong but we’ll see.

What I Would Do:

I’m making this decision based on these four things. I have no more insight into any of these than you do but I’m basing my decision on these four items being true because I believe they are:

Jimbo is fighting having to hire an OC and massive offensive staff changes.
Jimbo doesn’t understand he himself has to make massive changes and become a true head coach.
We lose to LSU
We can get the coach I mention

If all four of those things are true I fire Jimbo the morning after the LSU game. If any of those 4 aren’t true then I give Jimbo one more year.

The remainder of what I write is based on those four factors being true. If any of those factors are false then I’m not advocating to fire Jimbo. Let’s be clear on that.

Sure, it’s going to cost us a ton of money but going 8-4 every year is going to cost us even more. We’ve seen that play out. I think it’s pretty obvious we have a perennial 8-4 coach in his current form. There will be a couple of peaks and valleys but I don’t think Jimbo is on the level with Saban, Smart, Kelly, Heupel, Leach, and Kiffin. That’s his competition.

He’s an NFL coach trapped in a college game he doesn’t understand anymore.

The ONLY thing saving him right now is the struggles in Austin and Norman so recruiting still looks decent. If that gets turned around in either of those places our recruiting is going to drop like a rock.

If we keep Jimbo and he’s not truly interested in embracing a different college game then he’s a dead man walking. Offensive coaches won’t want to come here nor will recruits. Everyone will know it’s not a matter of “If” he gets fired but a matter of “When”.

Same thing happened with Kevin Sumlin which is why he struggled to hire an offensive coordinator after Jake Spavital failed. Decent offensive coaches knew Sumlin was destined to get let go and didn’t want to take the job.

Unless we have the next offensive coordinator already locked down I don’t think it’s going to be easy to hire someone. Coaches like some level of stability and Jimbo is going to be clearly on the hot seat.

His contract should be moot on making the decision if we don’t feel he’s committed to being different. Pull the damn trigger and get it over with. This isn’t living out some more time with a dog that you love. This is a football coach that isn’t what we thought he was. Pull the trigger and move on.

I don’t like a coaching carousel as I do believe Jimbo has had a bad hand dealt to him this season. However, he’s proven to be a stubborn head coach with ZERO adaptability. He’s blaming everything but him as the head coach for our failures. He blames himself with words but his actions say otherwise.

Remember one of Jimbo’s favorite sayings is – “Your actions speak so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

A head coach with some sense of reality pulls off 6-6 even with the issues we’ve faced this season.

At 6-6 or even 5-7 I’m not advocating to fire him. He’s certainly had a bad hand dealt to him this season but he’s also had his hand in MULTIPLE losses that shouldn’t have happened.

Remember this is the same guy that felt Haynes King was our best option for 2 games and we have a loss to App State to show for that decision. This is the same coach that for whatever reason didn’t have his team ready after a bye week and we went down 17-0 in the first five minutes at South Carolina. This is the same coach that held halftime leads at Kyle Field to Ole Miss and Florida only to squander them away. This is the same coach that couldn’t even attempt a field goal in his first 10 offensive possessions against an Auburn team with an interim head coach.

Decisions he made led to losses in every single one of those games. I won’t even get into his decision on the last play at Alabama.

It seems weird to say but there seems like a MASSIVE leap from 5-7 to 4-8. If he runs the same old tired offense and defense out there and gets wiped up by LSU and those other factors are true he needs to be gone. We will have seen enough.

He needs to wake up and act like he’s coaching for his job these last two games. We’re staring down SEVEN consecutive SEC losses. If he can’t see how he’s contributing to that there’s no point expecting different results in future seasons.

It sucks but it’s true. We need to correct a massive mistake.

I would go hire Mike Elko as head coach. Offer him a 5-year $40 million deal. I’m not sure what he’s making at Duke but I’d guess it’s 5 years for $25 million or in that ballpark. I believe his mother lives in that area of North Carolina but surely he’d want the keys to the Aggie gig considering what he’d be walking back into.

We send Durkin down the road and can keep our existing defensive staff for the most part. Defensive recruiting shouldn’t miss a beat.

Let Elko hire an exciting offensive staff along with an ace recruiting staff and we’ll be off to the races.

