In Year 3 at A&M, Jimbo Fisher wins Orange Bowl. Sound familiar? It’s his FSU trajectory

Eight years and one day before Jimbo Fisher led the Texas A&M Aggies to a 41-27 win in the 2021 Orange Bowl, the coach stood on the field in Miami Gardens and boasted about the turnaround happening in Tallahassee.

Florida State had just rolled over the Northern Illinois Huskies in the 2013 Orange Bowl and the Seminoles’ best season in more than a decade was complete.

They had, Fisher said, “put Florida State back on the map,” and he was right. A year later, the Seminoles won their first national title since 1999.

The similarities to this Texas A&M team were no secret. Fisher’s first Orange Bowl win came in his third season at Florida State. On Saturday, Fisher wrapped up his third season with the Aggies the same way. He couldn’t help but laugh when he finally fielded a question about it.

“I knew that was coming,” he said. “We won the Orange Bowl our third year. I’ll take the fourth year just like it was there, too. I promise.”

The turnaround never had to be so extreme with the Seminoles, though. He was an assistant coach for Bobby Bowden for three years before he took the helm, so he could be the steward to carry a still-iconic program from the hands of a College Football Hall of Famer into the future.

He reinvigorated the program by recruiting at a high level, modernizing its offense and quickly retooling Florida State into one of the nation’s top programs.

While he was there, he always won at Hard Rock Stadium. He did it four times against the Miami Hurricanes and two other times in the Orange Bowl, and now he has done it again for Texas A&M to keep his perfect record in the oft-renamed stadium intact and usher the No. 5 Aggies to new heights.

Texas A&M (9-1, 8-1 Southeastern) hadn’t won a major bowl in at least 30 years before Saturday, when Fisher led the Aggies to a come-from-behind win against the No. 14 North Carolina Tar Heels in South Florida.

They had never played in a New Year’s Six game before this weekend. They only played in a Bowl Championship Series game — in 1998, the BCS’ inaugural season — and lost it. Their frequent trips to the Cotton Bowl Classic in the 1980s and 1990s mostly came after the historic bowl game — which is now part of the New Year’s Six — had started to lose its reputation as a major bowl because of a tie-in with the then-flailing, now-defunct Southwest Conference.

Fisher, who won two Orange Bowls and the 2014 BCS National Championship Game in eight seasons with the Seminoles, has now delivered Texas A&M one of its biggest postseason wins ever and it’s only the third season of a much more significant turnaround project.

The Aggies will now finish the season ranked in the top five for the first time since 2012. If they move up at all, they’ll achieve their highest end-of-season ranking since 1967, when they went undefeated and won the 1940 Sugar Bowl to win their last national championship.

Last month, Fisher spent the moments after Texas A&M’s regular-season finale stumping for the Aggies to make the College Football Playoff.

Their only loss came against the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide, and they followed it up by beating the then-No. 4 Florida Gators the next week and closing out the regular season on a seven-game winning streak.

After the then-No. 2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish fell in the 2020 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game, a path was open for Texas A&M to reach the Playoff for the first time.

“A couple weeks ago, I thought I was in,” Fisher said, laughing again. “We’re right there knocking on the door.”

When the 2021 season begins, the Aggies will still face an uphill climb — it’s inevitable sharing a division with Alabama — but Fisher is doing all he can to close the gap.

After signing top-six recruiting classes in each of the last two cycles, Texas A&M currently sits at No. 7 in the 247Sports.com composite rankings for the Class of 2021 — the Aggies hadn’t even signed a top 10 class since 2014 — and should continue to move up from No. 11 in 247Sports’ team talent composite rankings as young stars like former Miami Gulliver Prep edge rusher Donell Harris continue to develop.

Their win against North Carolina (8-4, 7-3 ACC) is only the latest piece of evidence Fisher has Texas A&M pointed in the right direction.

“I’m very excited,” defensive lineman DeMarvin Leal said. “The guys that we have coming in and the guys that we have that are staying, man, it’s going to be crazy. I just can’t wait to see it.”