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Tell Me About Texas a&m

MrPhlegm

By MrPhlegm
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EastTexan

EastTexan 673

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5 hours ago, Pimphand said:

Just when you think the aggycoaster might be down for repairs they go and do the yeoman's work and get that birch back online.

Last in the SEC? Recruiting in the shitter? Preseason #6 to 5-7? Leading the nation in transfer portal exodus? What is your forecast for the future?

Jimbo will win us a natty

the word "natty" is cringe worthy. hate that I even typed it.

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Eskimohorn

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Our pipe band had a Burns Dinner (Scottish Poet) two years ago, coming out of the Covid mess. I had picked up a UT face covering because a lot of people coming were older and we wanted to accommodate them and their concerns. We had a stranger show up who was in the Air Force. When he saw my covering he immediately started talking shit about UT as he announced he graduated as a corps member at Aggyland. I just ignored him because he was such a dweeb.      We had two young guys is our band, one who graduated VMI & the other, the Citadel. When dweeb boy found out, he immediately began to talk of their comraderies as graduates of military institutions. Later they both told me that it happens all the time. They also said every corps turd they met did the same thing and they were all as annoying as this guy was. They didn't think much of the corps of cadets and their military training. 

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Bill Lumbergh

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3 minutes ago, Horn80 said:

I’ve known a few aggy that actually did go into military service but interestingly, I noticed they all seem to get washed out.  

I think they tend to be surprised by the hard shit that goes into actual service and the lack of yelling, whooping, boot sliding, horn sawing, and nut squeezing.

Somehow the aggy experience is failing to set appropriate expectations.

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sdm

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7 hours ago, Pimphand said:

Just when you think the aggycoaster might be down for repairs they go and do the yeoman's work and get that birch back online.

Last in the SEC? Recruiting in the shitter? Preseason #6 to 5-7? Leading the nation in transfer portal exodus? What is your forecast for the future?

Jimbo will win us a natty

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More likely that Natty won us a Jimbo.

Truer words have never been spoken.

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Pimphand

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1 hour ago, mdleast said:

Absolutely agree. Double cringe when aggy uses it as I always read it to imply that they are SO familiar with national championships that they have to shorten the phrase to save time.

To be fair to aggy they do talk about it all the time primarily because they have played 83 seasons without playing for one since.

They are like Willam in Mallrats looking for the sailboat that everyone else can see

 

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Deej

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5 hours ago, mdleast said:


Absolutely agree. Double cringe when aggy uses it as I always read it to imply that they are SO familiar with national championships that they have to shorten the phrase to save time.

They have to shorten it to fit with all the other fake ones on the stadium wall. 

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WBT

WBT 20997

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Long article on the Athletic today

Spoiler

Texas A&M had national title hopes, a $94.9 million coach and a No. 1 recruiting class. What went wrong?

Sam Khan Jr. and Andy Staples
Dec 8, 2022

299

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Everyone wanted a piece of Jimbo Fisher.

As thousands celebrated on Kyle Field on Nov. 26, the Texas A&M coach required an entourage to get to the locker room. Two uniformed officers worked in front of him to clear the fans craning their necks and extending their smartphones for snapshots. Fisher’s wife, Courtney, walked briskly at his side, her left arm locked into his right, with Fisher’s son, Ethan, also in tow.

 

“Yes sir, Jimbo!” a fan yelled. “Yes sir, Jimbo!”

Fisher looked up and gave a “Gig ‘em” thumbs-up. He high-fived athletic director Ross Bjork, who sported a wide grin. Fans and reporters walked along to record the moment following the Aggies’ 38-23 win over then-No. 5 LSU.

However, they weren’t celebrating clinching a College Football Playoff berth or even the SEC West. It was the team’s first Power 5 win since September, punctuating a disastrous 5-7 season, Fisher’s worst in five years in Aggieland.

Texas A&M had national championship dreams when it hired Fisher, one of only five active coaches with a title ring, away from Florida State. The Aggies awarded him two massive contracts – the latest a fully guaranteed 10-year, $94.9 million deal in 2021. Yet despite four top-10 recruiting hauls and the highest-rated signing class in history in 2022, they looked this season farther from that goal than they were under predecessor Kevin Sumlin and in the mostly mediocre Dennis Franchione and Mike Sherman eras.

There was a stunning Week 2 home loss to Appalachian State. A six-game losing streak, A&M’s longest in 50 years. Instead of 100,000 swaying fans at Kyle Field, there was an embarrassingly sparse home crowd in the penultimate game vs. UMass.

Multiple freshmen from the Aggies’ record-setting class missed games because of suspensions. Injuries and maturity issues plagued the roster. Texas A&M’s 2022 season was an unequivocal nightmare that left the program at a critical crossroads, with questions about the direction of the offense, the stability of the roster and even Fisher himself, as fans called for his firing.

But it would have cost the university $86 million to do so.

Such a move was never on the table, two Texas A&M sources, who declined to speak publicly about Fisher’s contract, told The Athletic. The buyout is too prohibitive. In fact, said a source with knowledge of internal athletic department discussions, it wouldn’t have been on the table if the buyout had been half that.

