Rumor mill: Could FSU’s Jimbo Fisher be headed to Auburn?

Florida State Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher warms up before a game against the Miami Hurricanes at Sun Life Stadium. (Robert Mayer-US PRESSWIRE)

In 2007, as Florida State’s legendary head coach Bobby Bowden was nearing retirement, he tabbed Jimbo Fisher to be his replacement with the Seminoles. The transfer of power has been largely successful since Fisher took over the reins in 2010.

However, with only a handful of games remaining in the 2012 regular season and a slew of expected head coaching vacancies expected to become available, Fisher’s name has begun to crop up as a possible replacement for Gene Chizik with overwhelmingly disappointing Auburn.

As things currently stand, Fisher is totally comfortable in Tallahassee, and why wouldn’t he be? His annual salary currently stands at $2.75 million annually, he and his staff have been massively successful on the recruiting trail and he enjoys uncharacteristically autonomous control over his program’s organization (as in, the school’s athletic department has less say in everyday matters relative to other schools around the country).

[More from the Rumor Mill: Brent Pease and the Kentucky Wildcats]

All that being said, and in spite of the fact that he would have to compete in the SEC week in and week out and with Nick Saban’s Alabama on the recruiting trail, Fisher did not exactly rule out a potential move when prompted.

“We haven’t talked to nobody,” Fisher said. “I’m happy here, and I’m not talking to anybody. I wouldn’t even think of doing that until the season is over, and I don’t have any plans on doing that.”

As everyone knows, even the best-laid plans don’t always come to fruition (just ask this author’s ex-girlfriend, wink wink nudge nudge) so at the very least potential inquiries will have to proceed through the proper channels — read: not directly through him.

“They’d have to go through the proper channels to call your AD or the president and say, ‘Would we have permission to talk?’ and we’d have to give it and ask me if I’d be interested or not interested. That would be the proper way you have to do it. I would always do it that way. I’m straight up.”

What can we say? The dude’s straight up.

Except when he’s dodging reporters’ questions, that is.

Sources: ESPN

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