ESPN / Matt Barrie Show
Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh was probably thankful for a change in the news cycle when the Aggies partied with their head coach on Sunday, forking over a record-setting $77.5 million buyout in the process just so he would walk away.
The past two seasons in College Station were particularly rough for Jimbo but anyone paying attention knew Fisher’s time at Texas A&M University was cursed from Day 1 when they presented him with a trophy reading ’20– NCAA Division I Football National Championship’ back when he was hired. If a script writer were mocking up a surefire way to anger the College Football Gods™, that was it.
Now, Jimbo Fisher has an extra $77.5 million added to his net worth and he’s getting paid to not coach. But SEC insider Paul Finebaum doesn’t see Jimbo Fisher sitting idly for too long. On The Matt Barrie Show, Paul Finebaum admitted he doesn’t know the intricacies of Jimbo Fisher’s buyout but he spoke about Jimbo’s immediate future on Monday and he doesn’t envision a world where Jimbo sits idly by.
Paul Finebaum: “Jimbo’s uh… He’s one of the all-time strange folks that you see in this industry. I don’t see doing well breeding cattle and I think he wants to coach. That’s who he is. By the way, I really don’t care, it’s not like Jimbo Fisher’s ever going to be relevant on this program again.”
That last part has to sting if you’re anyone in Jimbo Fisher’s orbit watching Paul Finebaum’s show from home. Of course, Jimbo could be relevant in the SEC again at some point but much like Jimbo Fisher set FSU’s program back half a decade when he left the Seminoles in ruins by not recruiting for a year and allowing the O-Line to turn to dust, Jimbo Fisher’s career will take several years of proper rehabilitation at this point.
It remains to be seen if Jimbo Fisher is too proud to take a coordinator job at this point because I know there are some SEC schools that would love to have him. He’s certainly rich enough to call his own shots for the rest of his life but as Paul Finebaum said, Jimbo Fisher is the ‘one of the all-time strange folks’ in College Football and he wants to coach. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes from here, there are certainly some schools out there who would love to have him even after the TAMU debacle.