Admittedly, Ross Bjork likes to drive fast, usually about 75 to 80 mph on a highway.
As the Texas A&M athletic director saw it, the predicament facing the football program he oversees isn’t terribly different from something he might encounter on the interstate, when a car is going only 55 mph and refuses to get out of the left lane.
“We were that car going 55,” Bjork said. “Something had to give. They had to get out of the way. We had to move this program forward.”
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It’s a rationale he offered at a news conference Sunday night following the firing of football coach Jimbo Fisher 10 games into his sixth season.
The decision to oust Fisher was monumental, not only due to his standing as the championship-winning coach of an SEC program that has a 102,733-seat stadium in a football-mad state, but because of the record $77.6 million buyout he is owed as a result of the dismissal.
Early last week, following Texas A&M’s 38-35 loss at Ole Miss, Bjork said he met with interim university president Mark Welsh and presented his recommendation that a change be made at coach, a conclusion he reached after an assessment of the program and where it stood.
Fisher fell well short of the lofty expectations that greeted him upon his hiring in December 2017.
He went 45-25 at College Station, giving him a worse winning percentage than his predecessor, Kevin Sumlin, who the Aggies were so determined to replace that they offered Fisher a 10-year, $75 million contract to pry him away from Florida State, where he led the Seminoles to a national championship in 2013.
His teams went 27-21 in SEC play, never competed in the SEC championship game and finished in the top 15 of the final US LBM Coaches Poll just once.
“In my analysis, I…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/texas-m-ad-ross-bjork-011843179.html
Author : Austin American-Statesman
Publish date : 2023-11-13 01:18:43
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