Jimbo Fisher vs. Kevin Sumlin: Comparing Texas A&M coaches' records, contracts and more

Editor's note: The terms of Jimbo Fisher and Kevin Sumlin's contracts have been updated from a previous version.

When Texas A&M hired Jimbo Fisher to one of the most lucrative contracts in college football history in December 2017, there was an underlying belief that came with the $75 million the new coach was set to be paid over the next 10 years.

After the proud program had stagnated in its final years under Kevin Sumlin, Fisher’s hiring signaled the arrival of new and heightened expectations. With a championship-winning coach at the helm, some much-needed change would be coming to College Station.

Since then, Fisher has brought about change — just not the kind Aggies fans and administrators were hoping they’d get. There still is a chance to turn the 2023 college football season around, but talks of Fisher's buyout amid a 5-7 season in 2022 and 4-3 start in 2023 indicate the frustration the university and its donors have with his results.

Especially as it relates to Sumlin.

REQUIRED READING: 'This is an open-book test': With Ewers injured, attention shifts to Murphy and Manning

Jimbo Fisher vs. Kevin Sumlin records at Texas A&M

With his team at 4-3 coming off a bye week, Fisher’s record through his first 67 games at Texas A&M is 43-24. It's a respectable-enough mark that gives him the second-highest win percentage of an Aggies coach over the past 20 years.

There’s just one problem: That record places him behind where Sumlin was at the same point in his Texas A&M tenure. He went 45-22 in his first 67 games, putting him two games ahead of his successor.

In Fisher, who led Florida State to a national championship in 2013, Texas A&M was supposed to be getting a coach who could bring it to that championship level it hoped to reach.

Even including a 9-1 record and Orange Bowl victory in the pandemic-altered 2020 season, the Aggies have fallen short not only of that lofty mark, but also of what their previous coach managed to accomplish.

Here’s a look at some notable records and statistics from Sumlin and Fisher’s respective tenures:

Overall record (SEC)

• Sumlin: 51-26 (25-23)

• Fisher: 43-24 (25-20)

Record vs. ranked teams

• Sumlin: 12-14

• Fisher: 9-14

Win percentage

• Sumlin: .662

• Fisher: .642

Bowl record

• Sumlin: 3-2*

• Fisher: 3-0**

* Sumlin did not coach in 2017 Belk Bowl following 7-5 regular-season finish.

** Texas A&M finished 8-4 in 2021 and accepted an invitation to play in the Gator Bowl, but injuries and a COVID-19 breakout within the program forced it to drop out of the bowl.

REQUIRED READING: Bohls: Texas reminds us it's all about winning, stays in its spot on my AP Top 25 ballot

Why was Kevin Sumlin fired at Texas A&M?

Short of winning a conference or national championship, Sumlin’s first season at Texas A&M in 2012 went as well as it could have.

The Aggies thrived in their first season in the SEC, winning 11 games — their most since 1998 — upsetting eventual national champion Alabama on the road, winning the Cotton Bowl and producing their first Heisman Trophy winner since 1957.

It was a high point to which Sumlin’s teams would never return. Despite returning that Heisman winner, quarterback Johnny Manziel, the following season, Texas A&M underachieved, slipping to 9-4 overall and 4-4 in the SEC. In each of the next three seasons, the Aggies finished 8-5 and never better than 4-4 in conference play.

After going 7-5 in 2017, which included a 3-4 finish after a 4-1 start, Sumlin was fired. With that move, the bar for the next coach was set: Finishing above .500 and making bowl games simply wasn’t enough.

"Our expectations at A&M are very high,” then-Texas A&M athletic director Scott Woodward said in a statement at the time. “We believe that we should compete for SEC championships on an annual basis and, at times, national championships. I believe that we need a new coach to take us there.”

Kevin Sumlin Texas A&M contract

When Sumlin was fired in November 2017 after his sixth season, he was paid just shy of $9.9 million by the university, according to an April 2018 report from the Dallas Morning News, which obtained the information through a public records request. What made things even more difficult for the Aggies was that Sumlin’s buyout had no offsets if he got a job elsewhere, something that could have been a cost-saving measure for the school after Sumlin was hired by Arizona in January 2018.

Annual salary on most recent contract year

• Sumlin: $5 million

• Fisher: $9.15 million

Between how much Texas A&M paid Sumlin to depart, how much Fisher is making now ($9.15 million this year) and how much he is owed if he gets fired on Dec. 1, 2023 ($77.6 million), the Aggies have spent tens of millions of dollars to get measurably worse — and they could soon be paying much more.

It raises questions not only of why such a move was made, but why it hasn’t worked out in the way that so many anticipated it would when Fisher took over the Texas A&M program after winning a national title at Florida State.

REQUIRED READING: Jimbo Fisher Texas A&M contract, buyout clause: Here's how much Aggies owe coach if fired

Kevin Sumlin year-by-year record at Texas A&M

After starting 20-6 in his first two seasons in College Station, Sumlin's Aggies went 31-20 over the next four seasons, including a 15-17 record against SEC teams.

That drop-off ultimately led to his ouster following the end of the 2017 regular season.

• 2012: 11-2

• 2013: 9-4

• 2014: 8-5

• 2015: 8-5

• 2016: 8-5

• 2017: 7-5

Jimbo Fisher year-by-year record at Texas A&M

Like his predecessor, Fisher got off to a relatively strong start, going 9-4 in his first season before peaking at 9-1 in his third season in 2020. Texas A&M's only loss of the year was to eventual national champion Alabama, and the Aggies finished No. 4 in the final US LBM Coaches Poll.

Since then, however, Texas A&M has gone just 17-14, a stretch that included the program's first losing regular season since 2008.

• 2018: 9-4

• 2019: 8-5

• 2020: 9-1

• 2021: 8-4

• 2022: 5-7

• 2023: 4-3

Texas A&M 2023 remaining schedule

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Jimbo Fisher vs. Kevin Sumlin: Comparing records, contracts at Texas A&M