In case you haven’t noticed Elko is quietly 7-3 at Duke this year. Duke. They went 3-9 last season losing their final 8 games. There’s a good chance he goes 9-3 with losses against Kansas at full strength, an overtime loss to Georgia Tech on the road, and a 3-point loss to North Carolina who’s currently leading their division with no losses. Elko is 4 points from potentially going to the ACC Championship game with Duke.

That’s one hell of a turnaround.

Mike Elko is a football coach.

If Jimbo is fighting change don’t overcomplicate the decision and extend the misery. Pull the trigger and make the move. If he truly realizes the issues with wins and losses are at his feet and he’s willing to change then he can stay.

Based on what Jimbo has said after each loss his look in the mirror is different than everyone else’s. Sure, he says he blames himself but he clearly blames everything else. His actions in the last 7 games have told us that.

We got caught up in the coaching salary spike of 2021 and just need to own it. We made a bad decision and need to correct it sooner than later.

Thoughts On Jimbo After the Florida Game

I could write 12 pages on what we’re seeing with the Aggies but I’m going to keep it as short as possible. We all see and know the issues. You don’t really need reassurance from me. Trust your eyes.

It’s that obvious – Jimbo is an addict.

He’s an addict to an offense that doesn’t work. Addicts refuse to see reality and go back to comforting activities that are detrimental to their existence.

For Jimbo it’s his offense. What’s becoming more apparent is his style of coaching. He’s so enamored with his offense that he’s missing the entire game.

In two consecutive weeks he’s abandoned in the second half what worked for him in the first half. The run and most importantly play action.

He’ll argue the defense shut down the run and it wasn’t there but he completely abandons it right away in the second half. Achane got the ball 4 times in the second half against Florida. How the hell do you know you can’t establish it if you don’t really try it?

The formula on how to stop the Aggie offense has been obvious since the App State game. If there’s no threat of a run then just pin your ears back and apply pressure to the Aggie offense. It’s the same damn offense over and over again. And it keeps getting stopped over and over again because it’s crystal clear how to stop it.

Meanwhile Jimbo keeps doing the same three things:

Shuffling his stack of papers which includes a spiral notebook. Seriously. What the hell is he doing with a spiral notebook in his hands during a damn football game? What could be in there that’s so important?
Yelling at his players that clearly aren’t executing his precious offense when they don’t really have a chance because the defense knows how to shut it down. He’ll roll his eyes and make faces like he can’t understand why his players are so dumb. Maybe he’s the dumb one.
Blaming lack of execution by the players after the game for the offensive failures. The same players he recruited and coaches every day. He’s blaming the players. Every now and then he’ll give some coachspeak that he and his staff has to do better. However, you can tell he truly believes it’s a bigger fault of the players than himself.

That’s what addicts do. They blame others and deny their involvement in the issues.

We’ve had some injury issues but they’re just excuses. Sure, the injuries haven’t helped but his lack of coaching is a bigger issue in those losses than injuries.

Let’s look back at our losses this season:

App State – Completely outcoached. COMPLETELY. Absolutely winnable game.
Miss State – Mike Leach and his staff completely outcoached Jimbo. Leach said as much after the game they just took what the Aggies gave them.
Alabama – Thanks to 4 turnovers by the Aggie defense we were on the 2-yard line to win the game. Jimbo calls a play with ZERO creativity that Bama had seen before and knew how to defend. Meanwhile LSU beat Bama on the last play by running something Bama had never seen before.
South Carolina – Spotted them 17 points in the first 5 minutes thanks to a special teams screw up and two offensive turnovers. Coming off a bye Jimbo had a team that wasn’t prepared. That’s on coaching.
Ole Miss – Squandered a 14-10 halftime lead at home because he apparently didn’t help his defensive coordinator scheme to shut down the quarterback run while abandoning the run himself. That’s on coaching.
Florida – Squandered a 24-20 halftime lead against a REALLY suspect Florida team. His precious offense got completely shut out in the second half because he panicked and went back to the offensive plays that didn’t work. He abandoned the run, the play action, and the middle of the field for the most part. That’s on coaching.