 

But the next year likely will determine whether the Fisher and Texas A&M marriage will work long-term. Can the Aggies keep the core of a talented but as-yet unaccomplished roster from entering the transfer portal? Can Fisher rein in the disciplinary issues that plagued the team this season? And, perhaps most importantly, is he willing to relinquish control of the offense once and for all?

Things felt different in Aggieland in February when Texas A&M signed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, an honor claimed only by Alabama or Georgia since 2011. College football’s powers took notice.

“You don’t like that we’re coming on?” Fisher said on signing day. “Get used to it. We ain’t going nowhere.”

Inking 18 national top-100 players put Texas A&M in an elite club, one whose members are stocked with the talent required to compete for national championships. The Aggies defeated Alabama in 2021 and would enter this fall ranked No. 6.

But baseless accusations that a $30 million war chest — via name, image and likeness deals — was largely responsible for A&M’s recruiting success irritated Fisher, who called the claims “garbage.”

And irritation turned to anger in May, when Alabama coach Nick Saban publicly claimed that the Aggies “bought every player on their team.” Fisher called an impromptu news conference the next morning and lambasted Saban, calling him a “narcissist,” “despicable” and alleging recruiting skeletons in Saban’s closet. (Bjork told The Athletic that day that most of A&M’s signing class did not yet have NIL deals).

Yet Texas A&M’s program-wide obsession with constructing the No. 1 overall class and its tepid approach to the transfer portal would prove problematic. Depth gaps from past recruiting misses that could have been filled by experienced transfers instead went to underclassmen.

 

Player availability became a primary issue. Whether because of injury, illness or suspension, the Aggies seemed perpetually shorthanded.

“We were decimated by injuries,” former Texas A&M offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey told The Athletic shortly after his departure. “Getting guys hurt played a big, big role. And I know people do not want to hear that, but it’s a fact.”

Expected A&M starters missed at least 86 combined games this season because of injury or illness, and all three quarterbacks who started missed at least a game. The offensive line was hit hardest, where starting center Bryce Foster missed eight games and five players started at left guard.

As a result, true freshmen and redshirt freshmen accounted for 72 combined starts. The line of scrimmage saw the biggest influx of youth, with freshmen starting 27 combined games across the offensive line and 15 combined on the defensive line.

In November, Fisher was asked if strength and conditioning had become an issue. Aggies head strength coach Jerry Schmidt left in the offseason to join Brent Venables’ Oklahoma staff. Fisher dismissed that idea and chalked it up to bad luck.

“When you break bones, that’s not strength and conditioning,” Fisher said, citing turf toe injuries and quarterback Max Johnson’s broken thumb. “When a knee goes, that’s not strength and conditioning. … We have an excellent strength and conditioning program.”

Player discipline also impacted A&M’s weekly lineup. Before the Week 3 win over Miami, four freshmen were suspended for the game for a violation of team rules: defensive backs Denver Harris and Smoke Bouie and receivers Evan Stewart and Chris Marshall. Later in the season, Harris, Marshall and two other freshmen, offensive tackle PJ Williams and defensive end Anthony Lucas, were suspended because of a locker room incident at South Carolina, in the middle of A&M’s losing streak, and missed the final five games.

Williams was arrested Nov. 19 and charged with a felony count of marijuana possession after police reported finding 7.7 ounces of marijuana in a bag that had a Texas A&M football name tag attached. Receiver Yulkeith Brown missed the final five games for non-injury related reasons, according to Fisher.

After A&M’s 13-10 loss to Auburn in November, the Aggies’ sixth in a row, sophomore receiver Moose Muhammad III — A&M’s second-leading receiver this season — tweeted that he was benched for wearing arm sleeves.

 

Fisher declined to elaborate on the matter two days later. With the team at 3-7 and mired in a historic losing streak, everything seemed to be falling apart.

Because of all the young players in key roles, maturity issues bogged down the Aggies. One parent of a current A&M player, who was granted anonymity in exchange for candor, told The Athletic that the narrative that Fisher lost the locker room was a misconception, but noted that many of the young players struggled to adjust to the demands of college life, particularly off the football field.

Freshmen or sophomores who spent some of their final high school years in pandemic-induced hybrid or remote learning situations were slow to adapt to the regimen required of college football players, including meeting punctuality, making curfew and maintaining academic responsibilities, the parent said. The Aggies weren’t alone in the sport in dealing with this, but the prevalence of young players in the lineup magnified it at A&M.

“I think they bought into, ‘Yeah, I want to play and I want to win,’” the parent said. “’But am I willing to do all the (off-the-field) things right?’”

The myriad off-field issues kept coaches busy, sometimes detracting from football, the parent said. An athletic department source, who declined to speak publicly about Fisher’s performance, said the lack of accountability fell in part on Fisher, who often didn’t have enough time to build the offensive game plan and make sure players who committed minor offenses were dealt with in a way that discouraged repeat behavior.

The more serious matters interrupted Fisher’s game-planning. The South Carolina incident occupied much of Fisher’s time while he and the staff were also trying to prep true freshman quarterback Conner Weigman for his first career start.

After an up-and-down 2021 season, in which the Aggies were good enough one night to beat Alabama but struggled in losses to Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss, there were numerous questions about the offense.

