Jimmy Sexton is at lunch trying to complete a thought. The crab cakes at trendy Bouré on The Square look, smell and taste like anything is possible on this sunny day in Oxford, Miss.

Super agent Jimmy Sexton has been controlling the college football coaching market for years, and he's done it without making enemies

The Rebels are rollin'. Coach Hugh Freeze is at the top of his game. In less than a week, Ole Miss will beat Alabama for the biggest win of Freeze's career.

So there's still much to be determined.

The man largely responsible for the whole damn thing is across the table. This is not a lunch so much as a sighting.

"I try to maintain as low a profile as I can," said Sexton, in another life a 51-year old father of three sons.

But 10 minutes into the lunch, the sanctity of Being Jimmy and being dad is violated. He has to take this call.

"I'm in the middle of a meeting," Sexton tells his oldest son James. "I'll call you in a little bit, OK?"

Where were we? Oh yeah, once again Sexton is trying to complete a thought. And the thought is … wait, riiiing.

"Grace, you need two tickets right? I got you covered."

Jimmy had to take that call too. His niece checking in.

Let's interrupt an interruption for a formal introduction. James Edward Sexton II is one of the most powerful men in sports. He's also one of the most humble.

The super agent behind the careers of Freeze, Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher, Tim Tebow, Will Muschamp, Lane Kiffin and Jim Mora Jr. not only controls the college football coaching market, in some spaces he is the market.

Could Nick Saban become college football's first $10 million per year coach? (Getty Images)

Five of the 14 SEC head coaches are his clients -- three alone in the SEC West. Their combined salaries are approaching $21.5 million.

The AFC East also sports his influence. Sexton's stable of NFL coaches includes Doug Marrone and Rex Ryan. On Sunday, one Sexton client replaced the other when Ryan took the Buffalo Bills job that Marrone, just a few weeks ago, used a contract clause to get out of.

If you're a Sextonopohile, you might have noticed when Freeze's name was mentioned for the Florida job. Muschamp had been fired. Soon after, the Ole Miss coach's contract was significantly bumped to an average of $4.5 million per year. Coincidence?

In the case of Tennessee (his alma mater), Sexton represented three coaches in a row -- Phil Fulmer, Kiffin and Derek Dooley.

"It's really wild," said former Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton. "To see the growth of what he's done and see him become the czar in regards to head coaches."

Czar? Sexton considers a softer label -- the Reluctant Power Broker. And he is … reluctant.

"I've never pictured myself like that at all," he said. "Am I competitive? Yes. Do I want to win? Yes. I don't think I've ever controlled anything."

Consider the implications of the 2014 Sexton v. Sexton national championship game. Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher's contract has been extended twice in 12 months to a reported $5 million per year, with the latest deal getting him through 2022. Auburn's Gus Malzahn was bumped from $2.3 million to $3.85 million 13 months ago.

Client Jimbo beat Client Gus with 13 seconds left, 34-31.

"That game was a lot of fun to watch if you didn't care who won," Sexton said. "You find yourself in this business probably pulling for the guy who needs the win the most."

There are a lot of those "conflicts" in Sexton's career. He was the first agent to represent both coaches in a championship game in the BCS era. The Bills had to deal with the same agent to make their switch. The same goes at Florida, where Muschamp was replaced by Colorado State's Jim McElwain, another Sexton client.

It hasn't mattered much that Sexton left his own practice a few years ago to work for powerful Creative Artists Agency. Jimmy is Jimmy, more homespun than highbrow.

If they haven't worked with him personally, most Power 5 ADs at least known of him.

"Everybody in the SEC knows him. I guarantee you that," said Scott Stricklin, Mississippi State's AD. "He's got his finger on the pulse of what's going on."

The message keeps repeating itself: After dealing with Jimmy, owners/ADs don't feel like they need a shower. The Memphis-raised son of a dentist works hard enough and is fair enough that, frankly, no one dislikes him.

"There are other agents who will get you the best deal. The thing he'll do, the other side isn't miserable about it," said Rex Ryan.

Rex Ryan, a Sexton client, replaced Doug Marrone, another Sexton client, in Buffalo. (Getty Images)

"He's incredibly likeable," Stricklin adds. "I don't know anyone who doesn't like him."

Consider that Tennessee is in its current rebuilding position largely because Sexton clients -- Fulmer, Kiffin and Dooley -- have all failed to some extent. Hamilton estimates that during those coaching transitions, from Fulmer to Kiffin to Dooley, and now to Butch Jones, the Vols lost 10-12 players to attrition each time.

"That's gutting a program in the SEC," Hamilton said.

The Kiffin exit, you'll recall, was tabloid messy, with Kiffin lasting all of one season in Knoxville before bolting for USC in a move that sent the entire state of Tennessee into an uproar that still hasn't ended.

Hamilton eventually hired Dooley, at approximately $2 million per year, to replace Kiffin. Three years later, Dooley was gone, too. Tennessee's program, on Hamilton's watch, has been set back considerably by missteps that Sexton had a significant role in facilitating.

Hard feelings?

