It's Jimbo Fisher's big moment at Texas A&M football. Only Nick Saban can stop him | Toppmeyer
Venture into a Texas barbecue joint, and you’ll probably find bottles of sauces ranging from heat to sweet. Combine the flavors into something sweet and spicy, and then you’ve really got something.
That brings me to Jimbo Fisher.
How real is the hot-seat chatter simmering on the periphery of this Texas A&M season?
Well, I doubt Fisher requires SPF 50. His buyout that exceeds $77 million shades him from some of the heat. But, I also don’t think he’s sipping a Bahama Mama while listening to reggae. He’s not earned that level of carefree.
Whatever the temperature is, the dial would get turned down if Fisher’s Aggies (4-1, 2-0 SEC) upset No. 9 Alabama (4-1, 2-0) on Saturday at Kyle Field.
Beating Nick Saban – again – is a quick recipe to go from heat to sweet.
This is the biggest moment of Fisher’s Aggies tenure, now in its sixth season. A win would put A&M in the SEC West’s driver’s seat while kindling hopes of the College Football Playoff. An Aggies loss? Then the narrative becomes same-old Jimbo, while the mercury climbs.
Texas A&M, Jimbo Fisher attracted short-lived limelight in past games against Alabama
When the Aggies stunned Alabama in 2021, Fisher became the answer to a trivia question: Which of Saban’s former assistants was the first to beat him? Aggies fans who had turned Kyle Field into a din stormed the field so vigorously that a police officer leveled a coed to help Saban escape. As memorable as that night became for the Aggies, by that point, their season already was swirling the drain.
Then, Fisher made himself the answer to another trivia question: Which coach sermonized that Saban is a narcissistic false god?
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Not much about college football surprises me anymore. Not after a Texas assistant coach’s ex-stripper girlfriend’s monkey bit a child at a Halloween event. Not after Hugh Freeze used his university cell phone to call an escort service. And not after whatever the hell Mel Tucker did while on his phone.
I’ve come to expect the wacky. Nonetheless, my eyes got wide in May 2022 when Fisher called Saban a despicable czar who needed to be slapped. Saban previously had claimed, without evidence, that A&M bought its whole roster, spurring Fisher to go where none had gone before him. He crossed the Clipboard Wall and napalmed the GOAT. That magnified what became a high-wire tussle between these teams last October. An entertaining game, sure, but also just one of many potholes en route to Fisher becoming the joke of 2022.
The Aggies can say they almost made the playoffs in 2020, but that’s like saying I met Ashley Judd when we passed going opposite directions while hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains. She nodded an acknowledgement to me. I wouldn’t say I met her. And I wouldn’t say the Aggies almost made those playoffs. A Week 2 blowout loss to Alabama hung over A&M’s playoff quest like a stench in an unvented room.
Fisher’s tenure has been marked by embarrassing losses, notable wins and thrilling outcomes. In his first season alone, the Aggies nearly upset Clemson, the eventual national champion, and later beat LSU in a game that featured 146 points and spanned nearly five hours, resulting in the NCAA changing overtime rules.
Despite it all, I wouldn’t put anything that came before Saturday on the same plane as this matchup.
Amid the barbs, Alabama vs. Texas A&M became a rivalry
A win for Fisher would apply a fire extinguisher to the hot seat, whether real or perceived. More obituaries would be written about Saban’s dynasty. An Aggies victory would tease the possibility of A&M finally nearing its potential, after so long of being a giant on the financial sheet and an also-ran on the field.
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If Alabama prevails, those dynasty obituaries will be dumped, and people in seats like mine will stumble over themselves to reanoint Saban. Fisher will absorb a few elbows amid the ink-stained onslaught, and the harsh truth of another talented team squandered will descend on College Station.
The past two years, the Fisher vs. Saban narrative dominated this matchup. This meeting carries more weight. It will chart the course of the SEC West, in the final iteration of a division that, for years, was considered to be the sport’s most rugged.
“It’s proving grounds” veteran Aggies tight end Max Wright said of this game.
The Aggies and Alabama won’t play in 2024. That’s a shame, because this had become something of a nouveau rivalry.
History and proximity tell us Alabama-Mississippi State is a rivalry. It’s been a long time, though, since that game amounted to anything more than a beatdown. I won’t mourn the interruption of that series.
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Other rivalries are born out of spite among proud men and suspenseful clashes on the field. Passion permeates the stands and cascades onto the field. That’s the way A&M-Alabama has felt these past few years, and now Fisher approaches a rivalry road fork.
This could be the Aggies’ sweet, sweet moment, or just another disappointment, followed by more heat.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Texas A&M football: In Jimbo Fisher big moment, only Nick Saban in way