From quarterback play to Fisher’s effectiveness as its offensive coordinator — he game plans, calls the plays and coaches the quarterbacks — questions multiplied. Had Fisher lost his touch? He was asked in July, given the ever-increasing responsibilities placed on head coaches, whether he would consider giving up play calling.

Fisher has called plays his entire head coaching career, including when Florida State won the 2013 national championship, made the 2014 College Football Playoff and when the Aggies went 9-1 and finished fourth in the polls in 2020. It’s a point of pride.

“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “That’s the job I did to get here. The success … that was my expertise of things I did well, so I still love that.”

When asked if he could envision not calling plays, Fisher said “Could that happen? Yes. But not right now.”

Though Fisher retained control over the offense, he moved Dickey from quarterbacks coach to tight ends coach, tight ends coach James Coley to receivers coach and receivers coach Dameyune Craig to quarterbacks coach.

The timing seemed curious. Typically, staff changes happen before spring football, allowing players and coaches to get acclimated. Fisher explained the move in August as “the dynamic of how we do things and where we want to go.”

Looking back, it may have been a sign of A&M’s coming offensive dysfunction.

“(As we) had the previous four years, we all had different sections that we were in charge of in terms of game planning and that didn’t change a lot,” Dickey said. “I don’t think there was anything negative that came out of it.”

The alarm bells on Texas A&M’s 2022 season first rang on Sept. 10 and they were deafening. The No. 6 Aggies, who were 17.5-point favorites over Appalachian State, were limited to a measly 38 offensive snaps and seven offensive points in a 17-14 home loss.

Suddenly, a program thought to be trending toward elite status had major questions in Year 5 of the Fisher era. The biggest ones surrounded the head coach, whose offense generated a miniscule 180 yards against a Sun Belt team that went on to finish 6-6.

“We did not execute and play at the level we needed to,” Fisher said, “and that’s my fault.”

App State held the ball for a whopping 41 minutes and 29 seconds.

“I felt like A&M was a little bit like, We’ll roll the ball out there, beat you guys and shake hands after,” an App State staffer, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about his experience against the Aggies, told The Athletic. “It wasn’t like these guys had a ton of tenacity. … You’ve got the No. 1 signing class and all these big-time dudes. They look good and they’re pretty and they’re gonna be great players, but at the end of the day, it’s a dogfight and you’ve got to go win games.”

Said Dickey: “It made us realize that we need to grow up fast.”

A quarterback change from Haynes King to Johnson after the loss helped the Aggies win consecutive low-scoring affairs over Miami and Arkansas the next two weeks, but the problems were far from solved.

Play calling and offensive strategy became a weekly battleground. The Aggies would put on an underwhelming display and Fisher would be peppered with questions about why the offense wasn’t working. As the losses mounted, Fisher grew more irritable by the week.

After a 42-24 loss at Mississippi State, asked if confidence in his offensive system was shaken, Fisher said no.

“The plays are there and we’re there,” he said. “That system is the same system a lot of people use.”

Why wasn’t it clicking?

“We’re not executing.”

The snapshots of the Aggies’ futility were plentiful. The incomplete pass in the end zone of a 24-20 loss at Alabama. A scoreless second and third quarter in a three-point October loss to Ole Miss. A scoreless second half in a home loss to Florida. A 10-point showing against Auburn and a meager 20 against UMass, which finished 1-11.

Fans grew to loathe the images of Fisher shuffling a stack of papers thick enough to make one wonder if he was calling plays or doing his taxes. The Aggies called multiple timeouts to avoid penalties because they weren’t ready to snap the ball. Fisher maintained a firm grip on the offensive operation through it all.

When questioned about the struggles, Fisher often came back to one word that became the bane of A&M fans’ existence: execution.

After the loss to Florida, it was a consistent refrain.

“We had a chance on it, just didn’t execute.”

“Got to execute and, again, find the inches.”

“Guys were in a good place with what we were doing, thought we had a good plan … got to execute and coach it better.”

By season’s end, the numbers were damning. Against FBS teams, the Aggies averaged only 348 yards per game, 97th in the country and 12th in the SEC. Their 22 points per game against FBS competition also rated 97th nationally and 13th in the conference. Texas A&M finished 102nd in third-down conversions, succeeding only 34.2 percent of the time against FBS teams, and last in the SEC. The Aggies’ red zone touchdown percentage vs. FBS ranked 12th in the conference. They endured a more than yearlong stretch where they failed to reach 30 points against a Power 5 team.

On his morning radio show, “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” on WJOX-FM in Birmingham, ESPN and SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic ranted in October about A&M’s lack of offensive creativity for everyone except Alabama.

“Texas A&M’s offense will go, two, three, four-game stretches and you’ll see almost no motion, almost no pre-snap movement, almost no different formations, and almost no uneven formations, and then they get in the Alabama game, and it’s a motion on every play,” Cubelic said. “And it’s uneven formations on almost every play. And it’s pre- and post-snap movement … on almost every play.

Jordan Rodgers, a former Vanderbilt quarterback and SEC Network analyst, charted how much pre-snap motion the Aggies used in the first half of the season. In four of the first five games, A&M used it on less than 25 percent of snaps, including 18 percent against App State. Against Alabama, where the Aggies were a play away from a possible upset, it shot up to 43 percent (50 percent if excluding end-of-game two minute offense, which rarely involves motion because of the time crunch).

