Let's hope this is the year Texas A&M fires Jimbo Fisher

The leader in the doghouse for this college football season is Jimbo Fisher. After a 5-7 season a year ago in which the team suffered a six-game losing streak — and an embarrassing loss to Appalachian State — Fisher has been on the cover of Hot Seat Weekly, a made-up publication that I’d definitely subscribe to regardless of how smutty it sounds.

A cursory search of “Jimbo Fisher hot seat” yields myriad headlines about the embattled coach, and the schedule doesn’t do him any favors either. Honestly, any good graces, or benefit of the doubt that the public could give him for past national championships left College Station when he started hiring coordinators out of the discount meat bin.

Bobby Petrino, DJ Durkin, and some O-line coach who allegedly called a Black custodian a “boy” at a previous stop make up one of the most det — and that’s an accomplishment considering Northwestern coaches wore pro-hazing shirts to fall camp.

The noise is so loud in Aggie land that athletic director Ross Bjork had to come out and publicly back his head coach Wednesday.

“Build to last. That’s my mantra,” Bjork said. “There’s no panic here. You can’t be a blow-by-the-wind program in how you make decisions and expect to win championships in the SEC. Sure, last year was disappointing for all of us, but I look at where we’re headed, and so does Jimbo.”

Spoken like a true jackass.

Bjork really has no choice but to support Fisher because, lest we forget, he gave Jimbo a 10-year, $94.5 million extension in a moment of panic when LSU was sniffing around Jimbo a couple of offseasons ago. Paul Finebaum referred to it as an “invisible” hot seat because no AD is going to keep his job if has to let go of a coach he just re-upped at a buyout of $77 million.

This level of incompetence could very well mean the same unemployment line for Bjork, because he gave Fisher all the leverage, and Jimbo repaid that faith by hiring a guy who got into a motorcycle accident with his girlfriend on the back of the bike, while he was still married and the head coach of Arkansas.

On that note, the play-calling duties — Jimbo’s alleged specialty — have been ceded to Petrino, and I’m struggling to understand what it is Fisher does anymore other than give folksy news conferences, and argue with Nick Saban.

The AP Poll has Texas A&M ranked No. 23 coming into this year. It’s not as brain-melting as the No. 6 spot they started out with in 2022, but given their schedule, the 31 players who transferred in December, and general program instability, there’s a possibility of that ranking aging as poorly.

The Aggies go to Miami, No. 22 Ole Miss, No. 12 Tennessee, and No. 5 LSU. Ranked 101st in scoring offense last season, there’s been no decision made about the starting quarterback. But, hey, they get No. 4 Alabama at home, so it’s not all bad.

Good luck to the 12th man. Hopefully, Jimbo Fisher can win enough games to justify this humiliation.