Texas A&M Football: Jimbo Fisher isn’t going anywhere

LSU has its eyes on Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher but the Aggies’ hand-picked head coach isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Already one of the most handsomely paid headmen in collegiate athletics, Jimbo Fisher was handed a raise days before he embarked on his fourth season with Texas A&M football. The timing was odd, seemingly rewarding Fisher for a No. 4 finish months prior as his team was headed toward what he and the Aggie faithful hoped would be an even better year.

Months later, the timing doesn’t seem so random. No sooner had reports of LSU’s plan to part ways with Ed Orgeron leak onto the internet did Fisher’s name enter the conversation. Fisher, a former assistant at LSU who was hired to his current job by now LSU Athletic Director Scott Woodward, had fairly distinct connections to the Tigers’ program.

There was just one, or, several problems with that assumption. First, Fisher had just achieved history by becoming the first of Nick Saban’s former assistants to beat him on the field in 25 tries. And he’d done it with a backup quarterback that had produced pedestrian play up until that point.

As a thank-you gesture, Texas A&M fans proceeded to donate $150,000 to Kidz1stFund, a charity started by Fisher to help fight Faconi Anemia, a disease that affects Fisher’s son Ethan.

But stepping further back from the immediate high and subsequent reception, Fisher finally has everything he could ask for. From facilities to the best graphic design teams, Fisher has gotten everything he’s wanted to build a college football giant. And the deep pockets that brought him to College Station don’t intend to start pinching pennies anytime soon.

Each of the last three head coaches at LSU has left with a national championship. That will be the pitch the Tigers inevitably will make in their efforts to lure away Fisher from his College Station home. That’s nice in a story. But the current reality of LSU is one of a program mired in dysfunction, Title IX investigations, and strain. Could Fisher be the one to save the Tigers? Sure. But why would he?

Both LSU and Texas A&M sit in the top 10 in the 247 Talent Composite. Both rosters are overflowing with top-flight talent. LSU isn’t going to outbid the Aggies, and they have a buyout to pay at the moment to boot. And whoever inherits the current LSU program will be — at least to some extent — starting over. Fisher has a good thing going. He’s not going to throw it away for an old friend or two.

Fisher didn’t mince words when asked about the situation: “I love being here. This is the job I want. I got a great contract, I have an unbelievable chancellor, unbelievable president, unbelievable AD. We’re building something”.

He’s not stopping now.