Recap: Everything Jimbo Fisher said at SEC Media Days

The 2022 SEC Media Days wrapped up on Thursday with Auburn, Tennessee and Texas A&M closing out the week. Media days is often the first glimpse of football being back and the fall season being right around the corner. A lot of hype and excitement comes out of the event.

Jimbo Fisher, offensive lineman Layden Robinson and safety Demani Richardson represented Texas A&M at the College Football Hall of Fame on Thursday.

RELATED: Insider Intel: Thoughts from SEC Media Days + Texas A&M recruiting notes

Here is a recap of everything Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher touched on while speaking to the media:

How the offseason has gone

“We know this time of year, when I get to come over here, it means we’re ready to play ball. And that’s the funnest time of our life as coaches, we get back to coaching, doing the things we got to do. I hope everybody has had a good summer. We’ve had a good summer, busy summer, fun summer. It goes across.”

“Excited about our football team, as everyone is this time of year. Great new additions to the class coming in that we’re excited about with some of the older guys, fun watching them develop and play. Very pleased with our off-season as far as it goes.”

Texas A&M Development and Culture

“Back to spring, I think some of the things that went on last year in our team, we were 8-4, disappointed in that, that we didn’t play as well as we needed to in some critical situations. But still very excited. We had some really young players, because of injuries, that had to play. Last year we had to bring those guys along slowly. Right now I think that’s turned into a strength for us, a young center, a young tackle, and some situations occurred at corner, situations that occurred at wideout that I think let a lot of our young guys to develop.”

“I’m very excited about our team coming up, as everybody is. Everybody in this league has players. Everybody in this league has good coaches. It’s what you do and how you play. We can sit up here and say what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, how good we feel, but it’s about what we do and creating a culture within our organization, which we feel like we have. The young guys have adapted to it very well. I’m very pleased with our senior leadership right now with a lot of guys jumping out and doing a really good job. You’ll see two of them here today in Demani and Layden.”

Strength of the Texas A&M program

“I feel what’s great about our program right now as I have since I’ve been there, because of the depth of it, because of how we’re recruiting, what we’re recruiting, and I think the foresight to be — a year ago to be fourth in the country, to be one game — we’re the only SEC team with one loss in the Playoff world and never get in the Playoff. I thought we were at that time as good as anybody in the country, I really did. Alabama had a great — maybe the second best team, like to have a shot in the Playoff.

…I like where we’re at right now, I like the mentality. I think we’ve been to the highs, been to some disappointment right there. But we have depth and talent. Looking forward to the competitive battles in practice which are going to allow us to develop.

Listen, you are what your habits say you are on a daily basis. When pressure comes, that’s what’s coming to the surface. You have to practice that way because you know somebody is there to take your job, it makes a lot better habits created. I think that’s what we have to do, and we have to learn to finish at the end of games. That’s what got us last year.”

Recent feud with Nick Saban

“Listen, we’re great. Two competitive guys that go at it. We all learn from things we do in our business. Two competitive guys on a topic that is very — everywhere, as they say. There’s no rules in this thing, where it goes. Each state has different laws and everything.”

“And like he said, I heard a statement he made, the arguments we had in the staff room and on the basketball court and all those things. But on the basketball court, we didn’t have them. We were always on the same team. So we usually had them against other people.”

“I have great respect for Nick. Unfortunately, our thing went public. Sometimes that happens in this world. Nothing is private anymore, is it?”

“Anyway. But, no, have great respect from Nick. We all learn from him. We all will learn, like I say, he will learn, hopefully I learn from things we do and say, and we move on from there.”

“But I have great respect for him and their program like always.”

Hire of D-Coordinator DJ Durkin

“D.J. goes back to my days when I was at Florida. He was at Florida, a coordinator there, assistant coach there. They had some great D. They had great players, but they had a great defense. Their scheme was very hard to go against, it was very sound, multiple, did different things. As their players’ talents changed, they changed what we did. He was very difficult to go against at different times.”

“What he’s evolved to and doing different things. He’s always been a four-down guy, but he went to a three-down package at Ole Miss because of the personnel they have, which shows you how good a coach he is, what he does, being able adapt to his personnel.”

“I think his diversity, his knowledge, wisdom, been around a long time. He did a great job for us in the spring.”

Sweet spot for college football (NIL and transfer portal)

“I think some kind of uniformity. I think that’s what he’s talking about. Change is inevitable. Conferences are going to change a little bit, they’re going to move, the rules. The NIL, the uncertainty of NIL and the difference in the rules per state, what you can do and how you can do it, affects recruiting.”

“Listen, at the end of the day we can coach all we want, you got to have good players. You got to be able to get that uniformity together and create some kind of balance that everybody has the same rules about what you can and cannot do. I think that’s what he’s talking about.”

“Like you say, change is inevitable. Life is always going to change, it’s always going to move. You either have to adapt or get ran over. To me, that’s what he is probably talking about. The transfer portal, I don’t know where that goes either, the situations with that.”

“I think where there’s such chaos. You got conference realignment, you got NIL, then you got NIL on top of transfer portal. I mean, that’s three major, major changes in everything we’ve done for how long? I don’t even know how many years it’s been.”

“What we’re all scared of… What does two man nature make you scared of? The unknown. We have so much unknown. That’s why we’re all on the edge and panicked about what’s going on.”