LSU Board of Supervisors member John Carmouche claims Governor Jeff Landry was not involved in firing Scott Woodward

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has seemingly had a lot of say in what’s gone on in the past week at LSU. However, the decision to part ways with AD Scott Woodward on Thursday was not among them.

In a press conference this morning conducted by LSU Athletics to introduce their interim athletic director, Verge Ausberry, John Carmouche, a member of the Board of Supervisors, and sitting next to Chair Scott Ballard, answered questions on the amount of involvement that Landry may have had on Woodward’s departure. He said there was none, which would refute some reporting that he had some sway in that this week, as he said that was a decision made together by that board and the school’s now former athletic director.

“The governor was not involved. The governor is worried about the state of Louisiana. His concern had to do with the state contract,” Carmouche said. “LSU’s Board of Supervisors and Mr. Woodward decided jointly to part ways.”

Again, Landry has been very outspoken the past week on all things involving the Tigers following the firing of Brian Kelly on Sunday. That took an additional turn on Wednesday, when he made viral comments that Woodward, the athletic director at the school for the last six years, would not be hiring the next football coach at Louisiana State University. That brought out several obvious questions of who was actually making these decisions and beginning to conduct their search.

“Listen. Emphatically, I am not picking the coach,” Landry clarified while appearing on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Thursday. “That is not my job. The only reason I’m really involved is because this contract that currently is between the state of Louisiana, the Louisiana State University system, and Brian Kelly leaves the taxpayers of the state on the bill.”

Nevertheless, Woodward did depart, with a statement released looking back on his tenure as the school’s athletic director, on Thursday. He does so as the latest decision out of Baton Rouge, and with no official athletic director to help lead the search for the next football coach of the Tigers.

This has gotten fairly messy over the past five days down in the bayou, from the play on the football field, to the conversations in boardrooms behind closed doors, and even to the governor’s mansion with a football coach, an offensive coordinator, and an athletics director all let go and since replaced in the interim. That said, at least in this instance regarding the end of Woodward’s time at LSU, Carmouche says that Landry was not involved.