2019 targets not listing us as finalists
- Thread starter EyesOnTexas
- Start date
If you believe everybody is playing for free, I am starting to wonder about your stories of being on the team.
Clob was on the team. He started for a few years on D although he played a different position than he claims on here.
Right? Thats why aggy recruits the same players Texas does right?
The Brainiacs open weekend post:
– A few nights ago, 2019 DB Bobby Wolfe decommitted from TAMU.
I know there are quite a few people acting as though somehow TAMU was about to steal every recruit possible. The reality is that the TAMU staff has a tremendous amount of pressure on them. I can tell you from conversations that I’ve had with recruits that their staff is putting pressure on players. I don’t think this is the only decommitment you will see from the currently committed players.
Smells like desperation. Jimbo Baggins already on the hot seat? Looks like his commit now and don't take visits anywhere approach is going over like a lead balloon.
– A few nights ago, 2019 DB Bobby Wolfe decommitted from TAMU.
I know there are quite a few people acting as though somehow TAMU was about to steal every recruit possible. The reality is that the TAMU staff has a tremendous amount of pressure on them. I can tell you from conversations that I’ve had with recruits that their staff is putting pressure on players. I don’t think this is the only decommitment you will see from the currently committed players.
Smells like desperation. Jimbo Baggins already on the hot seat? Looks like his commit now and don't take visits anywhere approach is going over like a lead balloon.
Interesting article re: Jimbo's departure from FSU that rings true. Apparently aggy paid through the nose for someone going downhill at their previous job with no negotiating power. Because aggy.
Jimbo Fisher: The bizarre final months of his FSU tenure There has been much debate and discussion surrounding Jimbo Fisher’s awkward departure from Florida State. Absent the former Seminoles coach coming clean (which won’t happen), we may never know the exact details that led to his decision to leave for Texas A&M.
What we can do is make some educated guesses, based on interviews and other information, which strongly suggests he had decided to move on well before it became public.
When did Fisher decide to take the Texas A&M job?
The question of when Fisher first had his foot out the door has sparked plenty of debate. It’s not an easy one to answer, but there were plenty of signs that his decision to leave was made long before it became official in early December -- and likely prior to our War Room Report noting that Texas A&M had its sights on him back in October.
The first indication that something might be in the works took place way back in the spring of 2017. At that time, new Texas A&M athletics director Scott Woodward, a longtime friend of Fisher, called out then-head coach Kevin Sumlin at the SEC Spring Meetings. A college A.D. speaking out against his football coach that far in advance of a season is certainly unusual. There are some who believe this action was taken because the Aggies' leaders already felt confident they would be able to hire a high-profile coach to replace Sumlin.
I’m not suggesting that a deal between Fisher and the Aggies was done way back in the spring. On the other hand, it seems extremely likely that a representative of A&M reached to agent Jimmy Sexton prior to this time to gauge his client’s interest. Based on Fisher’s history of flirting with other schools, it’s more than reasonable to assume the Aggies’ interest was reciprocated by Sexton. One of our writers even had a conversation with Fisher last spring, during which he spoke about A&M's program in glowing terms. Fisher talked at length about the facilities in College Station and how that program could be a sleeping giant.
The shift from flirtation to consummation probably took place shortly after FSU’s season opener.
Here’s where the tea leaves back then really tell the tale.
Prior to the season opener, Fisher's behavior -- the day-to-day running of the program, and the state of recruiting -- all pointed to business as usual. It’s easy to forget that the Seminoles closed out the summer of 2017 with a top-10 recruiting class. At that time, many felt FSU also was the team to beat for five-star quarterback Justin Fields. However, everything seemed to change following the early September evening in Atlanta.
Shortly after the setback to the Tide, Hurricane Irma put a wrench in everyone’s plans and completely messed up the football schedule. During the three weeks between games, there were some subtle changes in Fisher’s demeanor. For one, recruiting came to a near standstill. Following the home opener against N.C. State, visitors to campus were few and far between. There was also a dearth of FSU coaches hitting the road to actively recruit from September to November.
