Texas A&M football won the offseason when they hired Jimbo Fisher away from Florida State. The aftermath in Tallahassee has been unbelievably awful.
A few weeks into the 2018 season is not the time to evaluate coaching hires as a win or a loss. But, it is a big enough sample size to frame the next several months (and years) of each coach at their new locale.
Texas A&M has one big game on their resume under Jimbo Fisher, a 2-point loss to Clemson. Florida State has finished three games: a blowout loss at the hands of Virginia Tech, a surprisingly close win over Samford (yes, Samford – not Stanford) and an ugly loss to Syracuse.
The scene in Tallahassee is flat-out disturbing — and the Aggies signed that coach, who recruited the vast majority of those players, to a 10-year guaranteed contract. The messy divorce between Jimbo Fisher and Florida State became national news when the rumors boiled over prior to the Noles’ final game on the 2017 season. He was forced out before he could coach that final game and since then, the Noles have been trending in the wrong direction.
The scene in Tallahassee is flat-out disturbing — and the Aggies signed that coach, who recruited the vast majority of those players, to a 10-year guaranteed contract.
If Fisher is as good as a coach as people seem to think, a drop off for Florida State’s should have been expected, albeit not to this degree. Florida State’s cratering validates Fisher’s coaching expertise. Willie Taggart’s track record of rebuilding is undeniable, but Fisher’s championship pedigree is something few programs can boast of their own leadership.
However, the starkness of the dropoff does warrant at least some level of concern. If Fisher was willing to let his program fall away to such a degree that the only solution was a clean break, what’s to say he won’t find himself in the same situation in College Station?
Fisher’s relationship with the administration at Texas A&M, the people of Aggieland and his new team deter these worries. So far, there’s been nothing but good news about Fisher and Texas A&M. Losses under a different coach with different schemes and a different culture aren’t the Aggies’ responsibility to carry.
This isn’t worth fretting about, but don’t think the people in charge aren’t taking notice and working tirelessly to make sure no such situation ever presents itself in Aggieland.