Jimbo Fisher Goes Off On Pay-For-Play And Tampering In College Football Recruiting

Texas AM football head coach Jimbo Fisher

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Texas A&M Football head coach Jimbo Fisher took the podium for his National Signing Day press conference where he was peppered with question from CFB reporters.

The Texas A&M Aggies were one of College Football’s biggest stories this year. They entered the season being touted as a potential contender for the National Championship after having signed the highest-rated recruiting class in NCAAF history in 2022, a class that included 8 5* recruits.

It’s at this moment that Mike Tyson’s quote comes to mind: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Jimbo Fisher’s Aggies finished 2-6 in SEC play, 5-7 overall, and 0-4 on the road. Their shortcomings triggered an exodus to the NCAAF Transfer Portal after a season of discussions about what it might cost for Texas A&M to remove Jimbo Fisher.

2023 National Signing Day isn’t over yet but Texas A&M is well behind 2022’s pace and currently has the 14th ranked class according to 247sports. Jimbo Fisher fielded questions about this while discussing ‘pay-for-play‘.

That press conference starts at the 16:56 mark. Around the 25th minute in the video, Jimbo Fisher was asked if it was difficult to recruit an offensive player without having named an offensive coordinator. Fisher said it ‘had no effect at all’ on recruiting these players.

The reporter then asked Jimbo ‘overall, did you ever picture things going this way as far as Transfer Portals, NIL, things like that?’

Fisher said “in college football? I knew eventually pay-for-play… I didn’t know NIL like it came about.” He added to that thought with “Like I said, the problem with all of it is there’s no consistency in the rules. And then when you get into the portal there’s so much tampering going on. It’s utterly ridiculous.”

Jimbo elaborated with “I mean it’s a joke, an absolute joke and it’s ruining college football. I heard a coach at UTSA the other day.. Those guys there, all of a sudden everybody’s robbing their players and abusing them. That level (of) players. This is not good for college football.”

The Aggies heac coach continued “As far as how it’s done. I’m not saying being able to transfer is not bad, I’m not saying paying players is not bad.” Jimbo Fisher added “But the current rules and status of how it’s done and the way it’s done is ridiculous.”

Jimbo Fisher added that he doesn’t believe illegal tampering was involved with the players that left Texas A&M.