During this time, there was chatter inside the program that Fisher wasn't as interested in the academic status of players as he once was. Like everything else involving the football program, the former head coach typically stayed on top of players who were struggling to stay eligible. Just a year earlier, he became upset with the administration after a couple of academic advisers left FSU for higher-paying jobs. But by the fall of 2017, the academic status of his players no longer appeared to be a priority.
While this was going on at Florida State, a Texas A&M regent called for Kevin Sumlin to be fired following the Aggies' season-opening loss to UCLA.
Meanwhile, after FSU's loss to Alabama -- and the season-ending injury to starting quarterback Deondre Francois -- Fisher had to know deep down that his team was going to suffer additional losses and underachieve for a third straight season. In hindsight, there was writing was on the wall both in Tallahassee and College Station that a change in jobs was potentially in the works.
As far as I’m aware, Fisher never confided in anyone that he was taking the job in College Station. Nevertheless, sources who were close to him at the time now believe that some type of arrangement with Texas A&M was likely reached in the early fall. There were enough changes to his personality and a sudden lack of interest in key aspects of the program to indicate that he knew his days in Tallahassee were numbered.
Why would Fisher leave FSU for Texas A&M?
The most bizarre aspect of this whole drama is why would an established head coach leave Florida State for Texas A&M? There is really no debate that FSU is a top-10, if not top-five, college football program.
In the last 25 years, the Seminoles have earned three national championships, 14 conference titles and 13 top-10 seasons. During this same time, the Aggies have just one conference title (1998 in the Big 12) and three top-10 finishes -- that’s it! You have to go all the back nearly 80 years (1939) to find the last time A&M claimed a national championship.
The easy answer as to why a coach would leave for a lesser job is money. Getting a $75 million guaranteed contract clearly played a major role. Whether it was because Fisher simply wanted more money or because of ego, A&M was going to have to pay a pretty penny to lure him away from Tallahassee, and it did. Even though money played a role, it probably wasn’t the primary reason for his surprising departure.
As I wrote in a Five Takes column back in late October, it’s rare for an established head coach to resurrect a program that is trending downward. There are very few examples of legitimate turnarounds in those situations, and the few that did happen usually involved the head coach completely reinventing himself and the program (see: Brian Kelly/Notre Dame). There were zero indications that Fisher was willing to reinvent himself or second-guess his vaunted process (see Ira’s part 2 of this series). Deep down, he probably knew, but would never admit, that his message had grown stale and that continuing down the same path was going to produce results similar to what we saw between 2015-17.
Also, had Fisher continued on in Tallahassee, he was going to have to make some significant changes. That would mean overhauling most of his staff, including having to fire longtime friend Rick Trickett. Despite being FSU’s head coach for eight years, Fisher never really had to fire any of his full-time coaches. In addition, assuming he was planning to let Charles Kelly go, he would be effectively admitting he was wrong when he stuck his neck out to retain the former defensive coordinator. Keep in mind that Fisher went to bat for Kelly when Auburn pursued him in late-2015. This resulted in Kelly receiving a lucrative five-year deal worth over $830,000 per year. Acknowledging mistakes and being forced to terminate people close to him might have been too difficult a pill for him to swallow.
It’s no secret that Fisher wouldn’t hesitate to point a finger at others when things didn’t go his way. If the program failed to live up to expectations, he rarely shouldered the responsibility. He would occasionally say, “we have to coach them better,” at a press conference. But behind the scenes, he would typically lay the blame at the feet of FSU’s administration or Seminole Boosters. The complaints ranged from not getting enough funding for support staff, having a non-football athletic director, and having a booster organization that didn’t provide enough funding for every project and facility he felt was needed.
Anyone who was around Fisher during one of his rants -- about any topic -- will tell you he was 100 percent convinced he was right, and there was no room for debate. By the time 2017 rolled around, Fisher had probably convinced himself that Florida State athletics was completely dysfunctional. At the same time, he was being told by A&M that the Aggies had state-of-the art facilities and could provide nearly unlimited funding for the football program. Shifting the blame for FSU’s downturn away from himself and toward the administration and, in his mind, substandard facilities, probably made it easier to justify his decision to himself.
Finally, keep in mind that the unhealthy relationship between Fisher, the athletics department and the Boosters was only going to get worse had he stayed on.