Hardly. In fact, Hamilton, who first met Sexton 23 years ago as Tennessee's assistant AD for development, remains close friends with Sexton -- who even took the initiative to stage a fundraiser for one of Hamilton's pet non-profit projects at Sexton's home.

"Beautiful evening," Hamilton said of the Sexton-produced fundraiser. "Outside of his success as a sports agent, Jimmy's just a good person."

Among Sexton's core, Fisher and Malzahn are set for, well, life. They're already being mentioned for NFL jobs, and the raises alone for both coaches since December 2013 total at least $18 million.

Can Sexton's influence truly shift the balance of power in college football? It sure seems that way. It also very much feels like when the first college coach makes $10 million per year, it's going to be a Jimmy client.

"Look at 1999, 2000. Everybody was astounded when Nick [Saban] made $1.2 million," he said. "It's gonna happen at some point."

Consider last offseason when Texas reportedly reached out to gauge interest in Saban. One super power reaching out to another.

"I never ever really talked to anyone there," Saban said.

Of course he didn't. That's why there are agents who create plausible deniability. Whatever happened, Texas sold the search with at least the perception that it shot for the top coach in the game.

It also -- if you believe in the transitive property of agenting -- got Saban yet another raise from Alabama.

Lane Kiffin made $680,000 as Alabama's offensive coordinator last year. (Getty Images)

"I always bristle at people calling me puppeteer," Sexton said. "I just try to take each client and do the best for them, what's in their best interests at that time.

"It's more about the relationships than the deals."

When the Texas episode was over, Sexton received a text regarding Saban: "This guy would have never made it on the Longhorn Network."

That was an inside joke about the LHN, which can be as cloying and intrusive as those Alabama fans.

"Alabama is an interesting place," Sexton added. "Alabama has to have the right guy to be a power. Nick's the perfect guy for the job because he can handle the crazies. He not going to let them push him or move him.

"His key is focus. I've often said if he's driving down the street and if a bomb goes off and doesn't hit his car, he doesn't know the bomb went off."

Actually, Sexton has a lot of thoughts. He's been through more tense, ball-busting negotiations than John Kerry.

Another silly season of college coaching changes has concluded bearing Sexton's stamp. The Florida/McElwain deal wasn't concluded until a massive $7 million buyout was negotiated.

"If you always have the best talent, they've got to come to you at some point," Sexton said.

Tommy Tuberville was Sexton's first coaching client 20 years ago at Ole Miss. Sexton negotiated a deal for the then princely sum of $225,000 per year.

"Twenty years later they paid a guy [Freeze] $4 million at Ole Miss," Tuberville said. "Go figure.

"[Sexton} got in on the bottom floor before all the salaries went haywire. [Now] you never see him without being on the telephone."

***

"Let me ask you this," Sexton says over spoonfuls of creole fare at Boure. "What made you want to do this story?

Well, Sexton is told, the perception is there aren't many good people in the agenting profession.

Drew Rosenhaus is just as powerful but lets you know it at every turn. The hyperbolic Rosenhaus -- reportedly the character study for Jerry Maguire -- once tried to sell Terrelle Pryor as a "great, not good" NFL quarterback.

How'd that work out?

"I don't want to be anything like an agent," Sexton continued. "The last thing I want to be is a stereotype of the slicked back hair, leather coat. I can't stand all that."

No one hates this guy. Not ADs, not presidents, not commissioners, not even former clients. They line up, like well wishers in a receiving line.

"He doesn't want attention. He doesn't want to be the guy out front," Jimbo Fisher said. "He does his job and let's the star be the star."

Jimbo Fisher is currently signed through 2022 at Florida State for a reported $5 million per year. (Getty Images)

Before he'd dreamed of the UCLA job, Mora was at his alma mater, the University of Washington, rehabbing the knee he injured in a skiing accident a few years back. Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian opened up the program's facilities to Mora, who hadn't been in the college game for 28 years, and then only as a Washington grad assistant.

"That's what propelled me into college football again was being around that program," Mora said. "I spent five days a week, three hours a day, for six months in the Husky program.

"Being around those student-athletes, it was awesome. It made me feel, like, I was needed, like I had something to offer. I thought about college football but never seriously. But being around those guys, Sark inviting me into meetings and letting me come to practice and talk about philosophy and watch kids react to me …

"I thought, this is what I've got to do. Just got a hold of Jimmy and made it happen."

Mora tells the story of a former representative. Then he weaves in wife Shannon.

"He'd try to B.S. her and he would try to bully her," Mora said. "She would not take anyone's B.S. and she reads B.S. really well.

"I love Jimmy, man. More important for me is Shannon. He'll talk to her. My wife is very bright and a business major. We run a foundation. She likes talking to him. I'm a dumb football coach. She's a smart lady, she's a business woman."

By its nature, the agent business is full of insecurity. Agents are either chasing new clients or servicing their current ones. There are only a handful who can seal a deal to cash a three percent commission on a nine-figure player contract.

"The reason we have a profession is the coaches aren't really comfortable talking about a multi-million [dollar] package with an AD," Sexton said.

The Reluctant Power Broker didn't take a dime from Freeze until the coach landed the Arkansas State job in 2010. Before that, Sexton was merely advising an up-and-coming coach whom he thought had a bright future.

