Jimbo Fisher relays hilarious Derek Dooley recruiting story involving former LSU national champion Matt Flynn

It’s hard to find national championship caliber quarterbacks. Jimbo Fisher would know a thing or two about that, having been a part of two national championships.

But he almost didn’t land the quarterback who would help guide him to the first title at LSU. That, of course, was Matt Flynn.

Joining Flynn and former LSU standout running back Jacob Hester on the Off The Bench radio program, Fisher opened up on a hilarious recruiting story about Flynn. LSU nearly didn’t go after the talented quarterback thanks to a scouting trip by former LSU assistant coach Derek Dooley.

“There was a combine at A&M, and Derek Dooley had that part of Houston and down there,” Jimbo Fisher explained. “And there was a combine at A&M and so Matt was going to be at that Nike combine. So I said, ‘Just go look at this guy. This is a guy that may sneak under the radar that we can get in on.’ We were on everybody in the country, but I said I like this guy as well as anybody.

“So Derek’s a young coach, Derek goes to the combine. He comes back and he goes, ‘He’s not overly tall,’ but he said he moved pretty well. But he said, listen to this now, he said, ‘Jimbo, I just didn’t like him. He had fat ankles.'”

On #OTB former #LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher tells a HILARIOUS recruiting story about Matt Flynn! 😂😂😂@mflynn3 @JacobHester18 pic.twitter.com/dngUGQOyb1

— 104.5 ESPN (@1045espn) June 2, 2025

Fat ankles? Yes, apparently Derek Dooley had chalked that up as a key part of Matt Flynn’s evaluation. Luckily for the eventual LSU national champion, the Tigers did their due diligence anyway.

“We come in and y’all scrimmaged that day and y’all threw like 25 passes. 25 passes in the scrimmage, bang, bang, bang,” Jimbo Fisher said. “Matt completes like 24 of them. He’s running around making plays and he’s throwing the ball all over and Nick (Saban) comes over to me, he looked at me, he said, ‘Jimbo, this guy’s really good.’ I said, ‘I told you he’s a really good player.’ He said, ‘Well why didn’t we do him?’ And I said, ‘Because Derek said he had fat ankles and he wasn’t nothing special.’

“He told me, he said, ‘Get Derek on the phone.’ We’re standing there watching the scrimmage, so I called Derek up. I said, ‘Hey, Nick wants to talk to you.’ Nick grabs the phone and he said, ‘Hey Derek, don’t you ever recruit another; don’t you ever evaluate another quarterback. This guy looks like Johnny Unitas over here.’ He’s throwing every ball crazy, he looks good. Derek don’t know what to say.”

A hilarious story, no doubt. Luckily for everyone involved, the LSU portion of their careers was a huge success.

Jimbo Fisher would go on to coach at Florida State. Derek Dooley would go on to take the Tennessee head coaching job down the line. Matt Flynn won a national title with the Tigers. Fat ankles and all.