Because he quickly resurrected the program and guided the team to incredible heights with a national championship in 2013, Fisher had firmly established his credibility and had plenty of clout. As such, most everyone deferred to his decisions and shied away from offering alternative viewpoints. However, as the losses mounted, and his credibility began to wane, many began to question his behavior and actions -- at least behind the scenes.
Without the shield of wins and championships to protect him from criticism, he was going to have little support going forward. With so many burned bridges, building the program back up might have seemed like too difficult a task for Fisher to take on. On the other hand, getting a fresh start in College Station with a receptive administration probably looked like a more attractive path.
How did everything play out behind the scenes?
One of the most interesting aspects of covering the final few weeks of Jimbo Fisher’s tenure at Florida State was how he interacted with people around him. Of course, everybody is aware of his constant jabs and barbs at the media during his final few press conferences. He was obviously very uncomfortable with all the chatter that he might be headed to Texas A&M, and he decided to take out his frustrations on anyone who wrote or talked about it.
Even though most of us with sources close to the situation were convinced he already had one foot out the door, Fisher's close friends generally felt otherwise. It seems as if he kept all of them in the dark. I had a conversation with someone inside the football program just days before he left who was completely convinced he was staying. For the people closest to him, Fisher continued to act like nothing had changed and that all the talk about A&M was just the usual media-driven talk about other jobs.
It’s no secret that Fisher desperately wanted to coach the final regular-season game. I’m still not sure why he was so insistent on coaching one more game when he had already decided to take another job. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to leave with a losing record, or maybe he just wanted to coach his players one more time before saying goodbye. Whatever the reason, he was incredibly stubborn when it came to this subject and was determined to hold on for a few more days. In fact, when Ira wrote his column, ‘Jimbo Fisher absolutely must not coach Saturday’, I was told by someone close to him that Fisher went ballistic after reading it.
It finally took Florida State President John Thrasher having to intercede and tell Fisher he would not be allowed to coach Saturday if he was taking the A&M job. By all accounts, that conversation didn’t go well and some heated words were exchanged. The memory of that bitter conversation may explain why Thrasher took his ‘no-brainer’ parting shot at Fisher during Willie Taggart’s introductory press conference.
What’s also a bit surprising is how easily Fisher cut all ties to those within his Florida State circle. Those closest to Fisher, including some who were friends with him for years, have not heard from him since he left for College Station. Phone calls and texts from friends have either been ignored, or at least in one case, resulted in a terse reply. This includes some of his former assistant coaches and top-level boosters. We already knew that he didn’t exactly keep his players in the loop or leave on the best of terms either.
Jimbo Fisher: The bizarre final months of his FSU tenure There has been much debate and discussion surrounding Jimbo Fisher’s awkward departure from Florida State. Absent the former Seminoles coach coming clean (which won’t happen), we may never know the exact details that led to his decision to leave for Texas A&M.
What we can do is make some educated guesses, based on interviews and other information, which strongly suggests he had decided to move on well before it became public.
When did Fisher decide to take the Texas A&M job?
The question of when Fisher first had his foot out the door has sparked plenty of debate. It’s not an easy one to answer, but there were plenty of signs that his decision to leave was made long before it became official in early December -- and likely prior to our War Room Report noting that Texas A&M had its sights on him back in October.
The first indication that something might be in the works took place way back in the spring of 2017. At that time, new Texas A&M athletics director Scott Woodward, a longtime friend of Fisher, called out then-head coach Kevin Sumlin at the SEC Spring Meetings. A college A.D. speaking out against his football coach that far in advance of a season is certainly unusual. There are some who believe this action was taken because the Aggies' leaders already felt confident they would be able to hire a high-profile coach to replace Sumlin.
I’m not suggesting that a deal between Fisher and the Aggies was done way back in the spring. On the other hand, it seems extremely likely that a representative of A&M reached to agent Jimmy Sexton prior to this time to gauge his client’s interest. Based on Fisher’s history of flirting with other schools, it’s more than reasonable to assume the Aggies’ interest was reciprocated by Sexton. One of our writers even had a conversation with Fisher last spring, during which he spoke about A&M's program in glowing terms. Fisher talked at length about the facilities in College Station and how that program could be a sleeping giant.