Obviously this has been a really tough season due to injuries and the flu on Saturday but every one of those games was winnable with better coaching. To say we could be undefeated is a pretty big stretch. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say we could be 6-3 with better coaching.

Losers make excuses while winners find a way to win. Jimbo spends his press conferences making excuses because he as the head coach didn’t find a way to win.

If you look back over the last two years it’s nothing but a big bag of excuses. We blamed the loss of Haynes King for going 8-4. Guess what? If Haynes doesn’t get hurt we might have been worse than 8-4.

Turns out Haynes King’s injury wasn’t really the issue. The head coach was fully responsible for going 8-4. That Bama win was awesome but that feels like a decade ago thanks to what’s happened after that game and this season.

Blame youth, injuries, and whatever else but there’s one harsh reality – Better head coaching has us more wins in the last two years. There’s ZERO doubt about that.

Jimbo is a stubborn addict that refuses to admit he’s the issue.

Color Me Concerned:

At this point I’m concerned we have another Fran and Sherman on our hands. A man so enamored with his precious offense he can’t see the whole game.

There’s a big rumor Jimbo is going to hire a high-profile offensive coordinator in the off season. It’s an obvious need.

My big question is if Jimbo will then see the entire game in front of him. He’s been missing it for at least two seasons now.

Can Jimbo convert to a walk around coach that sees his entire football team? I’m talking about recruiting, player development, and schemes. I don’t know that he can because I don’t know that he wants to. I think he just wants to tinker with scheming offensive plays.

He needs to convert to a head coach that sees the challenges with his whole program and what’s happening in college football as a whole. He’s currently missing it.

He appears to have COMPLETELY whiffed on the turnover with his coaching and recruiting staff. He hired people that appear to not be capable and it’s showing on the field and in recruiting. The lack of wins aren’t helping in recruiting but it’s painfully obvious we’ve lost something else in recruiting. That’s all on Jimbo. He makes those decisions.

I don’t see us writing Jimbo an $85 million check so him waking up to be an overall college head coach is our only option.

The question is will Jimbo adapt or will he tinker with the offense ignoring everything else on the team?

If he never admits he’s the problem we’ll just have the same old addict at head coach.

If so, in two to three years we’re gonna have to make a costly decision.

I’m pulling for you, Jimbo. I just don’t have a lot of hope you’ll actually break your addition.

Admittance is the first step…

Aggies at South Carolina – Breaking Down the Hail Mary Plays

I was jotting down notes for my full blog and one of them was going to be a point on how the final play perfectly encapsulated the entire offensive side of things. We couldn’t even get off a Hail Mary.

I pulled up the video of the game at lunch to see if South Carolina rushed 3 or 4 people. I remember seeing 3 defensive lineman but couldn’t remember if another South Carolina defender rushed in.

Well, what I saw was worse than anything I imagined. I grabbed screen shots so you can clearly see just how bad it was.

Before I get to those screenshots I have to tell you about the offensive series before the final two plays where we kicked the field goal.

For those that watched the game with me they know I was yelling for Jimbo to kick a field goal when we got to the 36 yard line. There was about 22 seconds left and Jimbo called a timeout after a 2 yard Weigman scramble. We had one timeout left. My point was we needed a field goal so let’s go ahead and try it which would give us about 17 seconds and a timeout if we made the field goal.

That’s a 53 yard attempt which is by no means an easy field goal but we’re in a desperate situation. I thought it gave us the best chance to win assuming we hit the field goal and got the onside kick.

Here’s what happened after that timeout:

Conner Weigman throws the ball away because he was pressured and nobody was open.
The refs called a roughing the passer which moved the ball to the 21 yard line. That’s a 38 yard field goal which is much better than 53 yards.
That previous play burned 5 seconds so there’s 17 seconds left and we still have one timeout.
38 yard field goal with 17 seconds and one timeout. It’s a no brainer to me and I’m yelling to kick the field goal even louder.
We run a pass play which gets us 15 yards to the 6 yard line and burns 4 seconds off the clock. We’re down to 13 seconds and the clock will keep moving when the chains are set.
Jimbo is forced to burn a timeout.
Now we’re attempting a 23 yard field goal with 13 seconds left and no timeouts.
We could have been attempting a 38 yard field goal with 17 seconds left and one timeout.
In reality we’re splitting hairs but give me the 38 yard field goal with 17 seconds left and one timeout all day long. It at least gives you a little more flexibility on play calling if you get the onside kick.
In what is only fitting for this game the Aggies false start on the field goal attempt. We got pushed back five yards. The EIGHTH false start of the game. EIGHT FALSE STARTS IN THE SEVENTH GAME OF THE SEASON COMING OFF A BYE!!!!
We attempt a 28 yard field goal instead of a 23 yarder. We still make it.
Maybe Jimbo was afraid we’d false start on the 38 yarder so he knew we needed more yards before the attempt. That why we pay him $9.5 million a year.

