Breaking down Texas A&M’s pros and cons of firing Jimbo Fisher

Jimbo Fisher has led the SEC-worst Texas A&M Aggies into the ground this season.

It has been a year from hell for Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M Aggies football program.

Slated to be a serious College Football Playoff contenders, the Aggies went from No. 6 in the initial AP Poll to potentially a 4-8 team in the SEC. They are the only program in the conference that will not get to six wins this season, as all other 13 teams in the league have either achieved bowl eligibility or have a chance to do so with a win over Thanksgiving Weekend. What a total disaster…

With people wanting to run Fisher out of College Station already, let’s discuss the pros and cons of firing him after the LSU game to end this abomination of a college football season for Texas A&M.

Texas A&M football: Why firing Jimbo Fisher is a good idea

In a purely reactionary sense, firing Fisher makes all the sense in the world. Nobody does less with more than the Texas A&M coach. The Aggies had the No. 1 recruiting class in 2022 and have four wins to show for it on the field so far. While this Texas A&M team is incredibly young, whose fault is that? Fisher is a supposed quarterback whisperer, but his team has major trouble scoring points!

Firing Fisher would indicate that this isn’t good enough for the Texas A&M boosters or the athletic department. It would prevent apathy from taking over a fanbase that thought it would see its beloved Aggies team push for potential playoff berths. Moving on from Fisher would also signify the university recognizes there is a massive problem on the football field and that it wants to fix it.

Going in a different direction allows for a new energy to permeate a program that has gotten stale.

Texas A&M football: Why firing Jimbo Fisher is a terrible idea

Simply put, the dollars and cents don’t make sense to fire Fisher right now. He is slated to collect over $86 million in buyout money if Texas A&M were to part ways with him. Texas A&M may have some of the deepest pocketed boosters in the entire country, but that is a gigantically bitter pill to swallow. It is not lighting money on fire, but it is about as close as one could get to the real thing.

The other issue with firing Fisher now is it completely torpedoes the 2023 recruiting class. Keep in mind that players have a one-time free transfer they can use. Players will be portaling on the reg and any positive recruiting momentum garnered from last cycle’s success will be all for naught. If this were any other situation, ripping the band-aid off would not cost you an arm and a leg here.

Unless the boosters want to drill like their Armageddon lives depended on it, Texas A&M is stuck.

What Texas A&M is most likely to do with Jimbo Fisher after this season

With this being Fisher’s worst season since bailing on Florida State to take the Aggies job in 2018, one would expect for Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork to reluctantly give his head coach the benefit of the doubt. The Aggies had averaged 8.5 wins over Fisher’s first four seasons on the job, including a top-four finish during the 9-1 COVID campaign. However, his leash will be tightened.

Unless Texas A&M has a booster willing to eat upwards of nine figures this Thanksgiving, Fisher will get a sixth year in College Station. It will honestly have a bit of a Scott Frost at Nebraska feel to it. While Fisher’s Texas A&M teams have done better than Frost’s Nebraska teams ever did, they both live to underachieve lofty to middling expectations. Fisher should enter 2023 on the hot seat.

Even with a possible 4-8 record, Texas A&M will not be this inherently reckless with its money.

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