“How and why can you save something that works for one team every year?” Cubelic wondered.

An opposing SEC assistant concurred, telling The Athletic that he didn’t see the Aggies use much creativity or a variety of formations that would create conflict in opposing defenses and ease the burden on the quarterbacks.

During A&M’s six-game losing streak, the Aggies used 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three receivers), at more than an 80 percent clip five times and 76 percent once, according to TruMedia. A&M used 11 personnel less than 70 percent of the time in six games — which translated to more variety — and the Aggies went 5-1.

As the struggles persisted, calls for a quarterback change grew louder from fans. Five-star quarterback recruit Weigman waited in the wings and Fisher consistently said the true freshman could handle the offense and play well if called upon.

When that time finally arrived Oct. 29 vs. Ole Miss, Weigman dazzled, leading consecutive touchdown drives to open the game.

But A&M went scoreless in the second and third quarters before Weigman triggered a 14-point rally in the fourth. The common denominator in those scoring spurts? The Aggies pushed the offensive tempo, something Weigman did a lot of at Bridgeland High.

Weigman succeeded in hurry-up looks in A&M’s season-ending win over LSU also, raising questions as to why the Aggies didn’t do it more often.

Fisher bristled at the suggestion.

“We’re so caught up in tempo,” he said. “Name me a tempo team that’s won the national championship. … There ain’t one. Tempo ain’t won a national championship, all right?

“So teams line up and play good football. You can run tempo and you can have parts of it and use tempo off and on. But pure tempo teams haven’t won one.”

In the win against LSU, some of the creativity absent before suddenly sprouted. The Aggies used two-back formations on 24 of 68 snaps (35.3 percent) according to TruMedia. In the previous 11 games, A&M used it on just 40 of 689 snaps, only 5.8 percent of the time.

Against the Tigers, A&M displayed multiple two-back formations, including 22 personnel (two running backs, two tight ends), which the Aggies hadn’t used since the Alabama game. A&M only used 22 personnel in four games: Miami, Arkansas, Alabama and LSU, four of the five ranked teams they played.

GettyImages-1441493397-scaled.jpg
 
(Michael Chang / Getty Images)

The transfer portal opened Monday and 20 Aggies have entered since. Only two started double-digit games at A&M: linebacker Andre White Jr. and receiver Chase Lane. Two of the four 2022 recruits who entered played significant roles: cornerback Denver Harris and receiver Chris Marshall. Losing two five-star prospects is noteworthy, but given their suspensions this season, neither was unexpected.

Most of the entrants were reserves or saw limited snaps — eight of them played two or fewer games in 2022. Young receivers Muhammad and Evan Stewart look like they’ll be back. A group of freshmen defensive linemen — including defensive linemen LT Overton, Shemar Stewart and Walter Nolen — who contributed to a solid, though not perfect 2022 defensive performance, remain despite overtures from other programs.

The portal will be open for 41 more days and reopens in May, but confidence is high that the best of the talent Texas A&M accumulated will remain in College Station. And the Aggies received good news on Wednesday night, when five-star 2023 running back recruit Rueben Owens announced his commitment to A&M, the first offensive skill position player in the recruiting class.

In November, Fisher privately articulated a plan to fix the offense that included staff changes. But after defeating LSU with the Aggies’ best performance of the season, he created a brief panic by saying publicly, “There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”

Leadership can make every suggestion it wants, but with $86 million guaranteed still due to Fisher, there’s little it can do to force his hand.

The concerns were short-lived. Since the season ended, Fisher fired Dickey, the Aggies offensive coordinator in name only since 2018, on Nov. 28 to clear the way for a new OC. People within Texas A&M’s program and in the coaching agent community have said Fisher is telling prospective hires that he intends to hand over the reins of the offense to whoever gets the job.

Behind the scenes at Texas A&M, the message is that Fisher realizes the time has come to give up play calling and wants to concentrate more on the CEO duties that continue to consume more of his time every year.

“The messaging is right,” an A&M source told The Athletic. “He’s (telling candidates) ‘It’s your show.’”

Meanwhile, coaches throughout the country are wondering two things: Who will Fisher hire, and will Fisher stay out of the play calling once the games begin?

Outside the program, coaches will believe it when they see it.

“I wouldn’t take that job unless they offered to pay me what they’re paying Jimbo,” said a Power 5 coordinator who is not a candidate for the job.

Hyperbole aside, money won’t be an issue in the offensive coordinator hire. Administration and donors are eager to help Fisher fix the problem.

“We’re all being supportive of coach,” Bjork said. “We’re all in this. We’re going to provide him the resources to compete at the highest level.”

 

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jimmyjazz

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I had managed to avoid that shithole my entire life until a couple of years ago when my kid's soccer team made semis in some state tournament.

Good lord, it's so far away from "elite food".  We tried some 'cue, thinking "how bad could you fuck this up?", and then we found out.  After that we simply defaulted to Domino's and some random burger joint.

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SHOOTER12

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4 hours ago, WBT said:

Long article on the Athletic today

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Texas A&M had national title hopes, a $94.9 million coach and a No. 1 recruiting class. What went wrong?