As if that questionable decision making wasn’t enough let me show you why none of it matters.

Thanks to a well executed onside kick the Aggies get the ball on the 49 yard line with 9 seconds left. Plenty of time for at least one Hail Mary.

This is the first snap of the second to last play. Notice South Carolina has three defensive linemen and a linebacker moving forward. Notice the Aggies have five offensive lineman and a running back. That is SIX on FOUR. Should be a big advantage for the Aggies.

The downside to that math is it also means South Carolina has seven defenders to cover four Aggie receivers. This is why they call it a Hail Mary but we’ll worry about that later.

Before we get to the next photo look at the Aggie left tackle above. The defensive end next to him is CLEARLY firing off the ball and headed to the backfield. He should pick up that defensive end as our tackle is clearly the closest to him.

Our left tackle doesn’t even engage that defensive end and for some reason goes inside where nobody is. He leaves that defensive end COMPLETELY unblocked.

To make matters worse notice two of their four guys were CLEARLY coming towards the backfield and aren’t even being noticed by ANYONE in a white uniform. There are two South Carolina defenders in pursuit of Weigman that nobody is even looking at. Our left tackle COMPLETELY ignored that defensive end AND linebacker firing off the ball.

We have SIX people engaged with TWO people when we should have IMMEDIATELY known there were four coming. We somehow completely ignored two defenders. They were there the entire time.

How the hell does the left tackle completely ignore them and go inside leaving them unblocked? We’re rolling the pocket to the right which is another issue but it doesn’t mean we leave the guys on the left alone.

If you look even closer we have FOUR guys on one defender as our right tackle and running back have the other defender engaged. So that’s FOUR on ONE and two running free.

Here’s where it gets real comical.

What in the world is our center doing? There is not a South Carolina defender in his 180 degree peripheral. However, he’s in pass blocking mode doing nothing. At least all of the other linemen are pursing someone.

How does he not know to turn around and find someone? Did he think a defender hit invisible mode and is going to show up out of thin air? How does he think what he’s doing is okay?

You can say what you want about the player but that’s 100% on coaching to me. A well coached lineman knows to turn around and find someone when there’s nobody there. A good blocker is always looking for someone to block even if it’s not their assignment. If you have no one to block go find someone.

Even worse is you still have the two South Carolina defenders running unnoticed. One guys is about to get caught up with the mass of people but the other guy has a clear line to Weigman with nobody picking him up. That’s the guy the left tackle should have engaged from the start but somehow let him run free.

Let’s continue to watch the play develop. Our center continues to do a WONDERFUL job of blocking air. If he turned around he would have picked up the linebacker that no one had noticed. Seriously. If he turns 90 degrees to his right the moment he realizes there’s no one to block he probably picks off number 22.

Our right tackle has dis-engaged which is actually the right thing to do but like our center he’s headed off to block air. In his defense that guy shouldn’t be sneaking up behind him because the left tackle should have engaged him from the start but he’s not looking for anyone else around him. Just headed to green grass with no South Carolina defender. I’m sure his intention is to help wall off anyone from Weigman so it’s not a horrible move by him. No reason to think there’s a guy running full speed behind him at this point.

Next sequence above shows that linebacker and lineman that nobody on the left side noticed with free lanes to our quarterback because nobody even touched them. They had to navigate a little bit of traffic but no Aggie blocker ever engaged them. This entire time SIX blockers have been focused on TWO defenders.

