The Latest From A&M
Yesterday was an extraordinary day for Texas A&M football but not necessarily in a good way…and it didn’t need to start or end like it did.
One of the things I’ve emphasized is having a process and for all of the attention that last night’s events will command, we got here because the process was flawed in the beginning which resulted in the near end result being extremely flawed as well.
A&M really didn’t want to make a move on from Jimbo Fisher until 2024. Emotionally, you guys wound up liking the fact that A&M did something this season and it rallied disparate interests to a common cause. Even so, as a result there was no process that you normally associate with changing out a coach.
The timing of the dismissal occurred around the last regular meeting of the year for the A&M board of regents. On the surface, the timing was sold as A&M needing to make a move now due to the state of the program and getting a head start on the keeping people out of the portal.
However, keep in mind that when most schools make a move on the head coach, they usually make a move on the athletic director first, especially when the athletic director has basically been there to serve the head coach.
By getting to the board and having his superiors (one of whom is a former Air Force general as opposed to any kind of a football guy) defer to him, the athletic director got to the coach first and also maneuvered himself to be in position to select the next head coach.
Thus, when Kentucky’s Mark Stoops approached A&M…here was an experienced guy with a solid resume, the type that might come to you in a surprise out of the big blue.
However, from a perception standpoint, Stoops was basically Fisher Lite. If you’re going to send Fisher packing and pay him $70+ million in the process, you’ve got to do better than that. Not only that, if you’re going to do interviews selling a incentivized salary structure and fewer resources, why turn around and try to convince people to fund the payment penalty and support staff money associated with bringing in another tenured head coach?
When word began to filter out on Saturday that Stoops was going to be guy, A&M tried to push on through anyway despite the fact that it wasn’t well received initially inside the program. While people focused on the reaction on social media last night, the money that made A&M football spending go threatened to go behind the scenes.
As a result, the movement to hire him went from full speed ahead to a U turn in a matter of hours.
However, the movement to hire him started as a result of a process that made everyone feel good emotionally but was flawed from the start.
For all of the criticism of using the 2024 season as well as 2023 to judge Jimbo Fisher, there was no off season that allowed A&M to vet candidates, examine in detail who was available, or gauge interest in who was available to the same extent as a timeline that a monht long timeline would allow. It was a rushed process by an athletic director who jumped started things on his own timetable and not that normally associated with most programs when contemplating a coaching change. In turn, that resulted in a hasty decision made in isolation that lacked much backing from many key individuals, much less an understanding of how a Stoops hire would have resonated with donors, fans, players, and their families.
In addition, public comments from the athletic director indicated that the next coach would have more financial restrictions than his predecessor (both from a salary and resources standpoint)…and which of us wants to look at a Indeed posting and see that splashed across the top?
Now, A&M is going to have to start over and there’s definitely going to have to be more oversight and input on the process going forward. That should make for a better end result but also more doubts as to how well A&M can manage the process not just now but in the future as well. In addition, it’s going to be interesting to see how it impacts the potential pool of candidates going forward.
If Ross survives this, I will be shocked (my opinion, not in the write-up).