Sam Khan Jr. and Andy Staples
Dec 8, 2022

299

 

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Everyone wanted a piece of Jimbo Fisher.

As thousands celebrated on Kyle Field on Nov. 26, the Texas A&M coach required an entourage to get to the locker room. Two uniformed officers worked in front of him to clear the fans craning their necks and extending their smartphones for snapshots. Fisher’s wife, Courtney, walked briskly at his side, her left arm locked into his right, with Fisher’s son, Ethan, also in tow.

 

“Yes sir, Jimbo!” a fan yelled. “Yes sir, Jimbo!”

Fisher looked up and gave a “Gig ‘em” thumbs-up. He high-fived athletic director Ross Bjork, who sported a wide grin. Fans and reporters walked along to record the moment following the Aggies’ 38-23 win over then-No. 5 LSU.

However, they weren’t celebrating clinching a College Football Playoff berth or even the SEC West. It was the team’s first Power 5 win since September, punctuating a disastrous 5-7 season, Fisher’s worst in five years in Aggieland.

Texas A&M had national championship dreams when it hired Fisher, one of only five active coaches with a title ring, away from Florida State. The Aggies awarded him two massive contracts – the latest a fully guaranteed 10-year, $94.9 million deal in 2021. Yet despite four top-10 recruiting hauls and the highest-rated signing class in history in 2022, they looked this season farther from that goal than they were under predecessor Kevin Sumlin and in the mostly mediocre Dennis Franchione and Mike Sherman eras.

There was a stunning Week 2 home loss to Appalachian State. A six-game losing streak, A&M’s longest in 50 years. Instead of 100,000 swaying fans at Kyle Field, there was an embarrassingly sparse home crowd in the penultimate game vs. UMass.

Multiple freshmen from the Aggies’ record-setting class missed games because of suspensions. Injuries and maturity issues plagued the roster. Texas A&M’s 2022 season was an unequivocal nightmare that left the program at a critical crossroads, with questions about the direction of the offense, the stability of the roster and even Fisher himself, as fans called for his firing.

But it would have cost the university $86 million to do so.

Such a move was never on the table, two Texas A&M sources, who declined to speak publicly about Fisher’s contract, told The Athletic. The buyout is too prohibitive. In fact, said a source with knowledge of internal athletic department discussions, it wouldn’t have been on the table if the buyout had been half that.

 

But the next year likely will determine whether the Fisher and Texas A&M marriage will work long-term. Can the Aggies keep the core of a talented but as-yet unaccomplished roster from entering the transfer portal? Can Fisher rein in the disciplinary issues that plagued the team this season? And, perhaps most importantly, is he willing to relinquish control of the offense once and for all?

Things felt different in Aggieland in February when Texas A&M signed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, an honor claimed only by Alabama or Georgia since 2011. College football’s powers took notice.

“You don’t like that we’re coming on?” Fisher said on signing day. “Get used to it. We ain’t going nowhere.”

Inking 18 national top-100 players put Texas A&M in an elite club, one whose members are stocked with the talent required to compete for national championships. The Aggies defeated Alabama in 2021 and would enter this fall ranked No. 6.

But baseless accusations that a $30 million war chest — via name, image and likeness deals — was largely responsible for A&M’s recruiting success irritated Fisher, who called the claims “garbage.”

And irritation turned to anger in May, when Alabama coach Nick Saban publicly claimed that the Aggies “bought every player on their team.” Fisher called an impromptu news conference the next morning and lambasted Saban, calling him a “narcissist,” “despicable” and alleging recruiting skeletons in Saban’s closet. (Bjork told The Athletic that day that most of A&M’s signing class did not yet have NIL deals).

Yet Texas A&M’s program-wide obsession with constructing the No. 1 overall class and its tepid approach to the transfer portal would prove problematic. Depth gaps from past recruiting misses that could have been filled by experienced transfers instead went to underclassmen.

 

Player availability became a primary issue. Whether because of injury, illness or suspension, the Aggies seemed perpetually shorthanded.

“We were decimated by injuries,” former Texas A&M offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey told The Athletic shortly after his departure. “Getting guys hurt played a big, big role. And I know people do not want to hear that, but it’s a fact.”

Expected A&M starters missed at least 86 combined games this season because of injury or illness, and all three quarterbacks who started missed at least a game. The offensive line was hit hardest, where starting center Bryce Foster missed eight games and five players started at left guard.

As a result, true freshmen and redshirt freshmen accounted for 72 combined starts. The line of scrimmage saw the biggest influx of youth, with freshmen starting 27 combined games across the offensive line and 15 combined on the defensive line.

In November, Fisher was asked if strength and conditioning had become an issue. Aggies head strength coach Jerry Schmidt left in the offseason to join Brent Venables’ Oklahoma staff. Fisher dismissed that idea and chalked it up to bad luck.

“When you break bones, that’s not strength and conditioning,” Fisher said, citing turf toe injuries and quarterback Max Johnson’s broken thumb. “When a knee goes, that’s not strength and conditioning. … We have an excellent strength and conditioning program.”

