Corey Clark

Democrat senior writer

Jimbo Fisher knows he’s not a nice man on the practice field.

He’s not supposed to be.

The Florida State head coach is paid to win football games. Lots of football games. And being buddy-buddy with his players is the absolute least of his concerns.

If you doubt that, just stand outside the 10-foot-wall surrounding the FSU practice fields sometimes. You can’t see what’s going on inside the fortress but you can listen to it: Fisher’s relentless shouting echoes all over that part of campus like a bell being tolled.

That’s the way it’s been ever since he got here, even when he was just the offensive coordinator. It’s constant, it’s loud and it’s sometimes mean.

Which is why I was so startled by a comment Fisher made during his press conference after Saturday’s Garnet & Gold game.

Watch it: FSU coach Jimbo Fisher post-spring game interview

“I was hell this spring,” he said. “I was never happy. I was pushing, because if you don’t now, you have to get across what you’re trying to sell right now. The parity of this game is too great, who can mentally and physically handle the mental strains and toughness are the guy that persevere and come out on top.”

When he said this my first reactions was, “Wow, so he was holding back before?”

After the interview session was over I talked to Fisher for a minute as he was walking to his office. Because I really was intrigued by the “I was hell” comment.

Exactly hard had he been on his team this spring?

“Oh, I was an a--hole,” Fisher said.

Just in case you don’t believe him I got verification from defensive end Brian Burns. I asked the sophomore if Fisher was really hell to play for this spring.

“Yeah, he was,” Burns said with a wide smile. “He was really on us, because I know he expects a lot out of us. There’s a lot of potential on this team and when we don’t play to the level that we can play he gets aggravated. And I don’t blame him.

“So we all have to step up and meet his expectations.”

Clark: FSU’s No. 3’s were really, really impressive on Saturday

I asked quarterback Deondre Francois about Fisher’s comments, but he sort of laughed them off. After all, he’s a QB. So he deals with Fisher all day. Every day.

“He’s going to be hard on me no matter what,” Francois said. “Spring, fall, summer, winter, it doesn’t matter. I feel like he was a bit harder this spring. But he’s always going to be hard. That’s just Jimbo. No matter what the circumstances are he’s a perfectionist. And so am I.

“So I couldn’t really tell if he was harder (on everyone else), because he’s always hard.”

Fair point.

But with Fisher claiming he was even tougher on his team than normal the question becomes: Why?

Well, the answer is pretty obvious: 10-3.

Florida State had a 29-game winning streak just a few years ago. Now the Seminoles have gone back-to-back years with three losses. They’ve gone two straight seasons without winning the ACC.

They were humiliated in a loss at Louisville last year and then, after a last-second defeat to North Carolina, had to sign promise notes to try harder.

Jimbo’s not playing that nonsense anymore.

Winning 10 games is nice. Winning the Orange Bowl is an accomplishment worth celebrating. And beating your two in-state rivals is always satisfying.

But 2016 still wasn’t good enough. Not for many FSU fans, and most certainly not for the FSU head coach.

Which is why he went from typical Jimbo to a-hole Jimbo. He turned up the yelling-and-demanding dial from 10 to 11.

“Exactly right,” he said. “And it’s not necessarily about the winning and losing. It’s the internal standard. You play to your internal standard. And that’s what I was trying to get across. That’s what I want. I want it back. I want us to do it this way.”

He said his team got that back for the second half of 2016, and he’s not wrong. The Seminoles did seem to find that edge for the last seven games of the year, starting with the one-point win at Miami and culminating with the one-point win over Michigan in the same stadium.

With the talent he has coming back, especially on defense, Fisher knows 2017 has a chance to be a special season. He knows the Seminoles can win the ACC and return to the College Football Playoff.

He also knows they can’t wait half a season to find themselves again.

So this spring he had no qualms about being a tyrant. He had no worries about bringing hell with him to the practice field every day.

Fisher wasn’t out there to be anyone’s friend. He wasn’t out there to throw verbal bouquets around to his four- and five-star players.

Nope. He was going to more demanding than ever. He let them know, every period of every practice, that the way they played at times in 2016 wasn’t nearly good enough. And he was going to do everything in his power, even if it meant being the biggest jerk in Leon County, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

There was a method to the madness – with heavy emphasis on the word “mad.”

“Yeah,” Fisher agreed. “I went in with a purpose.”