The shift from flirtation to consummation probably took place shortly after FSU’s season opener.
Here’s where the tea leaves back then really tell the tale.
Prior to the season opener, Fisher's behavior -- the day-to-day running of the program, and the state of recruiting -- all pointed to business as usual. It’s easy to forget that the Seminoles closed out the summer of 2017 with a top-10 recruiting class. At that time, many felt FSU also was the team to beat for five-star quarterback Justin Fields. However, everything seemed to change following the early September evening in Atlanta.
Shortly after the setback to the Tide, Hurricane Irma put a wrench in everyone’s plans and completely messed up the football schedule. During the three weeks between games, there were some subtle changes in Fisher’s demeanor. For one, recruiting came to a near standstill. Following the home opener against N.C. State, visitors to campus were few and far between. There was also a dearth of FSU coaches hitting the road to actively recruit from September to November.
During this time, there was chatter inside the program that Fisher wasn't as interested in the academic status of players as he once was. Like everything else involving the football program, the former head coach typically stayed on top of players who were struggling to stay eligible. Just a year earlier, he became upset with the administration after a couple of academic advisers left FSU for higher-paying jobs. But by the fall of 2017, the academic status of his players no longer appeared to be a priority.
While this was going on at Florida State, a Texas A&M regent called for Kevin Sumlin to be fired following the Aggies' season-opening loss to UCLA.
Meanwhile, after FSU's loss to Alabama -- and the season-ending injury to starting quarterback Deondre Francois -- Fisher had to know deep down that his team was going to suffer additional losses and underachieve for a third straight season. In hindsight, there was writing was on the wall both in Tallahassee and College Station that a change in jobs was potentially in the works.
As far as I’m aware, Fisher never confided in anyone that he was taking the job in College Station. Nevertheless, sources who were close to him at the time now believe that some type of arrangement with Texas A&M was likely reached in the early fall. There were enough changes to his personality and a sudden lack of interest in key aspects of the program to indicate that he knew his days in Tallahassee were numbered.
Why would Fisher leave FSU for Texas A&M?
The most bizarre aspect of this whole drama is why would an established head coach leave Florida State for Texas A&M? There is really no debate that FSU is a top-10, if not top-five, college football program.
In the last 25 years, the Seminoles have earned three national championships, 14 conference titles and 13 top-10 seasons. During this same time, the Aggies have just one conference title (1998 in the Big 12) and three top-10 finishes -- that’s it! You have to go all the back nearly 80 years (1939) to find the last time A&M claimed a national championship.
The easy answer as to why a coach would leave for a lesser job is money. Getting a $75 million guaranteed contract clearly played a major role. Whether it was because Fisher simply wanted more money or because of ego, A&M was going to have to pay a pretty penny to lure him away from Tallahassee, and it did. Even though money played a role, it probably wasn’t the primary reason for his surprising departure.
As I wrote in a Five Takes column back in late October, it’s rare for an established head coach to resurrect a program that is trending downward. There are very few examples of legitimate turnarounds in those situations, and the few that did happen usually involved the head coach completely reinventing himself and the program (see: Brian Kelly/Notre Dame). There were zero indications that Fisher was willing to reinvent himself or second-guess his vaunted process (see Ira’s part 2 of this series). Deep down, he probably knew, but would never admit, that his message had grown stale and that continuing down the same path was going to produce results similar to what we saw between 2015-17.
Also, had Fisher continued on in Tallahassee, he was going to have to make some significant changes. That would mean overhauling most of his staff, including having to fire longtime friend Rick Trickett. Despite being FSU’s head coach for eight years, Fisher never really had to fire any of his full-time coaches. In addition, assuming he was planning to let Charles Kelly go, he would be effectively admitting he was wrong when he stuck his neck out to retain the former defensive coordinator. Keep in mind that Fisher went to bat for Kelly when Auburn pursued him in late-2015. This resulted in Kelly receiving a lucrative five-year deal worth over $830,000 per year. Acknowledging mistakes and being forced to terminate people close to him might have been too difficult a pill for him to swallow.