Player discipline also impacted A&M’s weekly lineup. Before the Week 3 win over Miami, four freshmen were suspended for the game for a violation of team rules: defensive backs Denver Harris and Smoke Bouie and receivers Evan Stewart and Chris Marshall. Later in the season, Harris, Marshall and two other freshmen, offensive tackle PJ Williams and defensive end Anthony Lucas, were suspended because of a locker room incident at South Carolina, in the middle of A&M’s losing streak, and missed the final five games.

Williams was arrested Nov. 19 and charged with a felony count of marijuana possession after police reported finding 7.7 ounces of marijuana in a bag that had a Texas A&M football name tag attached. Receiver Yulkeith Brown missed the final five games for non-injury related reasons, according to Fisher.

After A&M’s 13-10 loss to Auburn in November, the Aggies’ sixth in a row, sophomore receiver Moose Muhammad III — A&M’s second-leading receiver this season — tweeted that he was benched for wearing arm sleeves.

 

Fisher declined to elaborate on the matter two days later. With the team at 3-7 and mired in a historic losing streak, everything seemed to be falling apart.

Because of all the young players in key roles, maturity issues bogged down the Aggies. One parent of a current A&M player, who was granted anonymity in exchange for candor, told The Athletic that the narrative that Fisher lost the locker room was a misconception, but noted that many of the young players struggled to adjust to the demands of college life, particularly off the football field.

Freshmen or sophomores who spent some of their final high school years in pandemic-induced hybrid or remote learning situations were slow to adapt to the regimen required of college football players, including meeting punctuality, making curfew and maintaining academic responsibilities, the parent said. The Aggies weren’t alone in the sport in dealing with this, but the prevalence of young players in the lineup magnified it at A&M.

“I think they bought into, ‘Yeah, I want to play and I want to win,’” the parent said. “’But am I willing to do all the (off-the-field) things right?’”

The myriad off-field issues kept coaches busy, sometimes detracting from football, the parent said. An athletic department source, who declined to speak publicly about Fisher’s performance, said the lack of accountability fell in part on Fisher, who often didn’t have enough time to build the offensive game plan and make sure players who committed minor offenses were dealt with in a way that discouraged repeat behavior.

The more serious matters interrupted Fisher’s game-planning. The South Carolina incident occupied much of Fisher’s time while he and the staff were also trying to prep true freshman quarterback Conner Weigman for his first career start.

After an up-and-down 2021 season, in which the Aggies were good enough one night to beat Alabama but struggled in losses to Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss, there were numerous questions about the offense.

From quarterback play to Fisher’s effectiveness as its offensive coordinator — he game plans, calls the plays and coaches the quarterbacks — questions multiplied. Had Fisher lost his touch? He was asked in July, given the ever-increasing responsibilities placed on head coaches, whether he would consider giving up play calling.

Fisher has called plays his entire head coaching career, including when Florida State won the 2013 national championship, made the 2014 College Football Playoff and when the Aggies went 9-1 and finished fourth in the polls in 2020. It’s a point of pride.

“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “That’s the job I did to get here. The success … that was my expertise of things I did well, so I still love that.”

When asked if he could envision not calling plays, Fisher said “Could that happen? Yes. But not right now.”

Though Fisher retained control over the offense, he moved Dickey from quarterbacks coach to tight ends coach, tight ends coach James Coley to receivers coach and receivers coach Dameyune Craig to quarterbacks coach.

The timing seemed curious. Typically, staff changes happen before spring football, allowing players and coaches to get acclimated. Fisher explained the move in August as “the dynamic of how we do things and where we want to go.”

Looking back, it may have been a sign of A&M’s coming offensive dysfunction.

“(As we) had the previous four years, we all had different sections that we were in charge of in terms of game planning and that didn’t change a lot,” Dickey said. “I don’t think there was anything negative that came out of it.”

The alarm bells on Texas A&M’s 2022 season first rang on Sept. 10 and they were deafening. The No. 6 Aggies, who were 17.5-point favorites over Appalachian State, were limited to a measly 38 offensive snaps and seven offensive points in a 17-14 home loss.

Suddenly, a program thought to be trending toward elite status had major questions in Year 5 of the Fisher era. The biggest ones surrounded the head coach, whose offense generated a miniscule 180 yards against a Sun Belt team that went on to finish 6-6.

“We did not execute and play at the level we needed to,” Fisher said, “and that’s my fault.”

App State held the ball for a whopping 41 minutes and 29 seconds.

“I felt like A&M was a little bit like, We’ll roll the ball out there, beat you guys and shake hands after,” an App State staffer, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about his experience against the Aggies, told The Athletic. “It wasn’t like these guys had a ton of tenacity. … You’ve got the No. 1 signing class and all these big-time dudes. They look good and they’re pretty and they’re gonna be great players, but at the end of the day, it’s a dogfight and you’ve got to go win games.”

Said Dickey: “It made us realize that we need to grow up fast.”

A quarterback change from Haynes King to Johnson after the loss helped the Aggies win consecutive low-scoring affairs over Miami and Arkansas the next two weeks, but the problems were far from solved.

Play calling and offensive strategy became a weekly battleground. The Aggies would put on an underwhelming display and Fisher would be peppered with questions about why the offense wasn’t working. As the losses mounted, Fisher grew more irritable by the week.

After a 42-24 loss at Mississippi State, asked if confidence in his offensive system was shaken, Fisher said no.

