Most people would rush to put pen to paper on a deal guaranteeing them $7.5 million over the next 10 years but Jimbo Fisher apparently isn’t most people.
The Texas Tribune is reporting that the Aggies head coach has not signed his new contract with the school despite being introduced in College Station the first week of December and reportedly agreeing to terms well before that. A school spokesperson, Kelly Brown, told the Tribune that Fisher is working under a memorandum of understanding and -- naturally -- is being paid regularly as part of his annual salary.
“There’s no disagreement over the contract and there’s nothing contentious going on behind the scenes,” she said.
Interestingly, one driving force over the delay in signing could be coming as the result of a recent signature in Washington that brought about significant changes to the federal tax code. While Texas famously doesn’t have a state income tax, the new law that was passed earlier this year called for “an excise tax of 21 percent on annual compensation over $1 million that’s paid to some employees at nonprofit organizations.” It seems that Fisher’s representatives and the school itself are still sorting out whether they are impacted by the change to see if any tweaks are needed to the language that is already drawn up.
Coaches have waited months (and even years) before signing their actual contract with schools so this isn’t that out of the ordinary and Fisher is certainly cashing checks from the Aggies either way to run their football program. Just take Nebraska for example, which just saw Scott Frost sign his massive deal in late May despite being hired just around the same time.
Still, we’d be telling the lawyers to hurry up a bit if $75 million is involved...