That is TERRIBLE coaching. I have no clue how this is happening at a program like Texas A&M. Blame youth all you want but how do two guys go COMPLETELY untouched this entire time?

Weigman starts to wind up for the throw but he’s got serious pressure coming. He’s running for his life and can’t even fully wind up. He lets it fly and the ball only gets to the 10 yard line. He can’t even get the ball to the end zone because he’s under so much pressure.

Two guys never accounted for are two steps away from him as he’s winding up trying to throw the ball 60 yards in the air.

Look at Weigman’s feet above. He can’t even get a full throwing motion he’s under so much pressure. He never had a shot to get that 60 yards downfield into the middle of the end zone for a chance at a score.

Weigman winds up getting knocked down. The dude never had the chance to set his feet.

Go ahead and scroll those photos from top to bottom just to see how bad it was.

Since the football gods are funny they left one second on the clock so the Aggies could make one more Hail Mary attempt.

Here’s everyone lined up for the final play. Notice anything different? South Carolina has moved their linebacker to their left side which is the Aggies right side. They clearly noticed the Aggies rolled the pocket to the right and are giving their defender a shorter path to where Weigman likely wants to go.

Does it work? Let’s play it out.

Here’s a MASSIVE improvement for the Aggies as the left tackle engages the defensive end. The left guard and center are doing a nice number on the defensive tackle while the right guard and right tackle are in position to intercept the defensive end. The running back is putting himself in position to engage the linebacker.

So far so good.

The blocking looks INFINITELY better but there’s one slight problem. South Carolina’s adjusting of the linebacker appears to have cut off Weigman’s path to the right. Does it work?

It sure does.

Weigman is cut off so he pulls up. The offensive line is doing a much better job of engagement but South Carolina cut off Weigman’s path from the previous play. Wonderful adjustment by South Carolina.

Something else to notice is that Weigman is under SERIOUS pressure and the furthest Aggie receiver is only 10 yards downfield. The South Carolina defender has advanced 8 yards into the backfield and the Aggie receivers are barely to 10 yards.

You don’t need to know anything beyond basic math to know these are not numbers in the Aggies favor.

Weigman pulls up but he finds more pressure. He still wants to go right but there’s barely a lane to get there. At least the Aggie receivers are beyond 10 yards down the field. The math for the Aggies is getting better, kids.

Weigman tries that lane to the right only to find that linebacker South Carolina smartly moved right where he wants to go. This is a WONDERFUL job by the four South Carolina defenders anticipating where the quarterback wants to go and not letting him get there. Notice the bottom two South Carolina defenders just staying in the general area to cut off any potential of Weigman coming back to the left.

Weigman has no choice but to load up and throw because he’s got a defender with a clean line to him.

As he’s about to release the ball and the defender is coming at him.

Weigman gets his arm moving forward but the defender makes contact and the ball just pops up into the air. You can see it around the 48 yard line. It’s that little dot in the air.

It lands at about the Gamecocks 39 yard line while Weigman lands on the ground at the Aggie 46 yard line. A 15 yard Hail Mary attempt. At least the receivers got more than 25 yards down the field at this point.

There’s obviously some execution areas here but there’s also something else I feel like. I feel like the players are overwhelmed in their assignments. The coaching staff also just keeps going back to the same thing not expecting the defense to adjust.

That first Hail Mary attempt probably works if the left side of the line engage those guys that went completely untouched. The pass probably doesn’t get completed but it looks like a real Hail Mary attempt.

However, when South Carolina moved the linebacker to the Aggies right side someone should have picked up rolling to the right wasn’t the best idea. We ran the same exact play and South Carolina shut it down. That’s on coaching for not pointing out what is likely to happen.

I get that it’s a Hail Mary so options are limited but the awareness of what the defense might be doing seems completely lost on this offense. They just have to run the play as it’s designed and called even if it appears the defense knows what’s coming.

Not sure if I’m going to do a full blog this week because it’s so demoralizing going through all the obvious issues. Some of it is clearly player execution but I put more on the coaches for not letting the players have a better chance at executing.

As I finishing typing this I just learned that Bryce Foster and Aki Ogunbiyi are out for the year. That’s our starting center and starting left guard. The hits just keep on coming…

R.C. Would Have Gone For 2

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