“The plays are there and we’re there,” he said. “That system is the same system a lot of people use.”

Why wasn’t it clicking?

“We’re not executing.”

The snapshots of the Aggies’ futility were plentiful. The incomplete pass in the end zone of a 24-20 loss at Alabama. A scoreless second and third quarter in a three-point October loss to Ole Miss. A scoreless second half in a home loss to Florida. A 10-point showing against Auburn and a meager 20 against UMass, which finished 1-11.

Fans grew to loathe the images of Fisher shuffling a stack of papers thick enough to make one wonder if he was calling plays or doing his taxes. The Aggies called multiple timeouts to avoid penalties because they weren’t ready to snap the ball. Fisher maintained a firm grip on the offensive operation through it all.

When questioned about the struggles, Fisher often came back to one word that became the bane of A&M fans’ existence: execution.

After the loss to Florida, it was a consistent refrain.

“We had a chance on it, just didn’t execute.”

“Got to execute and, again, find the inches.”

“Guys were in a good place with what we were doing, thought we had a good plan … got to execute and coach it better.”

By season’s end, the numbers were damning. Against FBS teams, the Aggies averaged only 348 yards per game, 97th in the country and 12th in the SEC. Their 22 points per game against FBS competition also rated 97th nationally and 13th in the conference. Texas A&M finished 102nd in third-down conversions, succeeding only 34.2 percent of the time against FBS teams, and last in the SEC. The Aggies’ red zone touchdown percentage vs. FBS ranked 12th in the conference. They endured a more than yearlong stretch where they failed to reach 30 points against a Power 5 team.

On his morning radio show, “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” on WJOX-FM in Birmingham, ESPN and SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic ranted in October about A&M’s lack of offensive creativity for everyone except Alabama.

“Texas A&M’s offense will go, two, three, four-game stretches and you’ll see almost no motion, almost no pre-snap movement, almost no different formations, and almost no uneven formations, and then they get in the Alabama game, and it’s a motion on every play,” Cubelic said. “And it’s uneven formations on almost every play. And it’s pre- and post-snap movement … on almost every play.

Jordan Rodgers, a former Vanderbilt quarterback and SEC Network analyst, charted how much pre-snap motion the Aggies used in the first half of the season. In four of the first five games, A&M used it on less than 25 percent of snaps, including 18 percent against App State. Against Alabama, where the Aggies were a play away from a possible upset, it shot up to 43 percent (50 percent if excluding end-of-game two minute offense, which rarely involves motion because of the time crunch).

“How and why can you save something that works for one team every year?” Cubelic wondered.

An opposing SEC assistant concurred, telling The Athletic that he didn’t see the Aggies use much creativity or a variety of formations that would create conflict in opposing defenses and ease the burden on the quarterbacks.

During A&M’s six-game losing streak, the Aggies used 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three receivers), at more than an 80 percent clip five times and 76 percent once, according to TruMedia. A&M used 11 personnel less than 70 percent of the time in six games — which translated to more variety — and the Aggies went 5-1.

As the struggles persisted, calls for a quarterback change grew louder from fans. Five-star quarterback recruit Weigman waited in the wings and Fisher consistently said the true freshman could handle the offense and play well if called upon.

When that time finally arrived Oct. 29 vs. Ole Miss, Weigman dazzled, leading consecutive touchdown drives to open the game.

But A&M went scoreless in the second and third quarters before Weigman triggered a 14-point rally in the fourth. The common denominator in those scoring spurts? The Aggies pushed the offensive tempo, something Weigman did a lot of at Bridgeland High.

Weigman succeeded in hurry-up looks in A&M’s season-ending win over LSU also, raising questions as to why the Aggies didn’t do it more often.

Fisher bristled at the suggestion.

“We’re so caught up in tempo,” he said. “Name me a tempo team that’s won the national championship. … There ain’t one. Tempo ain’t won a national championship, all right?

“So teams line up and play good football. You can run tempo and you can have parts of it and use tempo off and on. But pure tempo teams haven’t won one.”

In the win against LSU, some of the creativity absent before suddenly sprouted. The Aggies used two-back formations on 24 of 68 snaps (35.3 percent) according to TruMedia. In the previous 11 games, A&M used it on just 40 of 689 snaps, only 5.8 percent of the time.

Against the Tigers, A&M displayed multiple two-back formations, including 22 personnel (two running backs, two tight ends), which the Aggies hadn’t used since the Alabama game. A&M only used 22 personnel in four games: Miami, Arkansas, Alabama and LSU, four of the five ranked teams they played.

GettyImages-1441493397-scaled.jpg
 
(Michael Chang / Getty Images)

The transfer portal opened Monday and 20 Aggies have entered since. Only two started double-digit games at A&M: linebacker Andre White Jr. and receiver Chase Lane. Two of the four 2022 recruits who entered played significant roles: cornerback Denver Harris and receiver Chris Marshall. Losing two five-star prospects is noteworthy, but given their suspensions this season, neither was unexpected.

Most of the entrants were reserves or saw limited snaps — eight of them played two or fewer games in 2022. Young receivers Muhammad and Evan Stewart look like they’ll be back. A group of freshmen defensive linemen — including defensive linemen LT Overton, Shemar Stewart and Walter Nolen — who contributed to a solid, though not perfect 2022 defensive performance, remain despite overtures from other programs.

