This isn’t about Thamel per se, though he was the one proudly carrying the banner for the LSU rumors (only for those rumors to burn out days later when Jimbo asserted publicly that, yes, $95 million is just enough to stay in Aggieland for now). Or, he is both and neither until someone needs clicks on a deadline. Jimbo is simultaneously an overhyped huckster slowly but surely running A&M’s prospects into the ground and an elite offensive mind capable of unlocking LSU’s potential trapped in a historically mediocre program.
To use a tired metaphor, what we have here is a case of Schrodinger’s Coach. Fisher brings the confidence, maturity and decision-making inherent to a coach who has been at a high-profile job for 12 years and won a national title at Florida State in 2013. He also has shown the capability to counter Nick Saban, as the upset in College Station showed last weekend. “Fisher will bring consistent and quality quarterback play and development. No cost at all! Except for leaving the most secure job in collegiate sports and $95 million guaranteed to head an admittedly more storied program marred by sexual assault scandals and missing almost all of its key players and assistants from 2019.
And even after Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork extended Fisher earlier this season-a move widely regarded as a way to fend off LSU-there’s still no cost for Fisher to walk away.” “It also wouldn’t cost Fisher a penny to leave. “Woodward lured to Texas A&M for a historic 10-year, $75 million contract that was fully guaranteed if A&M fired Fisher,” Thamel wrote. But imagine my surprise when the same man emerged from that media dogpile just a few weeks later to proclaim that LSU’s current AD, Scott Woodward, was gunning for the championship coach he brought to College Station. I certainly would’ve seen things similarly as a neutral observer. “You don’t guarantee $75 million over 10 years for vanilla.” After the Arkansas loss this season, he happily guffawed with his College Football Enquirer co-hosts at Jimbo running his program’s pockets while Sam Pittman took the Hogs to the moon.Īgain, all good and fine! Schadenfreude and overreactions are football’s bread and butter. “Considering all the self-congratulatory noise Texas A&M made when hiring Fisher, the on-field realities have been defiantly vanilla,” he wrote. The Yahoo Sports contributor spilled a great deal of ink in 2020 before the Ags’ doomed trip to Tuscaloosa. I only ask that members of the national media consistently making Jimbo out to be an overrated and overpaid coach keep the same energy when there’s a minuscule chance of him leaving. Pointing and laughing at others’ misfortune in the moment is part of the fun. This sport is a magnificent neverending story with winners and losers switching places season to season, week to week, and day to day. I sincerely don’t hold it against any sportswriter making the case that Jimbo’s contract is embarrassing for society, that he and Sexton are robbing the Aggies blind or that his tenure so far, while solid, doesn’t nearly justify the price tag. Still, it’s sensible to want to make fun of A&M. So you’ll understand why fans are nonplussed about stupid-rich alumni shoveling more zeroes into the platitude-spouting hick’s bank account in exchange for program stability and occasionally beating a team like, say, Alabama. It most likely came from men who would’ve otherwise blown their excess capital on fracking rigs, dubious political advocacy groups and his-and-her matching Teslas. But the nifty, oft-forgotten fact of the matter is that none of that contract money came from the fans or even Texas A&M University. Is any college coach worth that much? Almost certainly not.
Seems like there was some urgency after all! “There was no actual urgency or significance to giving Fisher a new contract,” he wrote in his Misery Index column three weeks ago, “other than the vague possibility that LSU might fire Ed Orgeron and come after him after the season.” This is almost certainly how Jimbo secured a monster 10-year, $95 million extension in September.ĭan Wolken, like so many others, had something to say when that happened. He definitely considered it! Any agent worth his salt, especially one as good at wringing boosters’ pocketbooks as Jimmy Sexton, would have looked at the vultures hovering over Ed Orgeron’s LSU tenure weeks before the season kicked off as an opportunity to squeeze more cash for their client. Think about it for more than a literal second. Jimbo Fisher is not leaving Texas A&M to coach for LSU in 2021.