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Jimbo Fisher Got VERY Defensive While Denying That Texas A&M Spent A Small Fortune On Recruiting

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  • Texas A&M football booster allegedly spent a lot of money on NIL deals for this year’s No. 1 recruiting class.
  • However, head coach Jimbo Fisher got very defensive and claimed that NIL had nothing to do with the 2022 class.
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Texas A&M football finished Wednesday’s National Signing Day with the highest-ranked recruiting class in history. The Aggies finished with seven five-stars, 18 four-stars and three three-stars.

A&M’s incredible recruiting class comes four years after head coach Jimbo Fisher left Florida State for the head coaching job in College Station. It also comes in the first year under the NCAA’s new rules on Name, Image and Likeness.

The No. 1-ranked class and NIL potentially have huge ties to one another. It is having a massive impact all over the country.

In previous years, recruits received money under the table in turn for their commitment. It was illegal and schools were punished for their violations— just look at Hugh Freeze and Ole Miss.

After finishing the 2013 recruiting cycle with the No. 8-ranked class, Freeze tweeted the following, which was completely unnecessary and directly implicated both him and his program:

A few years later, the Rebels got popped for violating recruiting rules and received significant sanctions from the NCAA.

That was then, NIL is now.

Rather than paying recruits below the table, it can be done above ground. Programs cannot pay recruits directly in turn for their commitment. But NIL is a workaround.

Here is how it is allegedly being done at Texas A&M, and all over the country:

  1. A recruit is targeted for a specific recruiting class.
  2. A “point donor” then heads the recruiting effort.
  3. The “point donor” gathers other donors around him.
  4. Those donors create an LLC.
  5. The LLC sponsors the targeted recruit and pays out deals for NIL if/when he enrolls.
  6. That recruit, upon arrival on campus, receives money from the LLC.
  7. In turn, the recruit promotes the LLC and its “cause,” whether that be a charity or a business.

Again, it is perfectly legal in today’s day and age. Nick Saban gave a warning (that sounded more like a threat) about it in early January and Lane Kiffin even joked about how much the Aggies may have spent on this year’s class on the day before National Signing Day.

Early in the new year, a report surfaced about how much money Texas A&M’s boosters spent on NIL to land their 28 Class of 2022 recruits. Regardless of the exact number that was spent via NIL, it is nearly impossible to imagine that the Aggies did not spend a small fortune. It is completely legal to do so and it worked.

Jimbo Fisher, however, is denying that NIL had anything to do with his recruiting class.

In an interview on Wednesday, Fisher got very defensive while talking about A&M’s recruiting class.

Here are his full comments, in which he sounds very defensive about not doing the things that were previously reported:

And then he doubled down and was even more angry:

In his comments, Fisher says that he “knows how some of those guys” — referring to other coaches in the NCAA — “recruit too.” The word “too” is a synonym for the word “also.” Hmmmmm.

Fisher’s comments are hilarious both in and out of context. To make things even more curious, Texas A&M’s athletic director Ross Bjork, who previously oversaw the program at Ole Miss that was hit with NCAA sanctions for its impermissible behavior, also got very defensive earlier this month.

NIL has changed the way in which college football works and Fisher even said so himself. Multiple times.

I rest my case.