Louisiana governor Jeff Landry had poignant words condemning Scott Woodward for his failed hires and saying that the current LSU athletic director will not be hiring the next LSU head football coach.
At his press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Landry blasted Woodward, the agents involved, and LSU for failing at this and leaving the state with a hefty $53 million to pay in the coming years to Brian Kelly who was fired on Sunday night after just three and a half years on the job.
“We are not going down a failed path,” Landry said. “This is a pattern. The guy that wrote that contract cost Texas A&M 70 something million dollars. We’ve got a 53 million dollar liability. We are not doing that again. I believe we’re going to find a great coach — maybe we’ll let President Trump pick it, he loves winners — I’m not gonna be picking the next coach, but I can promise you we’re going to pick a coach and make sure he’s successful. We’re going to make sure he’s compensated properly and we’re going to put metrics on it because I’m tired of rewarding failure in this country, then leaving the tax payers to foot the bill.”
With the coaching search hardly even in the beginning stages, LSU is still without a president and could likely be looking for a new athletic director before any progress is made with a new head football coach. there are several moving pieces throughout the state right now in the aftermath of firing Kelly, but one thing that Landry has made perfectly clear is that LSU athletic director Scott Woodward will not be in charge of making the final decision.
Landry regularly references Woodward’s hiring of Jimbo Fisher who was fired at Texas A&M and owed over $70 million — the largest buyout in college football history. Pair that with the failures of Kelly and it’s clear there will be someone else, or a group of people, in charge. Landry said the university’s Board of Supervisors would put a committee together to help find Brian Kelly’s replacement.
“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,” Landry said. “I don’t know [who it is], but the board of directors is going to form a committee and they’re going to find us a coach. Y’all reporters have to start looking into the people that represent these coaches, the agents. Woodward’s agent, Kelly’s agent, the Texas A&M agent, they’re all the same agent. This is ridiculous. Lawyers would be disbarred if they acted how these agents acted. It’s time for the NCAA to put in some guard rails for college sports.”
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