TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Tucked inside a private room at one of his favorite eateries, the Red Elephant Pizza and Grill, Jimbo Fisher is talking a mile a minute about play calls from yesteryear. He remembers every detail. The season, the game, the down-and-distance, the formation, the play terminology, the result.
“We had trips left,” he says, gnashing on a quesadilla and washing it down with a mug of soda before launching into more ’ball.
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“They were in two-high safety.”
Fisher and his wife, Courtney, have agreed to meet with a reporter to talk about his desire to return to coaching. It quickly turned into a two-hour clinic on football from a man known as one of the game’s greatest offensive savants.
Fisher speaks quick enough — 250 words a minute — that if you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss something important.
Like, for instance, the fact that, even at 60 years old and the benefactor of the biggest buyout in college sports history, “this ole boy,” as he might say in his country twang, wants to coach again.
“I never got into coaching for money,” he says. “Well, I’m not going to get out of it because I’ve got money.
Former college football coach Jimbo Fisher congratulates Miami quarterback Carson Beck after Miami’s win over Florida State on Oct. 4. Fisher is hoping to get back into coaching. (Jason Clark/Getty Images)
(Jason Clark via Getty Images)
As it turns out, Fisher doesn’t own much more — perhaps he owns less, actually — than he did before Texas A&M agreed to pay him nearly $77 million not to coach. About $26 million of that was paid within four months of his firing in the spring of 2024. He gets $7 million annually for the next seven years. It is not reduced by any future compensation he earns.
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He’s bought no grand mansion in the Caribbean islands, no chateau in the south of France or villa on the Amalfi Coast.
In fact, Fisher resides in the same Tallahassee home in which he moved into when he accepted the job on Bobby Bowden’s staff at Florida State in 2006. What’s he done with the money? Well, he did trade his Texas ranch for one in south Georgia. And he has tripped twice to Africa for Safari hunts.
He loves hunting almost as much as he loves ’ball. Almost.
Deer, duck, elk, quail. He fishes, too.
But these days, more than anything perhaps, he’s watching film — both for his gig as an analyst on ACC Network and for his future. He’s studying the game’s ever-evolving trends, organizing a future staff, creating a recruiting and evaluation plan.
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Still in the thick of things
He’s preparing as if he’ll soon return to major college coaching. And in what could be a record year for coaching changes — eight FBS changes and $114 million in buyout money spent already — the path may exist for a return to the big chair.
“He’s getting ready to get back in,” says Mike Tannenbaum, a longtime NFL front office executive who founded a 40-plus person think tank of former and current college and pro football stakeholders who share best practices on a weekly invite-only call.
Participants include Bill Polian, Doug Pederson, Bill Belichick, Wade Phillips … Jimbo Fisher. He rarely, if ever, misses a call.
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“He’s not just sitting there, ‘I have all the answers! I’m Jimbo Fisher!’” Tannenbaum says. “No. He’s working his ass off to be ready and prepared.”
But will it matter? Is Fisher’s past success enough to overcome any reservations from decision-makers that he’s still got it?
After all, he did win a national championship, led two different programs (Florida State and Texas A&M) to a total of five final top-10 rankings and, in all, won more than 72% of his games (80% of bowl games). But while he’s produced 72 NFL draft picks and landed more than 110 five-star recruits, his final two seasons in College Station ended 5-7 and 6-4.
Fisher points to quarterback injuries and losing tight games (eight of his last 11 losses were one-score defeats, by an average of 4 points). There are no hard feelings. He’s happy to see new coach Mike Elko thriving. He’s got plenty of friends still in Aggieland.
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“Look,” he says, “A&M is a great place with great people. I love them.”
Jimbo Fisher finished 45-25 at Texas A&M despite going just .500 his last two seasons in College Station. (Logan Riely/Getty Images)
(Logan Riely via Getty Images)
Those within the industry are preparing for a record amount of turnover within the FBS, including as many as a half-dozen blue-blood gigs to join those already open at Penn State and Florida. With so few jobs opening last year (just five power conference openings), the predicted busy coaching carousel of 2025 is meeting expectations.
In fact, the pool of qualified candidates doesn’t match the expected quality openings, industry experts contend. After all, there are only three active head coaches who have won a national title and none of them seem particularly moveable: Kirby Smart (2, Georgia), Dabo Swinney (2, Clemson) and Ryan Day (1, Ohio State).
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One administrator recently quipped, “Where are all these coaches going to come from to fill all of these jobs?”
Perhaps outside of the current coaching ranks?
A handful of coaches are in Fisher’s situation — out and wanting back in. Former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald is a shoo-in for a gig somewhere. Ed Orgeron, with a national title at LSU to his résumé, has openly expressed a desire to land a job. James Franklin, recently fired at Penn State, wants to coach again, too.
Those coaches previously fired or temporarily retired have had various amounts of success in their return.