The portal will be open for 41 more days and reopens in May, but confidence is high that the best of the talent Texas A&M accumulated will remain in College Station. And the Aggies received good news on Wednesday night, when five-star 2023 running back recruit Rueben Owens announced his commitment to A&M, the first offensive skill position player in the recruiting class.

In November, Fisher privately articulated a plan to fix the offense that included staff changes. But after defeating LSU with the Aggies’ best performance of the season, he created a brief panic by saying publicly, “There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”

Leadership can make every suggestion it wants, but with $86 million guaranteed still due to Fisher, there’s little it can do to force his hand.

The concerns were short-lived. Since the season ended, Fisher fired Dickey, the Aggies offensive coordinator in name only since 2018, on Nov. 28 to clear the way for a new OC. People within Texas A&M’s program and in the coaching agent community have said Fisher is telling prospective hires that he intends to hand over the reins of the offense to whoever gets the job.

Behind the scenes at Texas A&M, the message is that Fisher realizes the time has come to give up play calling and wants to concentrate more on the CEO duties that continue to consume more of his time every year.

“The messaging is right,” an A&M source told The Athletic. “He’s (telling candidates) ‘It’s your show.’”

Meanwhile, coaches throughout the country are wondering two things: Who will Fisher hire, and will Fisher stay out of the play calling once the games begin?

Outside the program, coaches will believe it when they see it.

“I wouldn’t take that job unless they offered to pay me what they’re paying Jimbo,” said a Power 5 coordinator who is not a candidate for the job.

Hyperbole aside, money won’t be an issue in the offensive coordinator hire. Administration and donors are eager to help Fisher fix the problem.

“We’re all being supportive of coach,” Bjork said. “We’re all in this. We’re going to provide him the resources to compete at the highest level.”

 

Far too many words to say he's a fraud and they suck donkey balls.

Edited by SHOOTER12
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markstanco

markstanco 12804

Posted
Posted
Just when you think the aggycoaster might be down for repairs they go and do the yeoman's work and get that birch back online.
Last in the SEC? Recruiting in the shitter? Preseason #6 to 5-7? Leading the nation in transfer portal exodus? What is your forecast for the future?
Jimbo will win us a natty

I honestly glanced at the date of the post to see if it was a while back so I could correct you.

I can’t correct you.
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markstanco

markstanco 12804

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Posted
To be fair to aggy they do talk about it all the time primarily because they have played 83 seasons without playing for one since.
They are like Willam in Mallrats looking for the sailboat that everyone else can see
[/url]  

1939 is funny but when you put it at a finite number like 83 season is mesmerizing. I don’t think there really can be a human alive that can recall the game. Much less an aggy fan. But maybe some person read the box score in the paper so I will give them that.

Speaking of 83 years, there is a meme about to happen January 1.
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UTEE97

UTEE97 3938

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, markstanco said:


I’m not seeing the connection of west Fort Worth and college station. Somebody enlighten me please on this one.

It's a two and half hour bike ride for a booty call. 

I just found it interesting that they both could end up in the same state again. 

Edited by UTEE97
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'stache

'stache 22146

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, markstanco said:

Those are outstanding military prep schools. Do they have a longstanding turdition of having a domestic animal as the highest ranked officer?  If not I am disappoint. 

Is the navy goat not an officer? Oh yeah they’re real military.

Edited by 'stache
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JMFP

JMFP 1126

Posted
Posted
On 12/8/2022 at 8:32 AM, NoName said:

The Athletic --> "Texas A&M had national title hopes, a $94.9 million coach and a No. 1 recruiting class. What went wrong?"

 

Jimbo hates tempo offenses:
 

'When that time finally arrived Oct. 29 vs. Ole Miss, Weigman dazzled, leading consecutive touchdown drives to open the game.

But A&M went scoreless in the second and third quarters before Weigman triggered a 14-point rally in the fourth. The common denominator in those scoring spurts? The Aggies pushed the offensive tempo, something Weigman did a lot of at Bridgeland High.

Weigman succeeded in hurry-up looks in A&M’s season-ending win over LSU also, raising questions as to why the Aggies didn’t do it more often.

Fisher bristled at the suggestion.

“We’re so caught up in tempo,” he said. “Name me a tempo team that’s won the national championship. … There ain’t one. Tempo ain’t won a national championship, all right?

“So teams line up and play good football. You can run tempo and you can have parts of it and use tempo off and on. But pure tempo teams haven’t won one.”'

 

 

Jimbo seems to have forgotten 2013:

 

 

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/college/fsu-seminoles/2013/09/20/tempo-not-fast-enough-fsu-offense/15815733007/

 

Quote

"Coach Fisher says it all the time, he wants to play fast," FSU left tackle Cameron Erving said. "He wants to get a lot of snaps a game on offense. As an o-line, we try to make it happen.

 
Quote

"We want to get a lot of snaps on offense and keep our defense off the field as much as possible. But at the same time, we're not Oregon. … We do something, they do something different. But that's definitely in the right area. We want to be up there on the same level, at a certain speed as those teams."

 

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