Jimbo Fisher Fired as Texas A&M HC; Reportedly Will Receive $77M Contract Buyout

Jimbo Fisher's time as the head coach of the Texas A&M football team is over, Texas A&M Director of Athletics Ross Bjork announced on Sunday.

"After very careful analysis of all the components related to Texas A&M football, I recommended to President Welsh and then Chancellor Sharp that a change in the leadership of the program was necessary in order for Aggie football to reach our full potential and they accepted my decision. We appreciate Coach Fisher's time here at Texas A&M and we wish him the best in his future endeavors."

While the Aggies defeated Mississippi State on Saturday, they are just 6-4 overall and 4-3 in SEC play on the season.

ESPN's Pete Thamel reported associate head coach Elijah Robinson will take over in an interim role.

This will be a costly move for Texas A&M.

As Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports noted, Fisher's contract that was extended ahead of the 2021 campaign "is believed to be fully guaranteed and was, at the time, worth about $95 million." As a result, he is expected to receive "the largest single buyout paid to a football coach" that "will nearly eclipse the entire amount spent to buy out coaches last year, which hovered around $90 million."

Thamel reported the plan is to fully honor the contract. He also pointed out the $76 million owed to Fisher "is more than double the known buyout paid to a fired college head coach."

Despite the financial implications of such a move, Dellenger reported "intense pressure" has been building to make such a decision among the school's fanbase, donors and administrators.

With that as the backdrop, the Texas A&M University Board of Regents met for more than four hours on Thursday to lay the groundwork for such a move.

Fisher came to the Aggies before the 2018 campaign after eight seasons as the head coach of Florida State. He won a BCS national championship and two Orange Bowls with the Seminoles. He also reached the College Football Playoff in 2014 and went 83-23 during his tenure with the ACC program.

That success seemed to set the stage for an ideal partnership between an accomplished coach and an SEC team with plenty of resources.

It started that way with the Aggies showing notable improvement from Fisher's first two years into his third. That third season was the shortened 2020 one, which saw them go 9-1, win the Orange Bowl and just miss the CFP.

It turned out to be the highlight of Fisher's tenure.

Texas A&M went just 4-4 in the SEC in 2021 and an ugly 2-6 in 2022. It is 5-10 in its last 15 games against Power 5 opponents and will settle for a lower-level bowl this year following a 6-4 start regardless of how it does in the final two games against Abilene Christian and LSU.

The Aggies never made the SEC Championship Game during Fisher's six seasons and are well behind the likes of Georgia and Alabama in the conference. The school's leadership decided it was time to make a change and reportedly did so Sunday.