Ross Bjork on not giving Jimbo Fisher rest of 2023: 'You're either moving forward or you're stuck'

Following the firing of head coach Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork explained the decision to move on from him at this point in the season.

With just two weeks remaining in the regular season, there are those who would think that it makes sense to let the season play out. However, Bjork explained that the program needed to move forward.

“Here’s the deal. You’re either moving forward or you’re stuck. We were stuck,” Ross Bjork said. “And so I kind of used the analogy with somebody earlier. You know how you’re driving down the highway, it’s a four-lane road, and I drive fast, okay. I like 75-80, and somebody’s in the left lane and they’re going 55 and they won’t move over. We were that car going 55. Something had to give. They had to get out of the way.”

Jimbo Fisher went 45-25 in just under six seasons at Texas A&M but had a 27-21 record in SEC play. In particular, the Aggies have struggled the last two seasons, going just 11-11 since the start of 2022. A recent loss to Ole Miss stung, in particular, and is a game that Ross Bjork pointed to specifically.

“So, we had to move this program forward. And here’s the thing. I got back from the Ole Miss game, and we’re a football family. So, we’re sitting on the back porch and I’m making, why? Why is this not working? What is the problem? What do Aggies think? Do we have any hope? Where do we go? And so I called President Welsh on Sunday night, and I said, we need to meet on Monday. We need to have a plan,” Bjork said.

“The plan needs to be executed efficiently, but also knew that we had conversations this week. There are Regent meetings. Of course, the Regents were informed of my recommendation to the president, and so the timing of all of that played into it.”

Texas A&M promoted Elijah Robinson to interim head coach. With an FCS opponent this weekend, he will have time to handle that transition. Then, with that transition time, he can try to pull off an upset against LSU.

“And then I thought, if we were going to have an interim coach, that this week is going to be a little wild, right? The players are going to be emotional, that we could prepare for this game based on the opponent, and then you go and try to beat LSU the last game of the year and create some momentum. So, again, not ideal, but also not unique in the modern day of college football, especially given transfer portal world, signing day, and all those dynamics that played into it.”

Importantly, now that Jimbo Fisher is no longer with the program, Texas A&M can openly search and interview for its next head coach. Doing that now gives the team some time to find that coach before the transfer portal opens and National Signing Day.

Ross Bjork explains ‘not ideal’ timing on Jimbo Fisher dismissal

Even though Ross Bjork thought it was necessary to move on from Jimbo Fisher, he did admit the timing wasn’t ideal.

“The assessment I delivered was that we are not reaching our full potential, we are not in the championship conversation and something was not quite right about our direction and the plan. I appreciate their support for this decision and our plan moving forward. The timing is not ideal. Especially after last night, which I’ll touch on here in a second, but it’s also not unique given certain dates coming up in college athletics, and you all know what those are. However, given various meetings and schedules, last week and the end of the season approaching we decided to move forward immediately,” Bjork said.

“From there we had a busy sports weekend around Aggieland right and of course prepping for Aggie football game day. Can you believe that? 103,000 Aggies show up to support our military and especially support our players. There’s no other place in the country that would have done that, to have a packed full stadium. And our obligation is to make sure we service the Aggies that are supporting our program. Our players really needed that win and that was important. Aggies are the best and again, nowhere in the country would’ve seen that type of turnout.”