Jimbo Fisher explains why he and his staff ranked their entire roster after each workout
This off season, Jimbo Fisher and his Texas A&M staff locked up the highest rated recruiting class in college football history.
When signing day was all said and done, a total of seven five-star recruits (all within the top 25 players in the country) committed to play their ball in College Station.
While that is undoubtedly impressive, college football is full of talented rosters that often fail to develop enough to meet the high expectations. The measurable are important, no doubt, but the intangibles are equally (if not more) important.
How to measure and develop those intangibles on your roster is where there is a lot of mysticism and debate.
At his spring practice press conference heading into this past weekend, while talking about a handful of players that have stood out so far, Jimbo shared why they decided to start ranking guys after each off season workout, and it's all about identifying and providing feedback on those all-important intangibles.
"Every off season workout, when we get done, we did a ratings system. If you were playing championship football, you got a maroon jersey...just from an effort standpoint - effort, discipline, toughness. Not about physical ability. It has nothing to do with that.
"With all the intangibles, you make a choice about what you do and if you were average you were white, if you were below average you were yellow and we didn't feel like we could win with you."
"It was an eye opening thing to rate them, to let them know where their effort was and to let them know where they were. We had guys from day one put on those red jerseys and never take them off. We've had a lot of guys like that."
While Jimbo Fisher and his Aggies at Texas A&M certainly aren't the first one to employ a jersey color pecking order for spring practice, but using it to rate the intangibles and provide immediate feedback to one of the most talented rosters in college football could ultimately help propel them to national title contention while expectations continue to climb in College Station.
Hear more from Jimbo in the clip.
