Sounds like things are going well in Baton Rouge.
Over the weekend, LSU made the somewhat surprising move of firing head coach Brian Kelly, one day after suffering an embarrassing loss to Texas A&M in Tiger Stadium.
Now, I say the move is surprising not because of the Kelly’s performance as head coach of the Tigers. In his three and a half years as head coach in Death Valley after taking over for Ed Orgeron, Kelly managed only a 34-14 record and missed the playoffs all four years. While that’s not terrible, his record was 5-11 against ranked teams, and his one appearance in the SEC Championship game was an embarrassing 50-30 loss to Georgia during his first season.
While his record was probably good enough to keep his job at most schools, LSU has different expectations for their football program. Their last three coaches, Nick Saban, Les Miles and Coach O, have all won national championships within their first four seasons. Kelly, meanwhile, never seemed to get things going in Baton Rouge.
The only reason it was even a little bit of a surprise that the Tigers parted ways with the former Notre Dame head coach was his massive buyout. Kelly is owed nearly $54 million on his contract, the second-largest buyout in the history of college football.
Ironically, the largest buyout in history belongs to former Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, who was hired by then-athletic director Scott Woodward…who is now the athletic director at LSU, and the man who hired Brian Kelly.
And Louisiana governor Jeff Landry just made clear that he’s not about to let Woodward make the same mistake for a third time.
During a press conference today, Landry addressed the search for the next head coach at LSU, which is taking place at a time when the university is also searching for a new president after the former president stepped down on June 30, 2025.
Because the university is without a permanent president, the governor has been more involved with the publicly-funded university. And today, he promised that Woodward would not be the one selecting the next head coach of the Tigers:
“The guy that’s here now that wrote that contract cost Texas A&M seventy-something million dollars. Right now we got a $53 million liability. We are not doing that again… I’m not going to be picking the next coach, but I can promise you we’re going to pick a coach and we’re going to make sure that that coach is successful, and we’re going to make sure that he’s compensated properly, and we’re going to put metrics on it, because I’m tired of rewarding failure in this country and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.
I can tell you right now, Scott Woodward is not selecting the next coach. Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it.”
And he also had harsh words for powerhouse agent Jimmy Sexton without mentioning him by name:
“Woodward’s agent, Kelly’s agent, Texas A&M’s agent, they’re all the same agent… This is ridiculous. Lawyers would be disbarred for the way these agents act.”
If Donald Trump does select the next Tigers coach, you heard it here first: Deion Sanders to the bayou.
