Fighting the turnover battle
Fisher stays upbeat on chances of improving roster despite losing 23 players to transfer portal
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher has a reputation as a solid closer in recruiting, perhaps in part for his ability to see light at the end of the tunnel and surmise it’s not a train.
“They see opportunities,” Fisher said of recruits agreeing to hop onboard with a program following a losing season. “Everybody says, ‘(If) I go somewhere that’s winning all the time, I may not play for a while.’”
Not “everybody” says as much, of course — perennial winners Alabama and Georgia are the nation’s current top two ranked classes for 2023 — but Fisher’s primary avenue right now is pitching playing time to a program following a 5-7 season, as the Aggies failed to reach bowl eligibility for the first time since 2008.
“We’ve got good young players, look at the young talent we have and look at the guys making a lot of the plays,” Fisher said. “We’ve got a good nucleus of what we’re doing.”
In Fisher’s hopeful mind, anyway. It’s been a wild ride in College Station in 2022, no two ways about it. The Aggies signed the nation’s top-rated class in February only to become the first program in the history of online recruiting rankings (spanning about 20 years) to follow that up with a losing record.
A&M as of Saturday ranked 15th nationally via 247Sports with 13 pledges in the class of 2023, including a pair of five-star prospects in running back Rueben Owens of El Campo High and defensive lineman David Hicks of Katy Paetow High.
The early signing period starts Wednesday and the traditional signing day is Feb. 2. Earlier this year Fisher anticipated signing a much smaller class than last year’s 29, but as of Saturday afternoon A&M had 23 scholarship players enter the NCAA transfer portal and three more elect to bypass their senior seasons for the 2023 NFL draft.
“The Aggies have the potential to close strong,” said Mark Passwaters, publisher of Rivals’ AggieYell.com fan website. “With several uncommitted prospects and players with soft commitments elsewhere visiting this weekend, A&M could be very busy (with pledges).”
Fisher also is expected to attack the transfer portal like never before in its brief history, to fill in with players around what, as Fisher said, is a “good nucleus” of young talent.
“The Aggies might add two plug-and-play transfers in linebacker Mason Cobb of Oklahoma State and cornerback Tony Grimes of North Carolina,” Passwaters said. “They would fill big needs.”
A&M lost six straight games for the first time in 50 years, and in Week 2 lost at Kyle Field to Appalachian State, Fisher’s biggest embarrassment as a head coach at Florida State (2010-17) and A&M.
“After all the Aggies’ stumbles,” Passwaters said, “they could still finish with an impressive sprint.”
A&M’s biggest needs are at linebacker and defensive back. Three linebackers — Andre White, Tarian Lee and Ish Harris — are in the portal at what already was a thin position. And a whopping eight defensive backs have either entered the portal (six) or declared early for the draft (Jaylon Jones and Antonio Johnson).
Key portal declarations are defensive backs Smoke Bouie and Denver Harris, former starting quarterback Haynes King and receiver Chris Marshall. Harris and Marshall were two of the Aggies’ eight five-star signees in the class of 2022. The roster upheaval has prompted Fisher to ramp up his recruiting of high school players and other schools’ veterans in the portal.
“The key to recruiting is there is no pitch,” Fisher said. “When you’re a good recruiter, you tell the truth. Recruiting is about one thing: truth and relationships. … There is no pitch, there is no magical formula, there is no pixie dust. You build a relationship through truth and trust, and be honest with (recruits) about where you see them and what they do.”
A&M has had a school record four consecutive top 10 recruiting classes under Fisher, hired from FSU five years ago this month, but he also knows that rankings success must translate to conference titles.
The Aggies haven’t won a league title since 1998 when they competed in the Big 12 under then-coach R.C. Slocum, and following the stunning losing season in Fisher’s fifth year — and after starting the year ranked No. 6 — appear far removed from doing so.
Fisher’s most important job in the offseason is managing the portal after only signing one transfer from a Power Five program last year, quarterback Max Johnson from LSU.
A&M has finished 9-4, 8-5, 9-1, 8-4 and 5-7 in Fisher’s first five seasons, and his 39-21 mark after 60 games trails his predecessor at A&M, Kevin Sumlin (43-17), over the same span. Sumlin was fired after six seasons at A&M for not competing for titles.
Despite the myriad setbacks this year the Aggies closed out 2022 with a 38-23 victory over then-No. 5 LSU at Kyle Field, crushing the Tigers’ hopes of making the four-team College Football Playoff. The upset also provided A&M a shot in the arm in recruiting, despite Fisher’s fanciful assertion that recruits might prefer signing on with a loser with immediate playing time in mind.
“There were a lot of injuries (with our) young guys all year,” said Fisher, offering one more reason why the Aggies had their first losing regular season in 14 years. “That’s not an excuse, but the facts of life. The (LSU game) shows you what you’re capable of.”