It’s no secret that Fisher wouldn’t hesitate to point a finger at others when things didn’t go his way. If the program failed to live up to expectations, he rarely shouldered the responsibility. He would occasionally say, “we have to coach them better,” at a press conference. But behind the scenes, he would typically lay the blame at the feet of FSU’s administration or Seminole Boosters. The complaints ranged from not getting enough funding for support staff, having a non-football athletic director, and having a booster organization that didn’t provide enough funding for every project and facility he felt was needed.
Anyone who was around Fisher during one of his rants -- about any topic -- will tell you he was 100 percent convinced he was right, and there was no room for debate. By the time 2017 rolled around, Fisher had probably convinced himself that Florida State athletics was completely dysfunctional. At the same time, he was being told by A&M that the Aggies had state-of-the art facilities and could provide nearly unlimited funding for the football program. Shifting the blame for FSU’s downturn away from himself and toward the administration and, in his mind, substandard facilities, probably made it easier to justify his decision to himself.
Finally, keep in mind that the unhealthy relationship between Fisher, the athletics department and the Boosters was only going to get worse had he stayed on.
Because he quickly resurrected the program and guided the team to incredible heights with a national championship in 2013, Fisher had firmly established his credibility and had plenty of clout. As such, most everyone deferred to his decisions and shied away from offering alternative viewpoints. However, as the losses mounted, and his credibility began to wane, many began to question his behavior and actions -- at least behind the scenes.
Without the shield of wins and championships to protect him from criticism, he was going to have little support going forward. With so many burned bridges, building the program back up might have seemed like too difficult a task for Fisher to take on. On the other hand, getting a fresh start in College Station with a receptive administration probably looked like a more attractive path.
How did everything play out behind the scenes?
One of the most interesting aspects of covering the final few weeks of Jimbo Fisher’s tenure at Florida State was how he interacted with people around him. Of course, everybody is aware of his constant jabs and barbs at the media during his final few press conferences. He was obviously very uncomfortable with all the chatter that he might be headed to Texas A&M, and he decided to take out his frustrations on anyone who wrote or talked about it.
Even though most of us with sources close to the situation were convinced he already had one foot out the door, Fisher's close friends generally felt otherwise. It seems as if he kept all of them in the dark. I had a conversation with someone inside the football program just days before he left who was completely convinced he was staying. For the people closest to him, Fisher continued to act like nothing had changed and that all the talk about A&M was just the usual media-driven talk about other jobs.
It’s no secret that Fisher desperately wanted to coach the final regular-season game. I’m still not sure why he was so insistent on coaching one more game when he had already decided to take another job. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to leave with a losing record, or maybe he just wanted to coach his players one more time before saying goodbye. Whatever the reason, he was incredibly stubborn when it came to this subject and was determined to hold on for a few more days. In fact, when Ira wrote his column, ‘Jimbo Fisher absolutely must not coach Saturday’, I was told by someone close to him that Fisher went ballistic after reading it.
It finally took Florida State President John Thrasher having to intercede and tell Fisher he would not be allowed to coach Saturday if he was taking the A&M job. By all accounts, that conversation didn’t go well and some heated words were exchanged. The memory of that bitter conversation may explain why Thrasher took his ‘no-brainer’ parting shot at Fisher during Willie Taggart’s introductory press conference.
What’s also a bit surprising is how easily Fisher cut all ties to those within his Florida State circle. Those closest to Fisher, including some who were friends with him for years, have not heard from him since he left for College Station. Phone calls and texts from friends have either been ignored, or at least in one case, resulted in a terse reply. This includes some of his former assistant coaches and top-level boosters. We already knew that he didn’t exactly keep his players in the loop or leave on the best of terms either.
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Scholz, the other 5 articles in that series are pretty interesting as well.
This bullshit about FSU not having enough resources or the administration not being committed was cooked up by Jimbo and his agent.
Aggy is paying 75 million guaranteed to a ticking time bomb with a serious personality disorder.
This bullshit about FSU not having enough resources or the administration not being committed was cooked up by Jimbo and his agent.
Aggy is paying 75 million guaranteed to a ticking time bomb with a serious personality disorder.
