Jimbo Fisher was back in Tallahassee on Monday night with the ACC Huddle for the pregame show on ESPN ahead of Florida State’s Week 1 clash with SMU, long before it was delayed by a power outage. It seems there are a lot of Florida State fans who want him to stay.
Fans outside the ACC Huddle pregame set were chanting “we want Jimbo” and some even brought signs to try to mend a previously frayed relationship.
The “We want Jimbo” chants have begun… pic.twitter.com/s9mLE9cl1x
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) September 7, 2026
With Norvell on the hot seat after back-to-back losing seasons, much of the fanbase is already looking for a new head coach, and with rumors that Fisher, who last coached at Texas A&M in 2023, is looking to get back onto the sidelines, their search for a new head coach has often begun with the former head man.
It’s a nice idea to bring back the last head coach to win the program a national championship, even if he spurned the program to leave for a major payday in College Station, but fans pining for the past should be careful what they wish for.
Winning in college football is not about turning back the clock
The sect of the fanbase that wants to bring Jimbo Fisher back to Tallahassee is, ultimately, pining for the 2013 national championship run. But for proof of how much has changed in the sport since then, just look at your conference rival, Clemson, which won its titles even more recently in 2016 and 2018.
Yes, Dabo Swinney has stubbornly refused to embrace the transfer portal and the transactional nature of the sport in the NIL era, and maybe Fisher wouldn’t do that. He was happy to spend top dollar at the dawn of NIL payments at Texas A&M, assembling elite recruiting classes. However, it still didn’t work out for Fisher in College Station, even with all of that talent, and the reason is probably the same one that would make it tough for him to climb back up to the sport’s mountaintop.
The portal isn’t Swinney’s only failing. It’s his stubbornness about how to play, not just who to play, that has left Clemson in the dark ages. He hired an innovative offensive mind in Garrett Riley a few years ago, but forced him to run the “Clemson offense.” Then, when that failed, he brought back the man who helped build the identity of that “Clemson offense,” Chad Morris, who hadn’t called plays in the sport since 2020 at Auburn.
Morris is running the old zone-running, spread offense that was so effective 15 years ago, but defenses have answers for that now. They’ve largely solved that scheme, as they did Jimbo Fisher’s offense late in his time in Tallahassee, and especially in his final years at Texas A&M.
The days of Dabo Swinney and Jimbo Fisher are over
Yet, Fisher, like Swinney, didn’t adapt to the modern offensive trends in the sport, continuing to call his own plays long after he was effective doing so. Maybe he would give that up, but it’s hard to imagine such a domineering force ceding control to another play caller or to a general manager to aid in roster construction, which is a must in the modern era.
Even Nick Saban eventually succumbed to all the changes in the sport.
College football is all about progress. It’s all about what’s next. And though nostalgia is a powerful drug, turning back the clock would be a fool’s errand.
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