Dan Mullen is 6-1 at UNLV in his first season back after a three-year break. Mack Brown won 44 games in his six-year second stint back at North Carolina. Bret Bielema has resurrected Illinois after a five-year break from college ball. Former Missouri coach Barry Odom had so much success in two years at UNLV (19 wins) that it propelled him to the Purdue job last year, and ex-UCLA coach Jim Mora Jr. is managing to consistently win at UConn.
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Is Jimbo Fisher next?
It only took a few games into his first season off last fall for him to miss it enough to ping agent Jimmy Sexton: I want back in.
Last December, he spoke to school administrators at West Virginia before they decided to hire Rich Rodriguez.
“When you’re away from something, it makes you reflect,” Fisher says. “I’m back to watching film and have those feelings. I miss the players and those relationships. I miss practice. I miss the grind. I live to coach. I love to do what I did.”
Courtney Fisher, seated by his side, nods.
“It’s in his blood,” she says. “There’s no getting away from it.”
But before he submits his résumé, Jimbo would like to clear the air about some things, like his No. 1-ranked 2022 signing class at Texas A&M that some believe cost $35 million — an unfounded rumor that triggered a public dustup with his former boss, Nick Saban.
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“I want to clarify that one,” Jimbo starts. “We spent $35 million on a class? Are you kidding me? At that time, the whole A&M team, the NIL fund, wasn’t even $1 million.”
At an impromptu news conference to address accusations from Saban of the Aggies’ alleged big-spending ways, Fisher famously referred to his former boss as a “narcissist” and lobbed allegations of recruiting wrongdoing toward Saban, infamously repeating to reporters “go dig into wherever he’s been.”
Years later, it’s all water under a bridge.
Fisher felt that he was unfairly accused of cheating when Texas A&M only attempted to be at the “forefront” of the NIL era to recruit and retain players. He held that news conference as a way to tell families of his own players that the NIL figures were phony.
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“I wanted people to realize we didn’t have that,” he said. “I had parents call me, ‘Wait! We didn’t get all this money!’ They’re saying he got this and that. The families are calling me. It’s just not fair to them. That’s why I did it. I thought I had to set the story straight. The biggest part was protecting the players.”
Away from the game
All of this seems silly and irrelevant compared to real life.
The downtime from coaching has afforded Jimbo more time to hang with his family. He’s got one son, Trey, who recently graduated college and wants to be a football coach, and another son, Ethan, who is a kicker at Samford.
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Ethan lives with a rare blood disorder, Fanconi anemia, a disease that greatly increases the chance of developing cancer. The average lifespan of people with Fanconi anemia is about 25-30, according to various studies through the years.
But Ethan may soon receive a gene transplant that could further prolong his life and, Jimbo says, “keep kicking that cup down the road.”
That cup? Any cancer that may befall Ethan will be incredibly difficult to treat as those with the disorder do not respond to normal treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy.
Ethan’s life revolves around twice-a-year checkups in which the family holds its collective breath. Each January and July, Jimbo braces himself for the results, knowing that this could be the day they’ve all dreaded for 18 years.
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“You try to block it out until you have to go to those tests twice a year. You pray everything comes back OK,” he says. “We know once it starts, it’s going to be…”
He stops for a bit.
“There’s no cure for it. He’s the strongest guy I’ve ever known.”
He’s gotten to attend a few of Ethan’s games — another reminder of just how much he misses coaching young people.
Jimbo Fisher’s view on the modern game
Players are at the center of his desire to return to the field. He’s recently heard from a few former guys, like Rohan Davey and Dalvin Cook. He consults with former staff members now coaching elsewhere.
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Hey, will you look at film of this guy for me?
What do you think of this play?
“The regret you have in coaching is the players you failed, the ones who never reached their potential,” Fisher says. “I’m not talking just wins and losses, but there’s always guys that you wish you could have reached more. I was hell on ’em, but you try to put your arm around them off the field.”
For all the talk about football changing off the field — and it has, he acknowledges — the sport hasn’t changed all that much between the lines.
Can you stop the run? Can you run the ball?
Those remain critical to success, he says. Three of the four teams last standing last season ranked in the top 13 in rushing defense.
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“When I look at it, teams that run the ball, stop the run, pick up the blitz and hit third downs,” he says. “There are all these different offenses. Motion and spread. Some of these guys are putting so much pressure on these linemen. Somebody has to block somebody every now and then, you know.”
While talking, Fisher takes the final slice of quesadilla. Every once in a while at the Red Elephant Pizza and Grill, a customer — many of them wearing FSU gear — catches a glimpse of their former coach within that private room.
While he left Florida State voluntarily, it didn’t necessarily feel that way to him. In information that’s been public now for years, the university — under the previous administration — refused to quickly improve the facilities and resources around the program at Fisher’s urging.
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Seven years later, the school has spent more than $400 million on extravagant stadium renovations and a brand new football-only facility, overhauling its coaching staff and roster as well.
Despite the funding, the Seminoles are on a four-game losing skid.
In eight seasons in charge of the program, Fisher can say he never did that.
