When Jimbo Fisher quit the FSU job to come to Texas A&M in 2018 to the tune of $75 million, he left the Seminoles program as the head coach with the highest winning percentage in school history. If he ever leaves A&M, it will be with the legacy of creating perhaps the most overrated and over-funded program in college football.
Fisher is currently 3-2 in 2022 with losses to Appalachian State and Mississippi State. He has yet to face Alabama, Ole Miss, and LSU. A Fisher-led A&M team has never lost more than five games, and they may be staring down that figure again this fall.
But if the A&M boosters were to decide they wanted to fire Jimbo after this season, his payout would be nearly $86 million due to a contract extension granted by the school last year.
The Jimbo Fisher buyout breakdown via @cjogara is just staggering.
— Jim Weber (@JimMWeber) October 5, 2022
For comparison, Charlie Weis' mind-boggling buyout with Notre Dame was $19 million when he was fired in 2009.
Notre Dame could have bought out Weis 3 more times & STILL spent less than A&M if they can Jimbo. pic.twitter.com/FHLav2rGtS
Wait until next year? Just shy of $77 million. The end of 2024? $67,550,000. Fisher is essentially locked into this position until the end of the decade. Once 2030 rolls around, they’ll be able to buy him out for less than $10 million — but what happens between now and then?
It’s safe to say that Fisher’s job is secure for at least the next year or two, as A&M, despite their booster network’s bottomless pockets, likely can’t justify that kind of spending. There’s also the question of what A&M’s ceiling is, Fisher or no Fisher.
Their financial resources are seemingly unlimited, but they are still competing in the SEC. Fisher has won at least eight games every season since he was hired. He beat Alabama last year, the first time the Aggies have done that since 2012. Is an eight-win annual minimum a fireable offense?
The curse that will have Fisher’s job on the line in a few years has less to do with his records and more to do with the hype that constantly surrounds the program. They pull in top-three recruiting classes regularly, they start the season ranked high in the AP Poll, they spend all the money they can to make sure that they have all of the best resources available — and yet there’s still a ceiling that they just can’t seem to get past.
It’s Fisher’s fifth year. He has all his own recruits and he’s settled into the job, so it doesn’t seem like it’s a “matter of time” situation until he finally makes it work. Nonetheless he has all the time in the world thanks to his agent, the legendary Jimmy Sexton. Sexton and his agency CAA seem to represent every college football you know, and with his latest deal for Fisher finally found the amount that the boosters are unwilling to shell out to a coach who no longer works for them.