Jimbo Fisher leaving Florida State for Texas A&M and reportedly getting largest deal in college football coaching history

Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher is leaving to take the same job at Texas A&M, SB Nation’s Bud Elliott and others reported on Friday.

Jimbo Fisher is leaving FSU to assume the lead job with the Texas A&M Aggies, sources told Tomahawk Nation.

In addition, after getting his new contract approved by the Texas A&M Board of Regents and giving his resignation to Florida State President John Thrasher, Jimbo Fisher won’t be coaching the Seminoles vs. Louisiana-Monroe.

Fisher had a massive contract with the Seminoles, but the Aggies were content to spend away on Fisher after also buying out the remainder of previous coach Kevin Sumlin’s contract. Fisher will reportedly get a raise in College Station with what’s been said to be a 10-year contract worth $75 million.

That’s a lot of money, yeah.

And he’s going to get every single penny of it too.

Sources told ESPN that Texas A&M officials have approved a 10-year, $75 million fully guaranteed contract for Fisher, which is the richest deal in college football history in terms of total value.

For context:

And be comparison to when Bobby Bowden was hired nearly 50 years ago it’s an even starker comparison.

The news comes shortly after this happened:

In the meantime, Florida State’s 2018 recruiting class is losing players rapidly.

Don’t be surprised if FSU targets Oregon’s Willie Taggart as its top candidate.

Fisher is 83-23 in eight years as the Seminoles’ head coach.

That run includes a national championship in 2013 and three ACC championships along the way.

The former LSU offensive coordinator has made a bowl game every year of his FSU tenure, and Florida State will get bowl-eligible again if it beats UL-Monroe in a rescheduled game this weekend.

A fan was ejected from Fisher’s live call-in show Thursday after he tried to ask the coach about his loyalty to Florida State.

Fisher said he was sorry that the man was removed.

The 2017 season’s been a disaster, and Fisher bears ultimate responsibility for that.

But it’s nobody’s fault that FSU quarterback Deondre Francois was lost for the season late in a Week 1 loss to Alabama, when the Noles were the No. 3 team in the country. They had to start true freshman James Blackman in Francois’ absence, and it was on Fisher that FSU didn’t have the depth to better withstand his QB’s loss. 2017 debrief analysis by FSU writers tends to center on his stagnant coaching staff.

Regardless of 2017, Fisher’s still one of only four active head coaches with a national title.

Fisher’s name has come up in connection with other jobs plenty of times over the years.

He was regularly rumored as a candidate for the head job at LSU, which was a little odd but made some sense in the right light.

Fisher has enjoyed strong job security in Tallahassee despite not contending for the title the last few years.

He’s been working under a contract that pays him about $5.5 million per year and runs through the 2024 season. That deal includes a huge buyout, reportedly about $40 million on Dec. 1, 2017.

FSU is one of the best coaching destinations in the country.

There’s certainly a fair argument it’s the best one on the market right now.

So why would Fisher leave?

One explanation:

It is so hard to stay at a place for more than a decade, and he's been in Tallahassee since 2007 as the OC, and since 2010 as the head coach. Some coaches are tremendous as change agents, but their style grates on people and eventually, people within the program resent the coach, tune him out, or both. Fisher is an incredible change agent, but it's yet to be seen if he can be a maintainer. If he believes that he is better as a change agent, then starting over elsewhere makes sense. I do think he would immediately jump start a program if he were to jump jobs. I can't rule out Fisher getting things turned around at Florida State, because it is so easy to win in Tallahassee, but there are a ton of examples of guys getting recharged with a change of scenery, and very few of coaches getting the magic back once its gone at their current program.