LSU fired coach Brian Kelly midway through his fourth season and is now disputing his $53 million buyout.
The university is threatening to fire Kelly for cause to avoid the payout, leading Kelly to sue LSU.
Despite the public dispute, LSU is still considered a top-tier job that can attract elite coaches like Lane Kiffin.
Let me get this straight. Now — now? — we’re all in a tizzy over the unhinged way of business in the state of Louisiana?
Now this is the last straw, the last time Louisiana can publicly bicker and bargain and not possibly look worse — and not pay for it?
Now this latest tête à tête with Louisiana’s first love (politics) and only love (LSU) is going to prevent the Tigers from landing a home run coaching hire for its beloved football team?
Come on, people. This is just another day in Louisiana.
While I’m the first to say never discount dumb, even the living, breathing circus of the absurd can’t screw up this coaching hire. It’s a top three job in college football, and they’ll pay anything to make it work.
It’s just the process that’s a little funky.
They feed off this stuff in Louisiana. It’s their DNA, the fabric of who and what they are and how they’ve lived and loved and argued since Jefferson fleeced the French for The Purchase 222 years ago, thank you.
You don’t really think firing LSU coach Bran Kelly midway through his fourth season, and then reneging on paying him a whopping $53 million payout (you say negotiate, I say renege) is going to stop this train, do you?
Why would any coach — much less, Lane Kiffin, the biggest chess piece on the coaching carousel board — agree to take the LSU job when the university and the state (they’re one in the same, just ask The Gov) have made it clear they don’t like those nasty legal hurdles called binding contracts?
In fact, not only do they not adhere to those contracts, they’ll try to pull backroom shenanigans (see: Louisiana politics) and threaten to fire Kelly for cause — and not pay him a penny — after he told them to go scratch with their “negotiations.”
Now what began as a bunch bumbling fools who couldn’t get their stories straight, has since evolved into taking care of business, the Louisiana way. Again, you and I (and, you know, the courts) may not like it — but that’s how it’s done in Louisiana.
Quite frankly, you get what you get.
When you hire an outsider to come coach your beloved football team, and the first thing he does is talk about winning all of his games and introduces himself like your long, lost cousin from south of Interstate 10, what do you expect?
Brian Kelly is a terrific coach. Brian Kelly was also a bad fit, and it’s OK for two things to be true at the same time.
So you end up with disappointing results, and Kelly not even reaching the halfway mark of an exorbitant 10-year, guaranteed deal. Or as they say south of 10, boo-coo bucks.
LSU then tries to mitigate by giving Kelly a lump sum payment in lieu of clawing back money from the buyout should Kelly get another job. Say Kelly takes the Penn State job, that means Penn State would only have to pay him $5 million a year because LSU is still on the hook for another $4 million and change to make Kelly whole from his original deal.
In other words, by offering Kelly a lump sum payout less than the total owed, LSU is allowing Kelly to double dip and earn from two schools. Sign a full deal wherever he coaches next, and have $30 million in his pocket for doing nothing but beating Alabama and losing to Billy Napier.
You scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours, right podnuh?
Well that’s not how it’s going to work in Kelly’s world, and if LSU doesn’t have damning NCAA or personal failings to use as firing for cause, they’ll owe Kelly every dime of the $53 million. And they’ll be able to pay it.
That’s why LSU can still hire a coach for one of the top three jobs in college football: Money is no object if winning is the common denominator. As valuable: If you’re a coach with an ego (see: 99.9% of all coaches), you see three coaches have won a national title at LSU since 2003.
One is Nick Saban, the greatest to ever do it. The other two are Les Miles and Ed Orgeron, and well, they’re not the greatest to ever do it.
And if you’re going to pay a coach $53 million to not coach, you’ll surely make the hottest coach in the hiring cycle the highest-paid coach in college football. Because that’s what it’s going to take to get Kiffin, who could easily decide to stay at Ole Miss.
Unless, that is, athletic director Verge Ausberry — and any number of others with their hands in the pie — offer Kiffin $14 million annually and force him to say no to an elite program with every possible advantage.
Why would Kiffin leave Ole Miss? The same reason Marcus Freeman would leave Notre Dame and Lincoln Riley would leave USC, and Dan Lanning just might leave Oregon.
Because there’s nothing like LSU football in all of the sport. It’s rare and real, and if the only flaw is too much love and passion and a healthy portion of meddling — basically, the same recipe at every blue-blood program — you don’t really have a flaw at all.
Know how to keep The Gov in the statehouse, and change the way they do football business in Louisiana? Win games.
The same way you keep fannies in the stands, and everyone happy in that beautiful melting pot of The Boot.
Then if The Gov shows his face again, you’ve got a guaranteed deal to back it up. Because if LSU thinks it’s going to get any of the sport’s elite without a fully-guaranteed contract, they’ll end up with Tulane’s John Sumrall.
Hey, at least he knows the lay of the land.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.