Jimbo Fisher calls for college football to have a commissioner amid massive changes

College football has undergone several massive changes in recent years, most notably with the transfer portal and NIL. Former Texas A&M and Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher believes a commissioner is needed to run the sport.

Fisher recently appeared on Pardon My Take and shared the challenges of running a college football program in this day and age.

“The last two to three years of this thing, there’s been more change to college football than ever. It’s unbelievable how this has transformed,” Jimbo Fisher said. “I mean college football right now, it needs a commissioner. It needs a commissioner and we need to do this thing the right way. And go and get your 50 or 60 teams, whoever’s going to be in Division I, make them more like an NFL league.

Intertwine your leagues of play a lot more so you can get a true playoff picture and play it more like you do the NFL and do it the right way.”

Fisher believes that the current schedule for coaches is incredibly difficult to manage. There is hardly any down time, meaning coaches have to constantly work long hours throughout the year.

“In February, you can’t have kids on campus. In July you can’t. That’s just an NCAA rule. Every other weekend of every month of the year, you’re working seven days a week, every day. And you’ve got recruits, you’ve got people. There’s somebody on your campus,” Fisher said. “Our staff worked every other weekend, except for those two months. So basically 45 weekends a month is what we work year-round.”

He added that the transfer portal makes roster management a nightmare. Players are regularly coming in and out of your program, and you have to act quickly to fill voids.

“Understand this – think if the NFL was open free agency. Now they just passed the other rule – it’s unlimited transfers. It was just one. Now it’s unlimited,” Fisher said. “And you don’t have to wait ‘til you graduate. Think of if every contract in the NFL right now was negotiable. It’s unbelievable. And then people are tampering with players.”

Jimbo Fisher doesn’t have a strong opinion as far as who should be the college football commissioner.

But he definitely believes the sport needs someone in charge to run it.

“You’d have to get some of your top commissioners in the world and I think some of your ex-top coaches or people who have been in it would be good. Somebody who really understands the inter-workings of what we as coaches and what a program goes through is going to be the guy who has to do that,” Fisher said.

“People have no idea the stress that’s on a staff right now and the amount of people you have to have to run an organization now. People who want to cut back are crazy, because the amount of time you’ve gotta spend on the phone with recruits, with your own players. And the head coaches now, it’s hard. … It’s so different now. It’s unbelievable.”