He did the same for Fisher, and Rutgers' Kyle Flood, a native of Queens who came to Rutgers from the now-defunct Hofstra.

"I'm attracted to [guys on the come]," Sexton said of Flood. "He really needed my help. Quite frankly, I thought it was a challenge."

Tuberville hasn't used Sexton for years. Nothing personal. Cincinnati's coach just prefers to use an attorney to negotiate contracts these days.

"If you're a young guy getting in this business working on your first couple of contracts, he's the guy you want," Tuberville said.

The Reluctant Power Broker demurs.

"I'm really not that fascinating," Sexton said. "I don't think I've ever controlled anything."

That, of course, is somewhat of a falsehood crafted out of modesty. Sexton is largely in charge of the college game's ecosystem. When it was circulated that Harbaugh might be making $8 million a year at Michigan, no one blinked.

That's because Saban was already making $7 million.

"The way I always handle this question is, how much value do you create?" Saban said. "If you create value then it's fair to get compensated. If you don't really create value then you really shouldn't."

Sexton calls it luck that he is even in this position. In 1983, he was an equipment manager at Tennessee and had a friendship with star defensive lineman Reggie White, who had sort of informally tabbed Sexton as his representative, back before agenting was really a thing.

Jimmy Sexton got his start representing Reggie White out of Tennessee. (Getty Images)

"I was standing on the sideline of the Friday walk-through before the Citrus Bowl," Sexton said. "There were two guys standing on the other end of the field in trench coats."

Later, Pepper Rodgers and Robert Fraley introduced themselves to Sexton, a 20-year-old kid. Rodgers was the coach of the Memphis Showboats in something called the United States Football League. Fraley was an agent.

They wanted to pay White $1.5 million to play in the USFL at a time when Lawrence Taylor was the NFL's highest-paid player making $400,000.

"Wait a minute," Sexton thought to himself. "Four-hundred thousand to $1.5 million? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out."

Right then and there, Sexton was carving out a vocation. Rodgers and Fraley wanted to meet White outside the locker room immediately after the bowl game. They brought along an envelope that contained a contract term sheet.

"So I call my father," Sexton said. "I'm in way over my head here."

Rodgers/Fraley wanted White to appear at the Liberty Bowl. They met him at the airport with the keys to a Cadillac El Dorado. White wanted a date with Vanessa Williams, who was singing the anthem.

This was in the gunslinger days, when there was no market to speak of. Free agency was nine years away. Rodgers and Fraley flew Sexton to Hawaii for the Hula Bowl to keep their franchise player away from NFL types in the bidding war.

"I missed the first two weeks of the winter quarter chasing Reggie White," Sexton remembers.

Sexton would later join Kyle Rote Jr. in a Memphis agency. White eventually left the crumbled USFL for the NFL, signing a landmark contract with Green Bay during the first wave of free agency in 1993.

"The Reggie White of 2014 has already had 100 agents call," Sexton said. "Back then, Reggie had one or two guys. It's changed so much I wouldn't know how to relate it to today."

Fisher, Freeze and Colorado's Mike MacIntyre continue to marvel at the gratis work they received from Sexton. The agent advised them for free for years before they struck it big.

"He didn't take any money from me until I started making enough money and I was able to pay him back so to speak," MacIntyre said.

"He could identify whoever he wanted," said Fisher, who became familiar with Sexton while with Saban at LSU. "Even more flattering was the professionalism of how he dealt with me.

"He doesn't want the attention. He doesn't want to be the guy out front. He does his job and lets the star be the star."

Freeze got his college break when he was hired by Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss out of Briarcrest High School in Memphis. Three years later Orgeron was fired and Freeze took a job at Lambuth, an NAIA program.

"I didn't need Jimmy for that deal," Freeze chided.

Two years later, Lambuth closed. Not just the program, the entire school. Suddenly, a prep celebrity who had coached Michael Oher (Blind Side) in high school was out of work.

Sexton called with an opportunity for Freeze to be MacIntyre's offensive coordinator at San Jose State.

"Man, I ain't getting paid," Freeze said. "I'll go wherever."

He never made it to the field for the Spartans. Freeze got a call to be the OC at Arkansas State in 2010. A year later, he rose to become the Red Wolves' head coach against Sexton's advice.

"He probably didn't know I'm wired different than most clients he has," Freeze said. "My family loved the town. They loved the churches there. They loved the school, and I wanted to be a head coach.

"I told Jimmy, I don't care what they pay me. I just wanted a chance."

It should not be underestimated that Malzahn (eight years) and Freeze (seven) have gone from high school to millionaire FBS head coaches in less than a decade, largely on Sexton's watch.

And so we arrive back at the week of the aforementioned Ole Miss-Alabama game. Freeze is as relaxed as a coach can be playing the Tide. His Rebels are ranked in the top five. The biggest win of his career is waiting at the end of the week.

Of course, he doesn't know this at the time. For the moment, he crystallizes another Sexton vs. Sexton client matchup. At the same time, Freeze isn't aware he may be crystallizing Sexton.

"I think he should root for me," the coach said, "because how much more can Nick make him?"