If Jimbo Fisher leaves, Florida State is instantly the best job on the market

Should Jimbo Fisher decide to leave Florida State after a disastrous 2017 season and head to Texas A&M, FSU would undoubtedly become the best job on the market.

In many ways, this is a credit to Fisher. Fisher helped elevate the FSU brand back to what it was during the 90s, a place known for producing perennial national champion contenders.

Importantly, Fisher showed that it doesn’t take a legend like Bobby Bowden to win big at Florida State. They say you never want to follow a legend, but rather follow the guy who follows the legend, but Fisher made it look easy in his first several years.

He revamped FSU’s infrastructure and brought the program into the modern age, from an indoor-practice facility to revamped nutrition and strength and conditioning programs. Those things won’t leave FSU with Fisher, if he does go.

Florida State football is a job with great resources. Fisher was annually paid north of $5.5 million, with a top-5 overall salary pool. It has the only finished indoor-practice facility in the state and is breaking ground on a football-only administrative facility soon. And while many school presidents are academics who care not for football, FSU’s president John Thrasher, is also extremely supportive of football.

FSU also has tremendous talent, thanks in large part to Fisher’s recruiting.

The ’Noles possess one of the five best rosters in college football according to 247’s Team Talent rankings:

That’s 5th in the nation and by far the best in the ACC:

As far as big jobs go, FSU is pretty easy. It has SEC resources and talent, while getting to compete against ACC talent and competition. The depth of the ACC has been better than the SEC recently, but the SEC still signs better players on the whole. That is a recipe for winning a lot of games, and for great job security.

FSU has the benefit of being located in Florida, the most talent-laden state, while also being located near hotbeds like south Georgia and south Alabama. Florida State also has recruiting ties in the 757 area code of Virginia and the DMV (where D.C., Maryland, and Virginia intersect), two areas that recently produced great players for FSU such as Eddie Goldman, Ronald Darby, Josh Sweat, Derrick Nnadi, and Levonta Taylor.

The truth for the ’Noles is that, although losing a coach of Fisher’s quality would be a tough loss, all the advantages a job like FSU has would likely give the administration the pick of the litter with regard to the remaining reasonable names in this year’s coaching carousel—should the job come open.