In any College Football season, there is of course the big storyline everyone follows: Who will win the National Championship? Most, if not all, teams have smaller storylines beyond that, ones that mostly just their fans will follow closely. 2023 will be no different. Alabama fans will be watching to see which of their three options at quarterback will be under center when the season opens, and if that QB can help Nick Saban get back to the mountaintop. USC fans will be watching to see if the team plays a shred of defense in Year Two of the Lincoln Riley era and gets to the College Football Playoff. Texas fans just want to see if they’re really, finally back. Everybody’s got one. But for me, the one that offers the most intrigue and potential entertainment is Bobby Petrino being hired as Texas A&M’s offensive coordinator.
The pairing of Petrino and Jimbo Fisher is so interesting to me, and I think it hasn’t been talked about NEARLY enough. Two personalities that are so stubbornly confident that they border on straight-up arrogance. A head coach who has disappointed but cannot realistically be fired for about three more years. A new coordinator whose past is riddled with embarrassing incidents (but also a LOT of points). It’s a situation that has equal odds of ending in wild success or epic failure and doesn’t seem to have much chance of anything in between. I find it fascinating.
So how did we get here?
Texas A&M had a pretty brutal year offensively. Putrid, even. They were Iowa but slow-smoked overnight with Mesquite wood. The drop-off from 2021 was across-the-board, and it was significant.
| 2021 | 2022 | |
| 29.3 (t-56th) | Points/Gm | 22.8 (101st) |
| 392 (71st) | Yards/Gm | 360.9 (93rd) |
| 6.8 (100th) | Yards/Pass Attempt | 6.7 (97th) |
| 5.4 (10th) | Yards/Carry | 4.64 (t-63rd) |
| 252 (65) | First Downs | 234 (t-92) |
Yup, pretty bad. Not exactly the greatest thing since sliced bread (IYKYK).
Fisher’s background is offense, specifically quarterback play. He was a quarterback in college, winning the 1987 Division III Player of the Year award in his final year at Samford. He’s been an OC and/or Quarterbacks Coach at Samford, Auburn, Cincinnati, LSU, and Florida State. He won a National Championship in 2013 on the strength of an offense that produced a Heisman-winning quarterback. So putting up those numbers in 2022 had to be incredibly frustrating for him, not to mention embarrassing.
Separate from the on-field results, Fisher is notoriously stubborn. On multiple occasions he’s behaved in a manner that a lot of people would describe as “thin-skinned”, “vindictive”, and/or “petty”. He never met a press conference he didn’t like and has gone out of his way to call out fellow coaches for perceived slights. His contract makes him effectively bulletproof, and it wasn’t clear he’d ever cede the offense and playcalling to another coach. Surprisingly, he did.
Enter Bobby Petrino
Petrino, for his part, has been a head coach or offensive coordinator for six different FBS teams and two NFL teams. Sounds fine, but with Petrino, the devil really is in the details. His reputation is that of a man who has an on-again, off-again relationship with concepts like “Honesty” and “Integrity”. He interviewed for the Auburn job after his first season at Louisville without actually letting anyone at Louisville know. That’s just frowned upon, but in retrospect was really only a warm-up act. Immediately prior to the 2006 season he signed a 10-year contract extension, and immediately after the 2006 season he bolted.
Hired by the Atlanta Falcons in January 2007, Petrino was off to a 3-10 start when he suddenly resigned to pursue the opening at Arkansas. Players found a four-sentence letter in their locker, which went over about as well as you’d expect. Former Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer was Atlanta’s Defensive Coordinator in 2007 and has been extremely candid with his thoughts on the matter.
Okay but that’s the worst of it right?
Not by a long shot, my friend. His time at Arkansas started fine, as he went 5-7 in 2008 and 8-5 in 2009. A 10-win campaign in 2010 was followed up with an 11-2 season that culminated in a Cotton Bowl victory. Then it got messy.
In April of 2012, he crashed his motorcycle. Not terribly uncommon; I’ve heard some variation of the saying “There’s two types of riders; ones who have laid their bike down, and ones who are liars” about a hundred times. Except, the day the police report was to be turned over to the school and subsequently made public, Petrino admitted that he wasn’t alone. He was on the motorcycle with a member of the football recruiting staff. A member that he had been carrying on a long-term affair with, even prior to her hiring. Petrino was fired for cause and spent the 2012 season out of football. Stints at Western Kentucky, Louisville (again), and Missouri State followed.
So why hire a guy with a past like Petrino?
Because at the end of the day, college football teams will overlook a whole lot of stuff if you can help win games. Can he? I’m not so sure. His main offensive strategy at Louisville was “having Lamar Jackson”, which is an awesome strategy if you do, in fact, have Lamar Jackson. But as I look at Texas A&M’s roster, they don’t. That doesn’t mean they’ll average 19.8 points like Petrino’s Louisville team the year after Lamar left. But there’s not anything roster-wise that makes me think they’ll score 42.5 per game like the 2016 Cardinals did, either. The most likely outcome is probably an offense that looks more like the 2020/2021 Aggies offense and finishes in the 29-32 point range. That ought to be good enough to get them to eight or nine wins.
The Fisher Era hasn’t panned out like A&M (and their boosters) had hoped when they lured him away from Florida State. He has yet to win a ninth regular-season game in College Station. His 2022 squad was a colossal disappointment, turning a #6 preseason AP ranking into a 5-7 finish. Four losses came by four points or fewer, and A&M failed to break 20 points in three of those. Modest offensive improvement should lead to more wins, but probably not a championship-caliber season. And make no mistake, that’s what the people paying Fisher (and Petrino, for that matter) expect. Vegas thinks A&M will be good for an eight-win season, with most books offering -150 on Over 7.5 or +140 on Over 8.5 wins. A good forecast, but not nearly good enough.
Is 8-4 enough to quiet the noise?
Short Answer: LOL Absolutely Not.
So what happens if Texas A&M doesn’t improve enough to meet those lofty booster expectations? Or worse, doesn’t improve at all? Or heaven forbid, somehow regress further? The stakes are high, and things could snowball quickly at the first sign of trouble. And if it turns into a blame game, it’ll get extremely ugly.
This whole situation is unique, and so intriguing to me, because the on-field results can cause such massive problems behind closed doors based on the personalities of the two main figures involved. Maybe not even behind closed doors. Fisher has already had a couple of awkward press conferences when the subject comes up, and the two don’t appear to have worked out any defined roles. The potential for fireworks, of either the good or bad variety, is immense. The fun part will be finding out which. Don’t miss it.
Eric Mulhair is the Co-Host of The South Endzone Podcast and a contributing writer for Belly Up Sports covering College Football. You can follow him on Twitter for the most up-to-date info on Podcast/Article releases, or even just to argue about College Football.
