A college football coach gets $77m not to work as US education suffers

Every Texas A&M donor helping to fund Jimbo Fisher's buyout could have put that check toward tablets or school lunches in a poor district

Texas A&M University fired football coach Jimbo Fisher on Sunday, amid his latest disappointing season. The axing is richly deserved. The money Fisher will get not to work is not. In late 2017, A&M poached Fisher - who had won a national championship at Florida State in 2013 - from FSU with a 10-year, $75m, fully guaranteed contract that broke the collegiate record with its total value. The school extended that deal and tacked on dollars in 2021, but Fisher's performance never got close to matching his paycheck, and the fully guaranteed" part of the contract would come back to haunt the Aggies. He lost at least four games every year but 2020, when pandemic interruptions created a zany season whose chaos included a 9-1 record and No 4 finish in the rankings for A&M. But even that team fell short of loftier goals like a Southeastern Conference title or College Football Playoff berth.

The on-field failures belied not just his deal, but his advantages in the job. A&M signed some of the best recruiting classes in college football, including a 2022 class that scouting agencies considered one of the best ever. In assembling those classes, Fisher had the help of a rich and enthusiastic booster corps, buttressed by oil money who craved success. Nobody was better positioned to take advantage of a recent liberalization of limits on athlete compensation by third parties than A&M. In discussing the firing on Sunday, AD Ross Bjork decried a lack of consistency, positivity, and confidence" in Fisher's program.