Texas A&M insider on Jimbo Fisher: ‘He’s his own boss’

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher made waves across college football with his fiery response to Alabama coach Nick Saban last month. The sense around the game was Fisher went to the beat of his own drum — and an insider shared more insight on who Fisher answers to in College Station.

The Houston Chronicle’s Brent Zwerneman appeared on The Paul Finebaum Show and talked about the leadership flowchart at Texas A&M. Zwerneman told Finebaum the idea when the Aggies hired Fisher was he’d run the show, and even though he still has higher-ups to answer to, it’s Fisher’s program, full stop.

"Jimbo is his own boss, that was the deal when he got here 5 years ago. He doesn't really answer to anyone."

-Brent Zwerneman on Jimbo Fisher calling his own shots when it came to responding to Nick Saban last month pic.twitter.com/kLGRucrGIZ

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) June 8, 2022

“Jimbo, he’s his own boss,” Zwerneman said. “That was the agreement five years ago when they got him from Florida State. ‘Hey, man, you run the show. You’re the man. You’re the guy around here.’ And what I wrote was he doesn’t really answer to anyone. I know, as Ross [Bjork] said, they’re partners and so forth. He certainly has the Board of Regents to answer to at some point. But the whole idea of Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M was that he is the man and he gets to call the shots.”

Paul Finebaum says Jimbo Fisher’s credibility in question after Nick Saban dust-up

During the SEC meetings, just a couple weeks after Saban alleged Texas A&M “bought every player on their team,” Fisher held a press conference reaffirming his desire to move on from the situation. He told reporters the situation is “over with.”

That led to criticism from Finebaum, who didn’t hold back during an interview on McElroy and Cubelic earlier this week. He called out Fisher’s credibility as a result of the press conference in Destin.

“Saban was Saban,” Finebaum said. “He acted like nothing happened. Saban tried to make everyone believe he didn’t say anything, which was so smart, I think. … It looked like Jimbo had gone by his dentist’s office and taken some laughing as before [he got his] wisdom teeth pulled. He just had that smile painted on his face.

“He still didn’t handle the press conference in an articulate manner. He just kept saying, ‘I’m moving on.’ He should’ve just came out with a statement. … Instead, he acted like he had stolen the cookie and the father caught him and he was still trying to explain it by saying, ‘Come on, let’s move on.’ And I think that’s where his credibility starts to come into question.”