Perhaps no coach in college football is facing more pressure than Jimbo Fisher, who is getting paid a dump truck load of money to fix the broken program at Texas A&M. The school laid out a green carpet for the national title-winning coach after firing Kevin Sumlin, and now it’s time to turn things around.
One of the biggest reasons Sumlin got the ax is that his program was famous for late-game and late-season collapses (like this one).
Toughness and grit weren’t exactly overflowing under his rule. This was the subject of a discussion on the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum Show Friday night. ESPN college football analyst Booger McFarland was on, and he related a conversation he recently had with Fisher on the topic.
“I talked to Jimbo in Atlanta. I told Jimbo point-blank — the same thing I told you guys about Texas A&M the last several years — A&M is a soft program,” McFarland said (h/t Bryan Fischer of College Football Talk). “Jimbo looked me in the eye and was like, ‘You know what, you’re damn right. We are soft, but I’m going to change that.’”
Hopefully Sumlin wasn’t listening to that, because ouch.
On a somewhat related note, Aggies players better be ready for a brutal, physical camp this summer. Clearly, Fisher is throwing down the gauntlet and is going to put the screws to his guys as he drills a new culture into their souls.