REPORT: LSU CONTACTS JIMBO FISHER

LSU has contacted Jimbo Fisher in the coaching hunt for LSU. That’s an intentional choice of words, because part of the appeal for Jimbo to LSU would be an even greater proximity to quality hunting. Bonus: Even fewer people care if you field dress a deer in your driveway in Baton Rouge.

Jimbo’s agent is Jimmy Sexton. To the uninitiated: Jimmy Sexton is a power agent for multiple coaches, including Nick Saban, Hugh Freeze, Lane Kiffin, and Will Muschamp. His strategy, to those who don’t have to write checks to his clients, is so, so beautiful: constantly get your clients in play for every single plausible job, ratchet up the tension about their job satisfaction whatever the situation may be, and then pull new contracts, raises, additional perks, and occasionally a new job for his clients.

He’s real good at what he does, which is why even after a couple of championships you still hear leaks about Nick Saban possibly going to Texas, because hustle never sleeps. So let’s review what “LSU contacts Jimbo Fisher could mean,” both for those concerned that FSU could be open at the end of the year, and for the LSU fan wanting to know what precisely this might mean

1. It means that LSU called Jimbo’s agent. That might be all it means. We texted Paul Wall this morning, but he hasn’t hit us back yet, mostly because he has the internet going nuts, and that can be very time-consuming.
2. It means that Jimmy Sexton is floating Jimbo’s name to get another raise or something out of FSU. Note: this and #1 could both be true. Not mutually exclusive.
3. It means that Jimbo has already met in person with Joe Alleva, and had a long lunch where they discussed the things that mattered to them. The insecurities of their respective professions, for instance, or the heartache of aging, or maybe their shared devotion to their individual families, and the difficulties of raising them in such an uncertain and fraught time in American history. Maybe they shared a moment of silence as the earth turned, and together their shared sorrows formed a kind of concrete bond between the two, some kind of bitter insulation stacked like an igloo against the cold terrors of the world? Maybe Jimbo gave an oral agreement to already be the coach at LSU, and is packing right now. That probably didn’t happen, both because there’s no way that wouldn’t get out, and because men don’t ever talk about feelings unless it involves how sad they were when lightning hit the house and shorted out the wiring on their power washer.
4. Maybe something beyond a phone call, but less than a meeting? That’s also possible.
5. This. It could mean that LSU sent a team of scientists to Hair Island. The challenges were steep, the communication difficult. But as Arrival teaches us, communication is not an obstacle, but a method of survival. All one has to do is find a way to find common ground—indeed, to offer someone, no matter how foreign or alien they seem, something they need. Something they crave.

That’s what “contact” could mean.